Starfire (Erotic Romance) (Peaches Monroe) (22 page)

I stepped out onto the balcony for a minute in my robe to check the weather. It was sunnier than the previous day—short-sleeves weather, but not too hot—a perfect day for sightseeing.

I came back into the bedroom to find him with his fist held to his lower lip, still studying the mix-and-match outfits.

“Are we still trying to look like tourists today?” I asked.

“Right!” He grabbed the fanny pack from the previous day and started trying it on top of the flat clothes.

I left him to his big decision of the day and got myself dressed in the spacious bathroom. I chose a short denim skirt, with a pair of pale gray footless leggings underneath. The weather was warm enough for bare legs, but my inner thighs chafe like crazy if my skin gets damp, and I had a feeling Dalton would be saying and doing things to make my temperature rise.

I put on ankle socks and lace-up sneakers, and wore a loose blue tunic on top with a green belt. The green belt had a carved wooden closure, but it also had a tendency to suddenly spring open without provocation, so I had to use a hair elastic to keep it fastened. The things we do for fashion!

Dalton was putting on his shirt when I walked back into the bedroom. He’d chosen dark gray pants and a black T-shirt with a graffiti print, sun-bleach lines, and a dozen tiny holes in it—the kind of shirt a charity shop would just garbage directly from the donation bin.

“Dalton, tell me the truth. Did you get that shirt from a designer shop, or off the back of a hobo?”

“I’ll never tell.”

I struck a pose at the doorway. My blond hair was swept back in two pigtails, like a little girl.

“What do you think of my outfit? Do I look like Chelsea?” I asked.

“Who?” He blinked a few times.

“Chelsea. The girl who lived next door.”

“Right. Ha ha. No, you look like an adult, which is a good thing.”

Something felt off, so I decided against the pigtails and quickly pulled out the elastic bands.

We gathered our things from the room and headed out to the elevator. I wore my brand-new watch and kept admiring it every time it caught my eye.

“Wow, it’s noon already,” Dalton said. “We completely missed our cake appointment. I’ll tell them it’s all your fault.” He gave me a devilish grin.

My mind wasn’t on what he was saying, because I was still thinking about the pigtails, and Chelsea.

We got down to the lobby, where I found out he’d rented a scooter for the day, and Vern wouldn’t be joining us until later.

A scooter? I wasn’t thrilled, but decided to politely give it a chance.

Even as we donned our helmets and climbed onto the scooter, I kept troubling my mind over what he’d told me about Chelsea.

Could I ever trust anything that came out of the smooth-talking actor’s mouth? Or his motivations?

The big fight that broke us up initially was over his indie movie—specifically, the fact he’d started dating me as
acting research
into dating a bigger girl.

This new story of his, about having his first love be a chubby neighbor… well, it seemed awfully convenient. Why hadn’t he mentioned her earlier?

Also, his story about the family next door had been rather detailed, as though constructed. My heart sunk.
He’d probably made the whole thing up to win me over.
Why else would he have not known who I was talking about when I said Chelsea’s name? It’s not
that
common of a name.

And let’s not forget about the wardrobe. Was it normal for a man to spend so much time on his appearance?

Sitting on the back of the scooter, trying not to feel self-conscious about the view of my roundness ballooning out the sides, I wrapped my arms tighter around Dalton’s lean torso. I could hold on to him as tight as I could, but he was liable to slip away in the light, like San Francisco’s fog.

I had to ask myself those questions—the ones so many women in LA must ask themselves daily.

Can you ever truly
know
an actor? Can you ever trust him?

~

We did miss our appointment with the bakery, but we got to the florist right on time.

This visit was different from the dress shop. The people knew who Dalton was and fawned over him, but they weren’t friends.

I was annoyed by how uptight everyone at the florist seemed—as if it was their duty to educate me about why certain flowers I liked the look of weren’t appropriate. They wanted to do orchids, no doubt because they would be more expensive.

