Chapter Two

Vaughn

My mouth tastes like Satan puked in it, and my skull feels a couple sizes too small for my brain, but I can account for both those situations. Cuervo Gold and bad judgment share the blame. What I can’t account for is that I have no freaking clue where I am.

I’m pretty sure I’m on a sofa, but it’s definitely not mine. Mine’s leather and smells like spilled drinks and haphazard sex. I’ve woken up with my cheek sweat-glued to the Italian hide often enough to recognize its sticky embrace without opening my eyes. This cushion I’m crashed across feels as if it’s stuffed with the feathers from cherubs’ wings, and it smells like a field of flowers, after a rain shower…in heaven. Waking ensconced in all this disorienting plushness has an unanticipated effect on me. Suddenly I’m hard as a rock. Ridiculously, almost painfully hard, and I see pictures—or maybe flashbacks—in my mind. Pale blond hair. Big blue eyes. A white tank top doing the legal minimum to conceal full, soft cleavage and a bitable ass stretching the limits of a pair of little red shorts.

Angel? Trixie?

Neither sounds quite right, but I could do some seriously perverted things on this sofa while fantasizing about her.

Instead of molesting the furniture, I pry one eyelid open and gut out the pain that lances my brain as the light assaults my sluggish pupil. After a few blinks of protest and a halfhearted groan, I submit my other eye to the same violation. All I can see is some nubby beige low-weave rug with a geometric bamboo print, but it’s distinctive enough to tell me I’m in my neighbors’ living room.

Shit. Sally and Jack are cool neighbors, but they’re not exactly part of my crowd. They’re like my parents’ age. I strongly doubt they invited me over at midnight to slam tequila shots until I passed out, plus they’re out of town, which leaves me at a loss as to what the hell I’m doing here. I push myself upright and rack my mind for details from last night. Nothing swims into focus except the blonde and…a conversation about Speed Racer? But I can’t argue with facts. I’m definitely in my neighbors’ sun-drenched living room after spending a drunken night on their highly fuckable couch.

While I sit here trying to get my bearings and convince my cock to stop doing its best porn star impression, someone slams through the front door. The next thing I know, a girl wearing a black tank top and microscopic cut-offs sweeps into the living room, lugging a guitar case and an oversized rolling duffel bag that looks like it’s been around the world about sixty million times. She stops short when she sees me and fumbles the handle of the bag.

The duffel hits the rug with a thump, but the guitar receives more care as she places the case on the floor next to the bag. Snowflake bounds into the room in Full Metal Jacket mode, skids to a halt in front of the new arrival, and defends her turf with a rapid-fire series of yips. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before—she’s seven pounds of explosive canine ferocity and she’s not afraid to pull the pin on it—but this morning her display of dominance threatens to make my ears bleed. Then she lets loose with a low, rumbly sound I don’t recognize, almost like she’s trying out another language. It takes me a moment to realize she’s growling.

“Hey, girl.” I lean over, put my hand at Pom level, and give her a c’mere whistle. She hops between us, unsure she can abandon her captive, and barks at me as if to say, “Intruder, stupid human! I have cornered an intruder!”

“Who’s a good girl, Snowflake?” I wiggle my fingers at her, which is our code for someone’s about to get a heap of personal attention from her big, furless slave next door. She gives the blonde one last growl and bounds over to me. I lift her up and nuzzle her furry face. “There’s my girl. Yes, you are. Such a good guard dog.”

She squirms in my arms and licks my face, unselfconscious of her dog breath, and for half a second I’m not sure if I’m going to pass out, throw up, or die on the spot. I settle her on the sofa so I’m out of range of what has to be the most lethal weapon on earth and inhale blissfully odor-free air through my nose. She promptly claims the pillow and sits as if it’s her throne. Satisfied I’ve taken the Pomeranian off high alert, I turn to the guitar player.

She cracks a wad of pink bubble gum before a slow smile curves her lips. “Aunt Sally didn’t mention they’d gotten a second pet. But that’s okay.” She pauses and blows another bubble as her eyes drop to take in the show going on behind the fly of my jeans. “If you’re friendlier than that walking hairball, I might even let you sleep in my bed.”

