by Trisha Grace
“Leave them there. I’ll do the dishes.” Elena got up. “You guys have to go for the doctor’s appointment, right?”
“There’s still time for me to do the dishes.”
“No, you don’t.” Keith wrapped his arm around Sarah’s waist. “You have to shower and change, then we have to head over to my place for me to do the same. So …” He swung her around and led her out of the kitchen.
“Keith.” She nudged him with her elbow. “Stop it.” She turned, but Keith grabbed her hand and spun her back around.
“Elena can handle the dishes just fine.”
“Keith, we’ve been—”
“We’ll buy her something nice—really nice—once Samantha finds out who the murderer is.” He led her to the bottom of the stairs. “Go. I promise I’ll be super nice to Elena while you’re not around.”
He shooed her away.
“Keith.” She sat on a step. “I’m serious.”
The boyish grin melted. “I know.” He sat next to her. “I know Elena’s doing a lot for us, and I’m grateful.” He took her hand. “I just don’t think that being all serious in this situation will make anyone feel better.”
He kissed her hand. “I’ve already got you for being serious.”
She squinted. “Are you saying I’m making everyone feel worse?”
His eyes matched hers. “You know I don’t mean that.”
She continued studying his expression for a moment.
“I love you the way you are,” he said, and his lips curled again. “You don’t have to serve Elena. You can leave that to me. How many minions does one need?”
She laughed softly.
“Go. I have to serve my sentence.”
“What are you going to do? I think you should leave the dishes alone.”
“Do you really think I can’t do the dishes?” He stood. “I’m going to prove all of you wrong.”
“I’ve never seen you wash anything.” Sarah gasped. “Or were you pretending that you didn’t know how to wash dishes so I’d do them for you all the time?”
“I’ve never said I couldn’t. You just assumed I couldn’t.”
Her lower jaw dropped. “You’re a terrible person.”
He winked, and she laughed and headed upstairs.
She smiled to herself as she trotted up the stairs. It hadn’t been that long since she left New York. It hadn’t been that long since she’d last been in New York with Keith. But this was the first time since coming to L.A. that she felt a sense of normalcy. Despite the circumstances, she had a feeling of peace that assured her everything would be fine.
Chapter Seventeen
Keith looked over at his phone when it beeped, notifying him of a text from Spencer. He put on his clothes and hung up the towel in the bathroom before heading back to grab the phone.
Casey said there’s a rumor that Miriam was hooking up with someone on set, but she doesn’t know who.
Keith sighed and threw the phone onto his bed. He doubted gossip among the actresses would help his situation.
God, he thought. If the child isn’t mine … I’ll go to church every Sunday—whenever I don’t have to work—even when Sarah isn’t around. Oh, and clear Sarah’s and my name of Miriam’s murder. He sighed again. “Just make everything go away.”
He headed out of his bedroom and was about to head down the stairs to find Sarah when he heard her screaming. He hurried over and opened the first door on the left to find Sarah on his virtual race simulator.
Seated on the black leather seat in front of three screens, one in front of her and two flanking her, Sarah’s hands twisted the steering wheel frantically to the side as she made a turn. But the car on screen scraped across the metal fence before crashing head on into the opposite wall.
Keith laughed and strode forward, then draped his arm over the chair. “Looks like you’re enjoying my game room.”
She’d labeled his place a bachelor pad, and he’d thought it meant she hated it. He didn’t like his place being a bachelor pad, not anymore. He wanted it to be a place Sarah would love, a place where she could huddle in a corner and read all day if she wanted.
Which was why he hadn’t given her a detailed tour of his game room. He basically opened the door, told her it was his game room, and moved on.
Sarah slapped her hand lightly against the steering wheel and pouted. “I haven’t been able to make it a whole round around the track.”
“It isn’t the steering wheel’s fault.”
“Show me how it’s supposed to be done.” She got out of the chair and pushed him into it.
He restarted the simulator and raced along the track.
Sarah screamed a few times when he almost crashed into the low concrete walls, but he knew what he was doing. He’d played the game so many times he was kind of sick of it. He returned to the starting point without a scratch on his virtual car and grinned. “That’s how you do it.”
She pouted again. “It’s too complicated. Anything that involves only one button?” She glanced around his game room, at the various arcade game consoles lined up against the walls.
“There’s Pac-man.”
“I’ve never survived that, either.”
“What’s the highest level you’ve gotten to?” He put his hand on her back and led her to toward the Pac-man arcade game console.
“There are different levels?”
He paused and stared at her. “You’ve never made it past level one?”
“How do you do that?”
He laughed, then coughed into his hand when she frowned. “Let’s see how you play the game.”
He started the console and turned to her. “Do you have a dollar?”
“I actually need to put money in to play this thing?” She pointed to the coin changing machine in the corner of the room. “That isn’t just a decoration?”
