Page 79 of Necessary Space

Gathering up the plates, I dumped them all in the sink, running warm water over them so the egg wouldn’t stick. I’d wash them later.

“I need to go home and check on Wesley,” Hendrix said. “He wants to see the city.”

“Where are you going to take him?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t seen much myself. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

My brow furrowed. “You’ve been here months.”

“I’ve been working.”

I opened my mouth to offer to take him out, to show him Hollywood and Highland, Santa Monica, The Getty, all the tourist traps, but I stopped myself before I let a word out. There were parts of his life that didn’t involve me, and I didn’t want to force my way into them uninvited. But it was like he could sense the idea on the tip of my tongue.

Hendrix scrubbed a hand down his face, taking it back up and pushing his sleep-tangled hair off his forehead.

“Did you want to tag along?” he asked, lip offering another one of those adorable twitches. “We could probably use a tour guide.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE

Hendrix

On the upperdeck of an ancient and creaking tour bus that rolled down Hollywood Boulevard, Miles held my hand. It was a small thing, not an issue between us, but one of the first times he’d shown affection publicly. One of the first times we’d been out together even. So much of our relationship existed behind closed doors, and while there wasn’t anything wrong with that, seeing the sunlight with the man I’d fallen in love with was a pretty nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

In front of us, Wesley sat beside Grayson, laughing as Grayson pointed to buildings and people on the street that definitely weren’t part of the tour. The conversation was a low hum between them, and I raised Miles’s hand to my mouth, dusting a kiss across the tops of his knuckles.

“Is this what you had in mind?” he asked, gesturing toward Grauman’s Theater as the bus lurched to a stop.

Colin’s words from lunch the day before lingered in my mind, and I wondered about the places and the things Miles liked that weren’t on the beaten path.

“I think it’s what Wes had in mind.”

“Respectfully, I could not care less about your brother, Hendrix.”

Again, my name coming out of his mouth sent a shiver down my spine. Miles used it so sparingly that whenever I heard it, there was an impact. To think I’d gone without it so long—from the breath I’d told him not to use it all the way to the time he admitted he was falling in love with me.

I tightened my grip on his hand.

“Are you coming?” Wes had turned, half folded over the back of his seat.

“Where?” I asked.

“Down to the theater.”

“Why?”

“To see the handprints and stuff, Henny. Obviously.” He rolled his eyes at me like I should have known the answer.

“Don’t put your hands on the ground,” Miles warned.

“What? Why?”

Grayson wrapped his arm around my brother’s shoulders and guided him toward the narrow staircase that led to the bottom level of the bus.

“Don’t worry,” he promised, “I won’t let him.”

I listened to Wes protest until he was out of earshot, then looked back to Miles.

“Why can’t he put his hands on the ground?”