“Let me take you out to dinner. These men have it. They can get your car back up and running, and then we’ll come back and pick it up.”
“I probably won’t be able to get to it until tomorrow with what time it is,” she said.
“Then you can get it tomorrow. Right now, however, we need to eat.”
“I’m not really hungry, honestly.”
“Then you’ll sit with me while I eat.”
“You always pulled that trick in high school.”
“Because it always worked.”
I threw the car into reverse and we headed back in the other direction. Our table at Roll’d Up had been given away, but it didn’t take much time for me to come up with something else. While Ana bombarded me with questions about what we were going to do, I swung us through the Taco Hut we always ate at during high school.
“Tacos in your car? How romantic.”
“Nope. We aren’t eating them in my car,” I said, grinning.
“Then where are we eating them?”
“You’ll see.”
I drove us out of L.A. and started up a hill. Not just any hill, but the hill. The winding trail that led to a small patch of grass behind the Hollywood sign. I wound us back and climbed us up the mountain as Ana held our food in her lap. After winding up the roads and taking the dirt road that was usually closed off, we came to the restricted patch of land we always snuck off to when things got to be too much in our teenage years.
“Remember this place?” I asked.
“There’s nowhere to sit,” she said flatly.
“So you do remember it. Come on. I’ve got a blanket in my trunk.”
“You planned this, didn’t you? You flattened my tire so we would miss our reservation and we could eat in the dirt.”
“You really think too highly of me sometimes.”
“I’m not dressed to sit on the ground, Tyler.”
“You’re complaining, but I see that light in your eyes. You stared at that sign a little too long when we approached.”
“It’s a pretty sign. What can I say?”
“And you’re a pretty woman who deserves a pretty sign.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Browning.”
“Then how about food, Miss Price?”
She tried to be upset. She really did try her best. It was cute to watch. She glared, but her lips pursed as if she were attempting to bury a smirk. She looked adorable with the lights of the Hollywood sign behind her.
I pulled the blanket from my trunk as she dipped into the car to grab the food and drinks. I spread it out on the ground and the two of us sat.
Tacos were inhaled and many gulps of soda were consumed. I stole glances at Ana, watching the lights of the valley below twinkle in the beauty of her stare. She looked relaxed with her legs spread out and crossed at her ankles. She wiped away a bit of salsa that dripped down her chin and sucked it off her finger.
Heat rose up my neck as she slowly pulled her finger out of her mouth.
“So, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” Ana said.
I knew it. Here it came, the thing she was hiding.
“You can talk to me about anything; you know that. No matter what it is, I’ll never look at you any differently for it.”
She furrowed her brow and panned her gaze over to me before she nodded.
“Thanks. I think. Anyway, I talked to a certain employee of mine who said you came by saying there was an urgent matter a lawyer needed to discuss with me.”
Ah, so this wasn’t about what she was hiding.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Why did you do that? Tyler, you can’t come into my place of work just to track me down.”
“How else was I supposed to get your number after you brushed me off at the bar with Brandon?”
“You weren’t supposed to. That was the point,” she said.
“Are you regretting this?”
“What?”
“Dinner. And this, tacos and our sign.”
“It’s not our sign.”
“You know it’s our sign. I gave myself fully to you behind this sign when we were sixteen years old, Ana.”
Flashes of lost virginities and crumbling innocence rolled through my mind. I saw something spark behind her beautiful blue eyes, but it was gone before I could question it. I reached over and took her hand, watching as our fingers laced together. Her touch was warm and her skin so soft, and my throbbing groin pushed blood to the one place I didn’t need it at the moment.
“If it upset you—or her—I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention, Ana. But I didn’t know how else to get your number. I didn’t know how else to get in contact with you. Seeing you in that bar brought back so many memories, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about them during my law school years.”