He grinned. “Hang on a minute.” He half jogged back to his room, grabbed the bunch of keys from a shelf in his closet, and headed back. He opened the bottom half of the Pac-man console and grabbed a handful of coins. “Here. The special privilege of being my girlfriend.”
“Aww.” She took her coins and arranged them in stacks on the game console next to her. “Is this your side business? You open up your game room to your friends and collect their money?”
“You’d be surprise how much guys are willing to pay to surpass one another.” He scanned the room and grinned. “They’ve basically paid for the games in the room.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded and jerked his chin toward the coin-changing machine. “If they wanted to play, they had to pay.”
She laughed.
“Spencer is my best customer. I think he got a couple of the consoles for his place just so he could train up and beat my score.”
“You’re really good at these games, then.”
“Of course.” He dropped a coin into the machine. “My name is still at the top of the list of high scores for all of the games here.”
“That’s how you keep them coming back. Guys and their egos.” She grabbed the joystick and moved the Pac-man along the dots.
“Don’t chase the ghosts,” he said when the ghosts chasing her turned blue.
“Why? That’d kill them, right?”
“They don’t die. They’ll just come back and chase you. There, you see.”
“What? Really?” Her eyes flickered over to the ghosts. “You’re right.”
“Just focus on eating as many dots as—”
Sarah’s Pac-man got trapped by the ghosts. “Ah!”
“This doesn’t even require pressing any buttons.”
She shot him a glare, and he laughed.
“Okay. Okay. Try it again. This time, go for the larger dots only when you’re being chased by the ghosts, and don’t bother chasing them when they turn blue.”
“Okay.” Throughout the game, her body was bent forward, and she screamed whenever one of the ghosts was too close.
He couldn’t stop smiling at her. Watching Sarah play the game was more amusing than the game itself. “Your reflexes are terrible,” he said when her Pac-man died again.
She shot him another glare.
“But you did much better this time. You almost cleared it. Try again.” He cocked his head toward the machine. “Luckily for you, you have unlimited coins.”
Sarah grinned and grabbed another coin to put into the slot. She grew quiet this round, her eyes trained on the screen. When the Pac-man ate the last dot, she gasped and screamed, “I did it!”
“You did.” He laughed when she threw her arms around him.
“Oh, this is fun.” She stepped back and walked away from the console.
“The game isn’t over.”
She waved it off. “I’ve already beaten my personal best. That’s enough for today.” She cocked her head to the side. “We have a doctor’s appointment.”
“Sarah.” He took her hand, and she stopped and turned around to face him. “I’m really sorry you got dragged into this mess.”
She gave him a small smile. “None of this is your fault.”
“Still, I’m sorry. If you’d stayed in New York, then—”
“Then I wouldn’t have been able to beat my personal best in Pac-man.”
His lips curled.
“Despite all that’s happened, I’m glad I got to spend time with you here. I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
Her smile widened. “Good. Besides,” she said, “I’ve decided to let God deal with this. Everything that’s happened is … beyond crazy. I don’t know how to handle it. But God does. He’ll get us out of the mess. That’s kind of His specialty.”
He laughed. “Getting people out of messes?”
“You’ll see.” She continued walking, dragging him behind her.
They were halfway down the stairs when Sarah’s phone started ringing. She hurried down the rest of the way and took her phone out of her bag. “Elena,” she said and answered the call. “Hey, Elena. Yeah?” She paused. “Really? Why?”
Sarah’s lips curled as she listened. “You’re kidding. Oh, my God. Right, okay. Thanks.” She ended the call and turned to him with a bright smile. “I don’t have to let a doctor take photographs of me.”
“What changed? Samantha found your alibi?”
“Yup.”
“How?” he asked with a grin.
“One kind deed.”
His brows drew together.
“Remember the camera you took from the guy who broke into Elena’s backyard?”
He nodded.
“I returned the camera.”
“What? When?”
She shrugged. “The day after you took it. I tied the strap to Elena’s fence before driving over here.”
“Okay …” That still didn’t explain her alibi.
“The same guy followed me when I left Elena’s place. He staked out the Four Seasons while I was there, thinking he’d be able to snap some photos of either you, Elena, or Miriam. He can vouch that I was nowhere near the studio during my missing time.”
“Seriously?”
She nodded. “Samantha’s spoken to him, and they’re on their way down to make a statement to the detectives.”
“That’s great.” He pulled her into his arms, lifting her off the floor.
“Keith.” She laughed and slapped him lightly on the arm when he put her down. “But you still have to go down and get the doctor’s statement that you don’t have any scratches on you.”
“When you prayed, did you just pray for yourself?”
She squinted and tilted her head to the side. “Do you think I’m that selfish?”
“You’re the only one off the hook.”
“Jesus just loves me more.” She grinned and leaned against his chest, her arms going around him. “You’ll be fine. God will make sure you’re all right. If not for you, He’ll do it for me.”
“That sounds great.” He looked over at the door when the bell rang and frowned.
“One of your game room customers?”