“Absolutely not,” I said after they pushed the third orchid package on me. “My mother would be appalled. She’s a member of the Beaverdale Orchid and Dandelion Wine Society.” I suppressed a smirk, amused at myself for haughtily name-dropping a club nobody outside of Beaverdale would have heard of.

“Then of course she would love orchids,” the man said.

“Do you like puppies?” I asked.

He nodded.

I explained, “If you went to a wedding and they had the chopped-off heads of puppies, would you be happy?”

The man gasped.

Dalton, who’d been smirking, stood abruptly and grabbed my arm to help me up.

“Thank you so much for everything,” Dalton said to the agitated florists. “My fiancée has been under too much pressure from me to get everything arranged on such short notice. I must apologize. It’s my fault that I can’t wait to marry this gorgeous woman, and enjoy her marvelous sense of humor forever.” He grinned at me, his eyes flashing additional messages. “Very funny joke about the puppies,” he said.

“Yes, it was a joke,” I said slowly.

“We’ll come back after my fiancée has had a rest,” he said.

I frowned at him, sending a wordless message into his brain:
Not here! I hate these people.

His eyes widened:
Of course not here. Let’s get out without making a scene, because I am a famous actor, and I do not need more bad publicity thanks to you.

Me:
I want to throw something at someone.

Him:
Calm the fuck down.

(At least that’s what I thought he meant by the eye flashes and tense expression.)

Squeezing my hand firmly, he led me out of the florist amidst a flurry of apologizing and ass-kissing by the staff.

I stepped out of the door. People jumped at us. I shrieked while what seemed like a hit squad of people surrounded us, cameras flashing.

CHAPTER 21

Someone at the florist shop must have tipped off the media, and here were this city’s paparazzi. They weren’t as insane as the ones in LA, but they did shout their demands:

“Show us the ring!”

“Peaches, are you going to wear white?”

“Nice watch, but where’s the ring!”

“Kiss for us! Come on, just one kiss! You look so beautiful together.”

“Kiss for your fans who love you both!”

Dalton grabbed my shoulder and steered me around to face him.

“Shall we make it official?” he asked.

“Kissing for the paparazzi makes our engagement official?”

“Do I really need to answer that?” He dialed up his grin to full-vampire-smirk.

I tilted up my chin in response. The flash frequency increased, and he leaned down to kiss me in full view of everyone. This kiss was different from his usual ones. Our lips barely touched. It was a very cinematic kiss, and not the good face-mashing kind, which probably wouldn’t photograph as well.

After the kiss, we posed for a couple more shots with his arm around me.

The photographers kept asking about the engagement ring. I held up my hand and apologized. “Getting sized,” I said. “I have fat fingers.”

They seemed to accept this response, and, after a few more pictures, they ambled away, dispersing in all directions.

Dalton kept his arm around me and steered me down the street. “You probably shouldn’t have said
fat fingers
.”

“Are you worried they’ll make fun of my fat fingers? They’ve said much worse.”

“Some of them were taking video. I should get you an appointment with a media advisor. It’s fine to say self-deprecating things, but never insult yourself.”

“Fat is an adjective, not an insult.”

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. But the world doesn’t see it that way.”

“Who gives a fuck what the world thinks?” We crossed the street with the light.

Still with his arm around me, but not looking me in the eyes, Dalton said, “People in the public eye care what the world thinks. They have to.”

“Oh, right.” I chewed on my lip and thought everything through as we walked up a hill, back to where the scooter was parked. “I may not give a fuck what the world thinks about my fat fingers, but I should make an effort to present myself in a positive way, right? Like, even if I feel down, I should keep smiling so other chubby girls can dream of marrying a handsome, famous actor.”

“Famous actors who are former porn stars.”

“Come on, baby. You weren’t a porn
star
. You were a porn
nobody
.”

He stopped walking abruptly and turned to me, his green eyes bright and darting around warily before focusing on me.

“You truly have a gift for speaking the truth, whether you know it or not. You’re right. I was a porn nobody. I was a total nobody until I was invited to read for Drake Cheshire. I don’t even know how they got a hold of my number.”