I drag the nearby blanket over my lap and meet her brazen curiosity with some of my own. She’s not the angel from last night. This girl is tall—legs for days on full display in the little shorts—long, straight, sun-streaked hair, but strangely familiar blue eyes. And she’s flirting as naturally as other people breathe. Even loaded, I don’t think my memory would be that far off. Besides, going by the luggage and her surprise at finding me here, it’s safe to assume she’s just arrived.

Her presence tugs a thread of a conversation I had with Sally last week. Her nieces are coming to house-sit for the summer while she and Jack cruise to Australia? Antarctica? Who knows, maybe both.

“Hey. I’m Vaughn. I live next door.” More little flashbacks flicker through my mind as I piece together an explanation for why I’m here. I remember walking out of the house last night with some half-assed idea of clearing my head, because I’d lost the mood to party, but then…things get jumbled. I recall the glow of taillights coming at me, and then someone tackled me and I landed on the concrete beneath a sexy blonde with soft curves and quick reflexes. I’m pretty sure she offered up the sofa. “I…uh… My place got kind of hectic last night, so the other girl let me crash here.”

Light-colored eyebrows lift at my halting explanation. Instead of introducing herself, Legs folds her arms in a gesture reminiscent of the blonde last night and frowns. “Other girl? What other girl?”

Uh-oh. I’m afraid to say anything else, because more details from Sally are pouring into my consciousness. Her nieces are half sisters, raised separately, and they aren’t what you’d call close. And clearly she failed to mention the family reunion to at least one of them when she pitched the house-sitting gig. This girl’s looking at me expectantly, like there’s no way I’m getting out of here with a smile and a shrug. I stand and prepare to make a fast exit. “Oh, hey, I should take off—”

“What other girl?” Mouth tight, she steps up, right into my space. I have to vault over the sofa if I want to make a hasty getaway. Snowflake musters up a halfhearted snarl from the comfort of her cushion, but the girl in front of me snarls right back. “You want a piece of me, you overgrown rat? Take a number.”

In response, the dog who routinely intimidates UPS guys twenty times her size jumps down from the couch and flees the room as fast as her stubby legs can carry her. So much for man’s best friend.

“Um.” I manage a sidestep and glance around, hoping something I spy will jar a name out of the haze of my hangover. “Blonde. Blue eyes about your shade, and…”

“Fuuuuck,” we say at the same time.

I swear because my gaze lands on the mantel clock across the room, which reads quarter till eight. My very punctual, very sadistic trainer will be knocking on my door in fifteen minutes, hell-bent on kicking my ass for the next two hours. If I’m even a minute late he’ll make me regret those sixty seconds for the rest of my natural life.

The girl drops onto the sofa and presses the heel of her hand to the center of her forehead as if staving off a headache. “Oh God. Not perfect princess Kendall.”

“Kendall! Yes”—I snap my fingers—“that’s her name.” And that’s as deep into this family reunion as I’m getting. If I were any kind of a human being I’d stick around and try to defuse the powder keg of a situation taking shape before my eyes. Kendall did me a solid last night and I should return the favor, but I don’t know that she’d appreciate my interference, and honestly, I’ll have my own powder keg of a situation to handle if I don’t get moving.

“So, yeah, tell her bye for me, okay? I gotta bolt.” I fold the blanket into a semi-polite drape across the back of the sofa and then pat the front pocket of my jeans out of habit. No keys. I’ll have to look for them after I’m done working out. “See you later…”

“Dixie,” she supplies.

I flash her a quick smile before I head for the door and let myself out as quietly as possible. Feeling a little like a deserter, I jog toward my place and get another rude awakening. My Range Rover sits askance at the end of the driveway, like an abandoned getaway car. Heat having nothing to do with the jog crawls up my neck and into my face. Becca and one of her friends wanted to go to a club to meet up with a guy and complete a transaction, because I wouldn’t let her invite the guy here, but I was done—and pissed—so I said have fun and walked out the door before she could drag me into another argument. Apparently she took my departure as permission to borrow my ride. I really don’t know what was going through Bec’s mind, but I remember now, Kendall risked her neck to shove me out of the way of my own damn car and then confiscated my keys when I tried to get behind the wheel. I owe her epic thanks for what she did and an apology for putting her in a confiscate-my-keys situation in the first place.

