One To Watch(5)

“No.” Bea shook her head when Paul produced one of her typical bottles, a crisp twelve-dollar white. “For tonight, I need something special.”

Three hours later, Bea paced the wide, uneven floorboards of her bungalow in Elysian Heights, a rickety little rental perched precariously on a hillside overlooking Elysian Park. The place was filled with creaks and cracks where faucets were rusty and doors weren’t cut quite long enough, but Bea loved it all the more for that; she vastly preferred a homey, colorful aesthetic to anything too modern or tidy—which, to her eye, lacked character.

Now, though, with Ray in a cab just minutes away, she began to see her home through his eyes: not artful but ragged, not welcoming but pitiful. She smoothed down the full skirt of her black corseted sundress (affectionately nicknamed her “slutty goth milkmaid ensemble” because of the off-the-shoulder neckline that showed off her cleavage in Oktoberfest proportion) and wondered if he’d see her the same way.

“This is idiotic,” Bea muttered, stopping in front of her hall mirror to tousle her meticulously mussed waves one more time, her hair nearly as dark as the perfectly smudged kohl eyeliner that rendered her bright blue eyes electric. She sucked in a breath: He was just her friend, just Ray, just visiting. Him coming here didn’t mean anything—just as their kiss, their whole history, all of it, probably never had. It was all in her head, as usual.

Except the second she opened the door and he threw his arms around her, she knew that she was wrong.

“Bea.” He exhaled, dropping his bag on the floor with a thwack so he could fully encircle her with both arms, hugging her tightly against him.

“Hiya, stranger.” Bea beamed up at him, and God he looked the same, straight nose and soft lips and those eyes that drank in every inch of her, his hungry gaze that always made her face flush with heat.

“I missed you.” He gave her a little squeeze, leaning down to kiss her temple gently.

“I’ve been here this whole time,” she retorted, surprising herself with the edge in her voice.

“You’re right.” He took her hand. “I’m an asshole. I should visit more.”

“Well, you’re here now,” Bea said quietly.

“And you’re … happy about that?” He met her eye, not letting her duck the subtext.

“Come on, Ray,” she demurred. “You know I am.”

“So?” He moved his body against hers, giving her a little nudge. “What does a guy have to do to get the tencent tour around here?”

“Oh my God, you’ve never been here before. How strange is that?”

“Unbelievably strange.” He grinned. “Stranger than long-form improv in the basement of that chicken place on Sunset.”

“They should have called it longest-night-of-our-lives-form improv,” Bea joked, and Ray laughed appreciatively. “Anyway, this is the living room. Do you like it?”

Ray wandered through the cozy room, perusing the treasures from all Bea’s travels that crowded every available surface—a carved wooden elephant from Siem Reap, a hand-glazed vase from New Orleans, her laminated LACMA membership card. Ray picked up a glass figurine she’d found in Paris, turning it over in his hands.

“You bought this in college, right—at that flea market you loved? You used to keep it on your desk at the agency.”

“Good memory,” Bea said, her voice suddenly mottled with emotion.

“This place is great.” Ray shook his head. “You should see our nightmare condo in Atlanta—everything shiny and new like a perfect little HGTV prison. Kind of a great metaphor when you think about it.”

Bea wasn’t sure what to say to that—or if she was meant to say anything.

“Um, do you want something to drink?” she ventured. “I have some rosé chilling.”

“Sounds amazing.” Ray let his fingers brush against hers, and Bea realized that this was the idiocy—the idea that she had ever been remotely over him.

Their plan was to head to a rooftop party at her friends’ loft downtown, but Ray wanted to shower first. So after their glass of wine, Bea waited on the couch, listening to the water run and dragging her mind forcibly away from visions of Ray’s naked body wrapped in one of the fluffy white towels she’d laid out for him. A shiver went up her spine—or maybe it was just the air conditioning kicking into overdrive.

“I feel like a whole new human,” he remarked as he breezed into the living room.

It was unfair—unholy, even—how good he looked in an easy pair of khaki shorts and a soft white linen button-down. Black hair, damp skin, like James fucking Bond climbing down from a yacht and wading ashore.

“Plane grime,” Bea forced out, her voice an octave higher than normal. “The worst!”

“You sure you want to go to this party?” He plopped down on the couch beside her, his arm casually leaning against hers—they were a little too still, like they’d both noticed the contact but had no idea what to do about it.

“Oh, um,” Bea stumbled, “did you not want to go out?”

Ray shrugged. “I dunno. We could just hang here. If you wanted.”

Was he suggesting—what? Nothing? Anything? Something?

She had to get out of this house. Being here with him was making her paranoid, so desperate for his attention that she was reading imagined prurience into every harmless sentence.