“I hope so.” He went over to the bed and unzipped his duffle bag, and after a pause I asked, “You’re not planning to get dressed up for dinner, are you? I didn’t expect this place to be so fancy, since it has the word ‘ranch’ in its name.”
Phoenix was wearing what he always wore—jeans, cowboy boots, and a flannel shirt over a T-shirt. A few pieces of silver jewelry took his look from farm boy to indie rocker. “I didn’t bring anything dressy,” he said, “but I don’t think we need to worry about it. Everybody I’ve met since we got here has been dressed casually.”
“That’s true.” I pushed off the doorframe and said, “I’m going to take a few minutes to get cleaned up. Come get me when you’re ready to go downstairs, okay?”
“Definitely.”
I shut the connecting door and found the toiletry bag in my backpack, then went into the bathroom and tried to fix myself up a bit. After brushing my teeth and combing my hair, I debated shaving but decided the five o’clock shadow really should stay. I looked like a kid without it, and there was no point in reminding Gabriel I was six years younger than him.
At that point, I ran out of ideas on how to make myself look more presentable, so I gave up and went out onto the balcony. It felt like I was about a million miles from my tiny studio apartment in L.A. I wondered how Gabriel had ended up here, of all places. It was probably a great place to live and work, since everyone I’d met had been really friendly. But it was also in the middle of nowhere, not just because it was on an island. The hotel was located way outside the town of Avalon and the developed part of Catalina, so it felt like some kind of lush, tropical oasis, totally apart from the rest of the world.
Well, maybe not the tropical part. It was actually pretty cold since it was late February, so I went back inside and dumped the contents of my backpack onto the bed. Fortunately, I’d thought to pack a black, V-neck sweater, and I pulled it on over my T-shirt before frowning at my reflection in the mirror. I usually didn’t give a fuck about how I looked—until today. Now all of a sudden there was someone I wanted to impress, but I didn’t have the first clue how to go about that.
Phoenix knocked on the door a few minutes later, and we went downstairs to the dining room, which was just off the lobby. It was open and airy with high ceilings and lots of windows, and like the rest of the hotel, it looked like a huge pile of cash had been spent on it.
There were two groups of people drinking cocktails and chatting, but I didn’t see Gabriel. I turned to Phoenix and whispered, “I’m so nervous.”
“I know, but you’ll be fine. Just breathe.”
“Do I look okay? This sweater was a mistake, wasn’t it? Do I look like a nerd? Or a dad? Or a nerdy dad? I was cold, but it didn’t seem right to wear my leather jacket to dinner.”
Phoenix grinned at me and reached up to fix my hair. “The sweater’s fine. Seriously, you have nothing to worry about.”
Gabriel appeared a moment later, and Phoenix quickly pulled his hand away. I stammered, “Hey. Um, meet Phoenix Jaymes. Phoenix, this is Gabriel—”
I actually had no idea what his last name was, but Gabriel filled it in for me. “Moriarty.”
They shook hands as Phoenix said, “It’s great to meet you, Gabriel. Please excuse me, because I need to go and…do something. I’ll talk to you later.” Good lord, he was as smooth as I was. My friend grinned at me and hurried away, so we could have some privacy.
“He seems nice,” Gabriel said. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“No! I mean, Phoenix is just a friend. He acts like my dad sometimes, but in a good way. We met last year on the set of my first movie, and I think he took pity on me because I was so lost and clueless. He’s a personal assistant, which means his whole life is spent taking care of people. I guess he just sort of started taking care of me by default.” Okay, why did I say that? It made me sound like I was five years old.
“Are you an actor?”
“God no. I can’t imagine a scarier way to make a living than standing in front of a camera and like, trying not to suck while a bunch of people stare at me.”
He grinned and asked, “Then what were you doing on a movie set?”
“I’m a makeup artist. Normally I just get to assist, but I met Will on the set of his current film and he actually asked me to do his screen makeup. That’s huge. This is only my third movie, and normally it would take forever to get a break like that.”