I run up the driveway, which is damn steep, and anger builds with each stride. I know better than this. I’m not stupid. Why I’m sabotaging myself when I’ve got a shot at attaining something I’ve been working toward for years, I really can’t say.

Okay, that’s bullshit. I know one reason why. All I have to do is look at a calendar for the diagnosis. I wanted to focus on something other than the sorrow my whole family gets sucked into around the anniversary of my sister’s death. I’m not sure we’ll ever completely adjust to the loss, but I need to stop dealing with it in ways nobody would approve of—including her—because a chance to take over the hosting duties for a hit show like America Rocks doesn’t come around very often. Reckless behavior will get me aced out of that opportunity so fast I won’t need tequila to make my head spin. So yeah, I’m pissed at myself.

Pissed enough to slam through the front door without considering who I might wake. People might be crashed on my couches. I glance around the living room, relieved to see I have no lingering guests. Chances are I wouldn’t recognize them anyway. Most of last night’s festivities are still one big blur. Becca likes to party. We have people over, and next thing I know the place looks like a hotel suite with an open bar. My best friends and roommates, Dylan and Matt, think Becca’s using me—which she is—but they don’t object to hosting her and a group of her hot friends every now and again, which I think means Becca hasn’t cornered the market on using people. Even if they did object, neither of them was home last night, so whatever went down was totally on me.

Bec wanted to celebrate. She leaves today for a stint in NYC—some modeling jobs plus a meeting with a director interested in casting her for a film role—and she loves a proper send-off. I was happy enough to give her one. Happy for the distraction from my saddest memories. Happy to celebrate her success but also, to be brutally honest, happy to celebrate her leaving, which I know is a shitty thing to admit. She and I have been friends for a while, but it’s not the healthiest of relationships.

In case I needed more proof, I have this morning as a perfect example of yet another fun-filled evening that ended with me feeling the need to hit the eject button.

Not my best move, given I almost became a statistic in my own driveway. Were it not for fast action on my new neighbor’s part, I might be waking up in the hospital this morning. Or the morgue. I blink back to the moment she threw herself in harm’s way for me, a complete stranger, and a clearer vision of her takes shape in my mind. Wide set eyes, a stubborn little chin, and last but not least, Cupid’s bow lips curved into the patient smile of someone stuck dealing with a drunk-ass fool. She showed up out of nowhere last night, just like a guardian angel. I grab a bottle of Advil from the cabinet, shake two into my palm, add a third, and wash them down with eighteen ounces of Fiji from the fridge. Then I head back to the main room and start up the floating staircase along the travertine wall that separates the living area from the office and media room.

I stride into my bedroom and hit the lights, because I can’t see shit with the blackout curtain pulled over the floor-to-ceiling windows that frame a kick-ass view of Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills, and, on a clear day, the ocean. I have no idea how far the view extends today, because, once the lights come on, all I can see is Becca’s ass giving me a sideways smirk. She looks like she spent a month sunbathing nude in the Caribbean. There’s no discernible difference in skin tone anywhere on her body. Truth is it’s a spray tan. She would never subject the moneymaker to ultraviolet rays and premature aging. I waste a split second realizing I miss the strangely vulnerable look of tan lines—light skin never touched by the sun or a chemical facsimile thereof. I bet Kendall has tan lines. When some lucky bastard sees her pretty little ass, he’s seeing something she keeps private.

Not Becca. She lives her life at the other end of the privacy spectrum, and she couldn’t have staged a sexy, bed-wrecked scene better, except…her feet are filthy. Black stains her heels and balls of her toes, as if she ran a marathon through hell’s gutters last night. I’m equal parts concerned and disgusted by those dirty feet.