“Fate, I guess. Like when you ran into my bookstore that day.”

He winced and pretended to be interested in the hand-carved wooden toys in the shop window behind me.

“Confession time,” he said. “I knew you worked there. I saw you admiring the flowers outside another store the day before, and I asked the guy working there about you.”

“I don’t understand. You ran in that day because Brooke Summer and her camera crew were chasing you.”

“Brooke only spotted me because I’d walked up and down that street three times, trying to get up the nerve to go in.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe you. Stop fucking around with my reality. I want to trust you, I do, but you’re setting off my bullshit detector.”

“You don’t believe me that I saw you and fell in love at first sight?”

I pressed my lips together to stop the “no” from flying out.

His chest rose with a deep breath, and he gazed off into the distance. “Peaches, if you don’t believe it, the press never will.”

“What the hell?” I pushed him back, my palms striking his chest hard.

“What? You can say whatever you want, but I can’t? You’re supposed to be helping my cause, not making a scene over fucking orchids, like some spoiled bitch on a
Real Housewives
show.”

“I think I liked you better when you were spouting all the corny lines from your scripts. The things you actually come up with yourself betray your stupidity.”

His eyebrow quirked up to match the corner of his smirking mouth. “I liked you better when you were on your knees.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Where’s Vern? I want to go home.”

“Let’s take the scooter back to the hotel.”

“Fuck the scooter!”

“I
knew
you didn’t like the scooter. Why didn’t you just say so back at the hotel instead of being all tight-lipped and saying the scooter was
fine
?”

“I didn’t want to be difficult!” I yelled.

“This truly is a spectacular effort you’re making to not be difficult!”

“It’s not easy being this easygoing!”

He started waving his hands excitedly, still yelling, “Thanks a lot for your valiant efforts to be easygoing!”

“Your shirt is stupid and full of holes! Why do you take so long to get dressed only to pick a stupid shirt with holes?”

“This shirt cost two hundred dollars! And I’m not stupid!”

I turned, looking around for something to throw. Another bucket of dog water sat a few steps away.

Just as I was reaching for the white bucket, Dalton shoulder-checked me. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said, grabbing for the bucket first.

I tried to take the bucket from him, and succeeded only in dousing myself with the water, soaking my skirt.

The empty bucket clattered to the sidewalk.

Dalton slowly backed away. “You did that to yourself,” he said.

I tried my best to shoot exploding laser beams from my eyes at him, but found myself lacking in superpowers.

“You take the stupid scooter back,” I spat out. “Call Vern and get him to pick me up here.” I pointed to the coffee shop on the corner.

Dalton put his hands in his pockets, calmer now and hunching his shoulders. He didn’t say he was sorry, but he did
look
sorry.

“You’re sure?” he asked. “We’ve still got a couple hours to sightsee.”

“I’m sure.” I turned around and started walking to the coffee shop, grumbling about how I wasn’t sure, not about Vern picking me up, not about marrying Dalton, and not about anything.

I walked to the cafe without looking back.

My jean skirt had taken the brunt of the aqua assault, so I visited the restroom inside the cafe and slipped it off and into my purse. I removed my belt and smoothed out my blue tunic to cover my butt. Clad in the thin gray leggings, I was showing a little more thigh than usual, but shedding a layer felt liberating.

I walked out of the bathroom unsure what had happened and what I was going to do next.

The coffee smelled good.

I ordered a mocha at the counter, and when I turned around, I realized getting my drink in a mug was a mistake, because every table was taken.

A dark haired, older man waved to me, catching my eye. He beckoned for me to join him at his table, so I did. He explained, in broken English, that he found the residents of San Francisco so friendly and welcoming.

“I’m just visiting,” I said. “I’m a tourist myself, from Washington State. That’s north of here.”

He looked confused, his white-flecked dark eyebrows knitting together. “But you look so… what is word… comforting.”

“Comfortable.” I nodded, smiling. “I’ve been traveling more lately.”

Another man with dark hair, much younger—maybe nineteen—joined us.