I don’t want to answer that, not in front of David.
“In any case, the article is off the table I guess.”
“Not necessarily,” Shauna replies, busy thinking something. “Have you handed over your article to Max?”
“No I haven’t. I asked him about it but he didn’t seem to care at all.”
“Good. Since you hold the rights to your own work, we can easily sell it to another magazine. We get a feature and you get paid. Win win,” Shauna smiles.
“Can we do that? That would be awesome!”
“Of course we can. Gimme a day to work my magic,” Shauna gets up to leave. “Plus you could use a break. If what I guess is right, you probably have made an enemy out of Max and he’s going to do his best to make sure that you never work in this town again. Especially now that he is so high and mighty with all the Griswold money backing him up. If I were you, I’d be careful,” she cautions before she and Scott head off.
“Don’t worry girl, there are plenty of jobs in this town, you’ll get another,” Willie consoles me.
“I'm pretty relieved, actually!”
“That’s good.” He smiles back. “Keep your head high,” He gives me a fist bump as he gets up to leave too.
“Fam, now you better get down to working your ass off, because I want to see you play that final,” he says to David.
“I will, mate, you know I will.” A new determination emerges in David’s eyes.
“I guess I won’t be seeing you so often since your family is here, but call me if you need anything, a’ight?” Willie gives a parting hug to David.
Family? Is his mother coming here? A slight pang of jealousy flares at the thought of sharing David with someone else.
“Your family is here?” I ask.
“Yeah. Arriving tomorrow as a matter of a fact. Quite surprising actually.”
“That’s wonderful. Nice to know that there’ll be someone around to take care of you round the clock,” I say. David just smirks.
“You free for lunch?” He asked as they walked out the back toward the car that was waiting for him.
“Well, I'm jobless. So… yeah.”
Avoiding the paparazzi this time isn’t hard as they have no clue that David can escape out the back. David’s excitement at being able to play the Final is infectious. At least three times he tells me that I have to be there, at any cost. Immersed in his world, it’s easy for me to forget my own troubles.
“I’ll make sure that Shauna can get you good money for your article,” he reassures me. “You can count on me. We will make sure that you get a better job next time around!”
While I smile and thank him, as sweet as David’s being, I do want to get a job on my own merit. Besides all I can think about is kissing him and getting wrapped up in those strong arms of his. Forget lunch, I think as I eye his sexy jawline and soft lips. I could go straight for dessert.
The car rushes through the familiar streets of Bel Air and pulls into David’s driveway.
“I'm famished. I hope you are too,” David says as he brings the car to a halt but my attention is fixed elsewhere.
“I think there’s someone waiting for you,” I say, pointing to a woman who’s pulling her luggage out of a car.
“Bloody hell! This is some surprise,” David smiles ear to ear as he impatiently gets out of the car. The woman turns and a big smile comes upon her face too. That’s not his mother? She’s too young.
As I get out of the car, I see a young boy running toward David, who in turn picks him up and swings him around. The woman, who’s probably in her late twenties and decked to the nines, slowly walks toward him, trying to walk carefully in her sky high heels.
“Look who it is. The most handsome lad in Queen’s England.” David tickles the young boy, who’s giggling.
“And the most handsome man in the States,” the woman says with a mischievous smile as she walks up to David and plants a peck on his lips.
“I thought my mum was coming with him,” David nods to the child.