I’m also angry with her for pulling that stunt last night. She almost ran two people down and walked away like it was a big joke. Now she’s naked in my bed as if the use of her body somehow makes everything all right. I pull the door shut behind me, not especially loud, but her head jerks up. She rubs her eyes, yawns, and settles her cheek on her crossed arms, adjusting the angle until tiger eyes find me from behind a screen of hair. “Hey. Where’d you storm off to last night?”

“Nowhere special.” Aside from arguing over drugs last night, I’d confided I’d done an audition for the new host of America Rocks, and instead of offering encouragement or asking me how it had gone, she’d said it was good experience to audition, even if the job is out of reach. Of all my friends, I thought she’d be the most excited, but the truth, I’m realizing, is that Becca’s main focus is Becca. There’s not much left over for anyone else.

My response earns me a pouty frown. “I waited for you, but you never came back, so I figured you were off sulking somewhere. You definitely wanted nothing to do with me. You didn’t even return my texts.”

I shrug, hit with the sudden realization that our friendship has run its course. We’ll always be colleagues, but I don’t want to pretend everything is okay when it’s not.

“I’ll let you make it up to me.” She does a leisurely little grind against the crumpled sheets.

“Will you?” I’m closing the distance to the bed before I realize I’ve decided to move, but it’s not desire compelling me forward, it’s disappointment at her assumption we’re both this easy.

The smile she sends me says she’ll let me do all kinds of things. “I’ve got a confession. Sometimes I pick a fight with you just for the makeup sex.” She stretches with the grace of a jungle cat and lifts her hips a few inches—enough for me to wonder what positions she assumes during what must be the most thorough spray tan sessions on Earth.

“Can’t.” I smack her ass to come off like a good sport, and over her gasp, explain, “Gunnar will be here in ten minutes.”

“Oh, baby.” She runs a finger over the pink mark left by my palm and then lets it drift lower. “Ten minutes is all we need. C’mon.” Her busy finger finds the target, and her eyelids lower seductively as she pleases herself. “I leave for New York this afternoon. Don’t you want something nice to remember while I’m gone?”

“Not this time.” Not ever again. I escape down the short hall leading to my closet/dressing area on one side and the master bath on the other. I veer toward the closet. “Gunnar’s not so easy to make up with,” I call out. “If I’m late, he will punish me in ways I don’t want to contemplate. Not even for you.”

“Fine,” she huffs just before I pull the pocket door shut.

I hear the shower kick on as I change into workout clothes. The coast is clear. I fly downstairs in time to answer the knock on the front door. My own personal drill sergeant stands there, and the first thing he tells me to do is move my car so he can park in the driveway. I say I can’t and make it sound like there’s a mechanical problem.

He calls my ride a piece of shit as he turns and jogs down the drive. I know the routine. Five-mile warm-up. I fall into step beside him, but my attention strays to my neighbors’ house. I scan the windows as we run past, hoping for a glimpse of my guardian angel, but all is quiet.

A picture of Kendall drifts through my mind. Arms crossed, eyebrows low, she’s looking down her small nose at me and struggling to hold back a reluctant smile. It’s possible I wasn’t a total dick, but I definitely owe her an apology-slash-thanks. I think about ways to thank her while Gunnar puts me through the paces. When he finally cuts me loose, I limp upstairs to my bedroom, relieved to see Becca cleared out sometime during the last two hours.

A shave and shower make me feel halfway human again. I pull on jeans and a blue-striped button-down and check myself in the mirror. Casual but respectable.

I head downstairs to find Dylan in the entryway looking slightly more debauched than usual. He eyes me from above the rims of dark sunglasses, offers an irritated, “Nice parking job, fuck-up,” and brushes past me into the living room. He drops into one of the low-slung leather sofas and tosses his Ray Bans on the glass coffee table. His eyes are closed before his head hits the armrest. “Think you could move it?”

“I’m working on it,” I answer, and glance at my watch. It’s late, even for Dylan. “Did somebody get lucky last night?”

He doesn’t bother opening his eyes, but his jaded smile answers for him. “I don’t think luck had anything to do with it.”