“I doubt that.” He headed over and opened the door.
A FedEx delivery man stood outside in a black polo T-shirt with the purple logo and a cap. “Keith Sutton?”
“Yeah.”
“Please sign here.” The delivery man handed him a brown envelope after Keith signed on the handheld electronic gadget. “Have a good day.” He guy tipped his cap and headed off.
Sarah peered over from behind him. “What is it?”
“I’m either going to church every Sunday, or I’m going complain that God is biased.”
Seated on the couch, Sarah pursed her lips while Keith opened the brown envelope. God, please don’t let the child be Keith’s. She didn’t want Keith to have to bear the burden of having lost a child.
He might think of the child as nothing but a terrible consequence from a night of fun now. But once the dust stirred up by the craziness of Miriam’s murder settled down, he might regret how he’d handled things.
Keith skimmed through the letter and cursed under his breath, and Sarah sucked in a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I’m just annoyed that this proves I had a motive to kill Miriam.”
Sarah took the letter and put it down on the coffee table. “Let’s forget about the doctor’s appointment. We can always go tomorrow, right?”
Keith turned to her with a slight furrowing of brows.
“Let’s do something else.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I’d like to make full use of my girlfriend’s privilege.”
He arched his brow.
“I’d like to try all the games in your game room without having to pay a single dollar.”
He hesitated, but Sarah stood anyway.
“We haven’t really spent much time together since I got here, so let’s put everything aside for the next few hours and play.” She extended her hand.
Keith nodded after a moment. “Okay.” He took her hand, and they returned to his game room. He watched her play Pac-man for a couple of rounds until she grew tired of losing and of him laughing at her.
They tried Asteroids and Donkey Kong, both of which she was pathetic at. Keith showed her how the games were supposed to be played, and he made it seem so easy that she couldn’t stop laughing at how inept she was at playing games.
After she got tired of the arcade games, they returned to his race simulator. She couldn’t complete a round without crashing, so Keith decided to help her along. He took charge of the gears, so all she had to do was steer—which turned out to be pretty fun.
He laughed each time she screamed, and she screamed at almost every turn in the game.
“Yes!” She threw her fists in the air when she finally made it back to the starting line with the virtual car intact. The timing was nowhere near Keith’s but she’d at least made it back to the starting line.
She arched her back and stretched.
“Tired?”
“A little.” She swung her legs to the side and looked over at the two basketball machines placed side by side at the opposite end of the room. “Last game.” She pointed to the machines. “Let’s see who can get a higher score.”
“You do know all the high scores on the boards belong to me.”
“I know, which is why you’ll only use one hand—your left hand.” She gave him a sweet smile.
He laughed and nodded once. “Fine. What if I still win?”
“What if I win?”
“You can ask me to do something for you—whatever you want.”
She nodded. “If you still win, you can ask me to do something for you—whatever you want—as well.”
“You have a deal.” He cracked his knuckles and strode over to the basketball machine after grabbing four coins off the stacks Sarah had previously arranged. He put two coins into each machine. “Ready?”
It took Sarah a couple of tries, but
she eventually managed to get the hang of getting the balls into the hoop. But she wasn’t fast or accurate enough. Though Keith was playing with his left hand, he was getting almost every shot into the hoop.
Sarah lowered the ball in her hand.
They were only halfway through the game, but her arms were already aching. Sarah stole a glance at Keith’s scoreboard, then decided she was going to cheat.
“Tired already?”
She took aim and threw the basketball in her hand, and it went through the hoop. That gave her almost enough motivation to keep playing, but she didn’t. Instead, she slapped the basketball out of Keith’s hand and stuck her tongue out when the ball rolled away.
“There are plenty more.” He reached for another ball, but Sarah leaned forward and pushed his hand away. “Stop cheating.” He wrapped his right arm around her waist and pulled her against his side.
“You’re not supposed to use your right hand.”
“My right hand isn’t touching the ball.” He flicked his hand, and the basketball went right into the hoop. “That’s how it’s done.” He picked up another ball, and she wriggled out of his reach enough to smack the ball out of his hand again.
She laughed when he narrowed his eyes.
“That’s how you want to play, huh?” In one quick move, he stepped forward and grabbed a ball with both hands. The ball went flying toward the hoop the moment she tried to hit it away from him.
“You’re cheating,” she said.
“So are you.”
She pushed his hands away when he tried to reach for another basketball. He tried again, but this time, one of his arms went around her waist. And before she knew what was going on, he’d swung her behind him.
Swish. And the ball went into the hoop again.
Sarah gasped. “Did you push me away just so you could score another point? I could’ve fallen and broken my neck.”
“I made sure you were steady on your feet before letting go.”
“No, you didn’t. You were so focused on scoring that point.”
“Are you going to start an argument just to get out of our deal?”
A small smile escaped, and the machines rang loudly.
Keith pointed to the blinking scores. “Looks like I won.”
