Page 8

eight

Dalton

“Push that chest out and inhale the ocean air,” Farrah instructs. “Let your core show you how much it can do for you.”

It’s the morning after our one-on-one date, and I’m tired but felt like I needed to be here anyway. Now that I’ve been here several mornings in a row, it would look bad if I just quit coming. And this is my chance to get Alice alone and apologize.

The date with Farrah last night was...fine. I can’t think of any other word for it. She’s incredibly beautiful; no one can deny that. But she talked about herself for two hours at dinner and for two more when we went bowling.

The producers rented out the entire bowling alley for our date, and when the woman who worked there started crying over meeting Farrah, Farrah was great about it. She hugged her and posed for pictures. But when the woman was telling Farrah how much one of her movies means to her because she and her mom watched it together while her mom was terminally ill, Farrah cut her off.

She said, “Aw, I love that.” And she didn’t let the woman finish what she was saying. I saw the flicker of disappointment on the woman’s face when Farrah interrupted her, said she loved it and then walked away.

I can’t stop thinking about it. I might not have cared about something like that at age twenty. I hope I would’ve, but I was different then. At twenty-nine, I’m wiser. My mom had a breast cancer scare a few years ago. I thought I lost my sister in a plane crash. I’ve seen how much it means to terminally ill kids to meet their athlete heroes.

That woman was shaking with excitement, and Farrah wasn’t even truly listening to her. She wasn’t listening to me, either, the few times I was able to get a word in edgewise on our date.

I played it off. Smiled and showed interest until the very end, when she kissed me outside her bedroom door. I could tell she was going to invite me into her room, so I said good night and left.

“Hold it,” Farrah calls out. “Come on, guys, you can do it!”

We’ve been in a side plank position for a solid three minutes. I glance over at Alice. Her hand that’s in the air--pointing toward the sky as she holds the side plank--is flipping the bird.

It makes me smile. Alice tries to be plain wallpaper, just blending into the background and not really being noticed, but she’s got personality, and she’s anything but boring.

“Okay, good.”

Farrah moves her arm down and Alice lets herself collapse onto the sand, chest down, with a groan.

“Your body is thanking you, Al,” Farrah says.

“Yeah, right. Eat shit, body.”

“Hey guys, sorry I’m late.” JP approaches us, shirtless.

His athletic shorts hang down on his hips. I want to make a quip about him stepping up his game, but I don’t. He was pissed I outplayed him at sand volleyball and got the date with Farrah. He ended up on a date with Melanie Tillman, a contestant who’s a self-made billionaire businesswoman.

I’m guessing he had a better evening than I did. But then again, his bare chest tells me he’s competing harder than ever for Farrah.

Whatever. It hasn’t even been a week and I’m already over this show. We all have to go on a sunset cruise tonight, but what I really want is a break from the damn cameras. They’re always there, from eight a.m. on.

Farrah leads us the rest of the way through yoga, giving me a few flirty smiles. I’m relieved when she finally says we’re done.

“Ten-minute break before the workout?” she says.

Alice is already walking back toward the house. She skips the workouts, instead using that time to prepare Farrah’s lemon lavender water for the day and straighten up Farrah’s bedroom.

“Hey, no workout for me today,” I tell Farrah. “Okay if I steal Alice for a little bit?”

She arches her brows and smiles. “Is someone trying to find out all my deepest secrets from my assistant?”

I grin, not missing a beat. “You caught me.”

Alice is still walking away. Farrah calls after her.

“Al, Dalton wants to talk to you.”

Alice heard me. She just doesn’t care. It was kind of a dick move getting Farrah to make her talk to me, but otherwise, Alice wouldn’t have wanted to. She also wouldn’t have time because she’s busy every minute with Farrah’s shit.

When Alice turns around, her expression is a combination of annoyance and resignation.

“Let’s walk,” I say because I don’t want to have to talk to her in the kitchen while she’s working.

She’s carrying her slides, because we all do yoga in bare feet. With a slight sinking of her shoulders, she walks toward me.

“Don’t tell him about Bali, Al!” Farrah says. “What happens in Bali stays in Bali.”

Alice gives her a broad smile that disappears as soon as she turns around.

“I don’t give a fuck what happened in Bali,” I say under my breath.

That gets me a hint of a smile. I’ll take it.

I lead her away from JP and Farrah, heading down the side of the beach that leads to a huge wood pier about a mile away.

“She loves pink roses,” Alice says. “Her favorite color is purple and she likes to sniff freshly unwrapped Kit Kat bars, but she won’t eat them. She sometimes licks them, but she feels guilty about it.”

I furrow my brow because the Kit Kat thing tracks, but it’s still fucking ridiculous.

“That’s not what I want.”

She looks confused for a second, but then realization dawns. “Oh, you don’t need to apologize over the other night, Dalton. I was upset about something else and I took it out on you.”

“It doesn’t matter. I was still out of line, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

I shake my head. “I’m used to letting shit fly out of my mouth because I do that with my teammates. And I meant what I said to you, but it wasn’t my business.”

I’m sweaty from yoga, so I walk into the water, letting it lap around my ankles as we walk. Alice is quiet for a couple of minutes before she responds.