“The redhead from the club?” Dylan recently sank a choke-a-horse chunk of his trust fund into a new club on Sunset. He won’t say it out loud, but he wants to prove something to his dad, who has always been too busy running his own empire to give much notice to anything else. I think it’s come as a surprise to a lot of people, including Dylan, how personally invested he is in the day-to-day business of operating the place.

His smile stretches and he opens his eyes to slits. “Lisa. Her cousin from Mississippi is in town trying to land a job, so it ended up being a party of three, I guess you could call it.” He glances around the room still strewn with empty bottles, glasses, spilled snacks, and various other party detritus, and his eyebrow goes up. He trails a finger through the filmy layer of white powder dusting the table and then rubs it on his gums. “You were a busy boy last night, too.”

Not quite that busy, but before I can answer, the front door opens, and Matt walks in looking legit badass in black utility boots, dark-blue tactical pants, and a white LAPD cadet T-shirt with his last name emblazoned across the chest in block letters. Or maybe four years in the USMC accounts for the badassery? Either way, I would not want to pick a fight with officer-in-training Matthew Wright.

Luckily, Matt’s the most even-tempered guy on the planet.

Unfortunately, I was not expecting to contend with him this morning.

When he hauls himself out to his mom’s house in Alta Dena on a Friday, he usually stays the entire weekend and heads straight to the academy Monday morning. Change of plans, obviously. He stops beside me and pushes his sunglasses to the top of his head. “What’s up with your car?”

“Sorry. I had a little problem last night. It will be fixed in the next hour.”

He levels an assessing look on me that causes a bead of sweat to run between my shoulder blades. Criminals of L.A. stand no chance. Finally, he says, “Do I want to know?”

I shake my head. “Nope.”

“Okay, then.” He rolls his eyes until they settle on Dylan. “What else is going on?”

“Dylan’s recovering from a three-way with the hot bartender from The Cabana and her cousin from Mississippi.”

“Nice.”

“It did not suck,” Dylan agrees, “although Mississippi did, like a fucking pro.”

“Best of luck to you on the impending sexual harassment lawsuit,” Matt adds, mostly just to screw with Dylan. “Isn’t that the first rule they cover in Management 101? Don’t fish off the company pier.”

Dylan isn’t the least bit concerned. “Lisa gave notice last week—got a recurring role as Sexy Cocktail Waitress #2 in a new series. Last night was her going away party, and she was no longer in my employ by the time I gave her the farewell bonus. Nothing I did compromised my ethics. Now, I can’t speak firsthand for what went down here, but evidence suggests”—he drags a lazy fingertip across the table again—“Becca entertained.”

Matt winces and shoots another irritated look my way. “Is she still here?”

“No. She left for New York this morning,” I offer up quickly, feeling like an asshole for letting things get out of hand last night.

“Can I assume this place will be cleaned up by the end of the day?”

“Merry Maids are on the way,” I say, and make a mental note to call them ASAP.

“All right. Good.” He heads to the stairs. “I’m doing a ride-along this afternoon, so let’s just say I was never here.”

“You were never here,” Dylan calls out in agreement, settles deeper into the couch, and closes his eyes. “Now move your land yacht, V-dawg. My Audi’s on the street.”

Right. I backtrack to my office to call the house cleaners, unsure why I didn’t say anything to Dylan and Matt about our new neighbors. Because I’m embarrassed about the circumstances under which my introductions occurred? That’s probably it, since there’s no reason I should care if Dylan goes over there and tries to convince them a three-way with him would be the perfect sisterly bonding activity or Matt gives them his good-guy smile along with his number and tells them to call him next time our music gets too loud or his idiot housemate stumbles to the end of the drive and can’t find his way home.

Or whatever. I’m not the social chairman of the house. It’s not my responsibility to make sure they know what goes on next door. With the maid service arranged, I place a call to buy a gift for Kendall. The present ends up being a little over-the-top for a simple thank-you, even with an equally sincere “I’m sorry” added on, but her actions last night were more than simple girl-next-door decency. I’m hoping it shows her how grateful I am for everything.

Fingers crossed.