Scandalized

Standing, I pull a discarded dress shirt from where it’s draped over a chair, tugging it on and buttoning it haphazardly. “Let me make myself useful.”

When I look up, Alec is staring at me. “Are you trying to make it harder for me to leave?”

The obvious yes is perched right on the front of my tongue, but in fact I have no idea what he’s talking about. “What?”

“Wearing my clothes when I need to leave?”

Ah. Even Alec is predictable in such delightful man ways. “It would be easier for you to leave if I was naked?”

He smirks down at me. “No.”

“Okay, then.” I pull up YouTube and type “tying a bow tie” into the search bar.

“What are you doing?”

“Tying that.” I lift my chin to his neck. “I just need to look up how to do it on YouTube.”

“Yael can do it when I get there.”

“But then you’ll deprive me of the chance to stare at your throat for a few minutes.” I’m not looking at his face, but I know he’s smiling. Threading the tie through his collar, I look down at where I’ve propped my phone on the bed and carefully follow the steps.

My first attempt is… not great. I try again.

Alec puts his palms on my waist, bunching his shirt up over my hips until he finds bare skin. “I wish I could bring you with me.”

I frown at my hands, thinking this would be significantly easier if I had four of them. “I love that sentiment, but I promise you, I am fine with missing it.”

“I know.” Patiently, Alec stands in front of me, smelling like soap and toothpaste and emanating warmth like the sun. “What are you going to do tonight?”

“I was thinking of being deeply lazy, but my parents got back from their trip this morning,” I say. “I’ll probably go over there for a bit.”

He stills, and I look up when I feel his attention on my face. “What?”

“Your parents are back in town?”

I stretch, kissing his chin. “Alec, you don’t need to meet my parents.”

He doesn’t seem so sure. “Shouldn’t I say hello?” He bends to grab his phone and opens his calendar. “We could do dinner with them on… hmm… lunch on Monday?”

I step back, inspecting my handiwork and needing a second to push down this weird ball of anguish. I let myself be distracted from the mess inside me with the simpler mess in front of me. Without question, Yael is going to retie the bow tie when she sees it, but I’m not sure I can do better than this.

“Seriously, you don’t need to make time for that,” I say, and pat his chest. “I’ll tell them you said hi.”

When he leaves, I know he’s reading something else into my answer—that I don’t want him to come over, that I’m hiding him. But the fact is that my parents are hilarious and welcoming and warm, and Alec is charming and adoring and funny; they would love everything about him. But I’d like to have at least two people left in Los Angeles who aren’t mourning his absence when he leaves.

Fourteen

With his inconsistent, scattered schedule, we tumble through the next several days. I barely see Alec on Saturday and spend the day hiking with Eden before meeting my mom for dinner at her favorite Ethiopian place. She can finally vent to someone who understands all the ways that my dad was an uptight, overscheduling menace on their trip, and her need to unload lets me avoid the Alec conversation entirely. Being with Mom is like recharging my battery; she’s the version of adult-me I hope to meet someday: responsible, loving, but not so responsible and loving that she won’t fuck shit up if the situation warrants.

I drop her off at home, kiss my dad, and then drive myself back to the Waldorf, greeting my new favorite valet, Julie, on my way in. Back in the suite, and long after midnight, I feel Alec’s long, warm body slide into bed behind me.

“I’m back.” He scoots up close against me, sliding a cool hand under my tank top. I try to drag my brain out of deep sleep. His hand is still slightly wet from having been washed, and his breath smells like toothpaste when he speaks into my shoulder. “You awake?”

I mumble a sleepy no into my pillow, rolling into the heat of his bare chest. He kisses my hairline, my forehead, my mouth. We talk in broken fragments about our days until he falls asleep midsentence. He’s gone again before sunrise.

Sunday I catch up on work, and get a surprise hour with Alec when he crashes into the room to quickly change for a dinner with some industry people. I follow him around the suite while he undresses and throws his clothes everywhere while ranting in a hilarious stream of anecdotes about a music video cameo he filmed that sounded like a textbook example of bratty Hollywood shenanigans.

I don’t see Alec again until Monday, when he wakes to me straddling him with a toothbrush jammed in my cheek. “Why are you here?” I ask. “Are you late? Were you supposed to set an alarm?”