“I know how it seems. Farrah’s...just Farrah, and some of the stuff I have to do for her is ridiculous.”

“I’m glad we agree on that.”

She looks over and up at me, her expression earnest. “But.”

“Damn. This is where we’re gonna part ways, isn’t it? Where you try to tell me why you shouldn’t get weekends off? Because other assistants can’t step in and take over for you?”

She sighs, her gaze locked onto the pier. “My dad owned his own electrician business in Detroit. My mom stayed at home with me and my brother until we were in high school, and then she got a job as a receptionist at a veterinarian’s office. My brother and I started college and everything was good until six years ago when my dad had a stroke.”

The sadness in her voice hits me right in the chest. “I’m so sorry, Alice.”

“He couldn’t work anymore. My mom had to quit her job to take care of him. My brother and I were nineteen.”

“You’re a twin?”

She smiles. “I am. My brother’s name is Will. And he’s so smart. So fucking smart and hardworking. He was going to school on a full scholarship, and I was a psychology major with no scholarships and not a ton of interest in psychology, just going because my parents were adamant that their kids finish school. So it was an easy decision. I quit school and made Will stay in.”

I stop walking. “You quit school?”

“I had to. My parents had no income. They would’ve lost their house. So I moved back home and started working two jobs.”

I’m so wrapped up in her story that even though I don’t want to interrupt her, I want to know everything.

“What were the jobs?”

“By day, I worked at a printing place, and by night, I was a server at a steak house.”

“Wow. Like how many hours a week are we talking?”

She considers. “Thirty-seven hours at the print shop because they had to pay benefits for full-time people, and usually thirty-five at the steak house.”

She starts walking again, and I follow, the breeze blowing the dark waves of her hair in all directions.

“I made sixty-seven thousand dollars a year between both jobs. It was such a fucking struggle to keep the house and have food on the table. We couldn’t pay the medical bills. My parents hated that I’d quit school to support them.”

I imagine nineteen-year-old Alice carrying all this weight on her shoulders and doing it willingly. Gladly. I was a playboy pro hockey player at nineteen, and I didn’t have to take care of anyone but myself.

“So my mom had a friend from college who worked for a Hollywood agent,” she continues. “She found out about an actress who needed a very reliable, trustworthy assistant, and she recommended me. It was a lot more money, but it was a very hard decision because it meant I couldn’t be with my parents anymore. I couldn’t help with my dad’s care. I had to make a hard decision. Either bust my ass to not cover all the bills but be there to help. Or move away for about twice as much money as I was making.”

I shake my head. “That had to be hard.”

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Her voice breaks with emotion and she turns away. “I went, obviously.”

I stop and move in front of her, putting my hands on her shoulders. “Hey.”

She takes a step back, looking over her shoulder. “Don’t. She thinks we’re talking about her.”

I look down the beach to where Farrah and JP had been. They’re gone.

“She’s not there.”

Alice looks at the house. “She still might be able to see us. We should keep walking.”

She swipes her fingertips over her cheeks. “So I was Farrah’s primary assistant, and I did get weekends off. Not that I knew anyone in LA or had anything to do. But she didn’t like the other assistants, so she offered me more money to be her around-the-clock person.”

I blow out a breath. “I’ve never felt like a bigger asshole than I do right now.”

“You didn’t know.”

Her eyes shine with unshed tears. “That money has changed my family’s lives. My dad’s bills are current. We can get him all the therapies he needs, and there are so many. He has a wheelchair that makes his life and my mom’s life better. A wheelchair-accessible van.”

She fetches Farrah’s waters and buys her Kit Kats to sniff so she can help her family. That’s why it’s never too much. Why she doesn’t care about not having time off.

I stop walking again. She looks at me, her brows lowered in confusion.

“I’m hugging you now, and I don’t give a fuck who sees,” I say.

Her eyes widen with alarm. I wrap my arms around her waist and hug her with my whole body, pulling her against me. She’s stiff at first, but then she relaxes against me, her breath dancing across my throat as she sighs softly.

“You’re incredible.”

“I didn’t tell you all that so you’d think--”

“Stop it. You’re an incredible person, Alice. It means a lot that you trusted me with all that.”

She sniffles. “If you knew my parents, you’d know...” She clears her throat. “They’re the incredible ones.”

I close my eyes, emotion welling in my throat. She relaxes another degree, letting me really hold her. We stand like that for a long time, the ocean’s waves and her softness bringing a peaceful feeling I don’t want to let go of.

When she pulls away, I immediately miss her warmth against me.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” she says pleadingly. “Farrah doesn’t know.”

I scoff. “Of course not. She’s only interested in herself.”

Alice pinches her brows together. “I don’t even know why I told you all that. I guess because I’m worried about my dad. And I miss my family.”

“I’m glad you did. And I’m sorry you can’t be with them.”

Her lips curve up in a smile. “Thank you. You’re ruining my asshole perception of you, by the way.”

I laugh. “Well, it’s gonna be utterly shattered when I tell you this next thing.”

She nods, telling me to get on with it. “You’re not an actor, no need for dramatic pauses.”

I laugh again, and this time, it’s a full-throated, truly amused one. “Alice, if I could take any woman here out for a date tonight, it’d absolutely be you.”