He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. “The stuff I take with me no matter where I go.”
I wondered if it would be my job to unpack that bag. I wouldn’t mind finding out what was so important to Jackson that he took it with him wherever he went.
“Do you want to look at your schedule now?” I asked. “Or are you too tired from the flight?”
“Let’s get it over with.” He sighed, leaning a little closer so he could see my phone. “Hang on—is that your phone?”
“Yes. You’ve seen my phone before.” I narrowed my eyes at him a little. “What’s wrong with it?”
“You have to organize a pretty demanding schedule on that thing.”
“So?”
“So…your phone is old.”
“It’s not old! I bought it…two years ago.”
He pulled out his own phone, shaking his head. “That’s an eternity in smart-phone years.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m ordering you a new one.”
“No you’re not!”
He tapped on his screen a few times. “Too late.”
“Jackson!”
“It’s for work, Sofie,” he said, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “And it’s no big deal.”
I started to argue again, but he held up a hand. “Come on, let’s look at the schedule.”
I shook my head. I had bought this phone before finding out that I was pregnant, one of the last nice things I’d been able to do before all of my money started going into savings for the diaper budget. It would have taken me years to be able to afford a new phone. And he’d done it with a few taps on his screen.
He caught my eyes. “Really, Sofie. It’s not a big deal. Okay?”
I was too embarrassed to tell him that it was a big deal, for me, so I just nodded. “Let’s look at your schedule.”
We went over the week, starting with dinner with the cast and crew on Saturday night, then reporting to the set on Monday by eight a.m. for hair and makeup. He got a day off on Sunday, which was good, since he would be shooting for seven straight days before he got another break. “There’s a conference call with Erin and some of her team on Tuesday,” I said. “And another with your east coast marketing group for the shoe line.”
He nodded. “Got it.” It looked like a lot to me—he was booked pretty much solid for a week—but he smiled. “Not too bad, all in all.”
“If you say so,” I muttered, putting my phone away.
The condo was about a half hour from the airport, and we passed the time in comfortable conversation. Jackson had a busy week in London, finishing up post-production on the Darkness movie and meeting with his UK agents to go over several scripts for his next project. I had a million questions for him about his film choices, and he seemed more than happy to answer them. I was a bit surprised when we exited the freeway.
“Home sweet home,” I told him as we pulled into the parking garage.
“Indeed.”
The security team was staying in the same building, right down the hall from Jackson, so they left us at his door so they could go get settled. “Take the rest of the day,” he told them. “I’m fine.”
“You call us, Mr. Coles, if you decide you’d like to go out,” Bill said before heading to his own room.
“Here are your keys,” I told Jackson, handing him a silver key ring.
I followed him into the condo, nearly running into him when he stopped in his tracks. “What’s wrong?”
“You put my pictures out.”
I moved to his side and looked at his face, unsure if he was upset. “Was I not supposed to?” I racked my brain, trying to remember what instructions Sonja had sent for the box marked Pictures and Personal Effects. I didn’t think there had been any.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s fine. Sonja just usually… This is fine.” He looked down at me, smiling. “This is good.”
“You don’t usually put your pictures out?” I asked. “Why not?”
He shrugged. “There are some permanent pictures in the other houses. I had these packed up for situations like this, but…I guess we just never really get around to it.”
“Oh.” The pictures had all seemed really nice to me when I was placing them around the condo. Shots of him and his friends on vacations. Shots of a younger Jackson with the cast of Darkness. A few landscape scenes. There didn’t appear to be any of his family. Maybe that was why he didn’t put them out? Maybe they weren’t that meaningful.
“Thank you, Sofie,” he said. “Really. This looks great.” He walked over to the couch and ran his fingers across the throw I had arranged there. “Is this mine?”
Suddenly, I felt stupid. Why did I think it was my job to do anything except unpack his clothes like I’d been instructed to?
“I, uh, picked up a few things I thought you would like.”
“A blanket?”
“It’s still cold here at night. You needed a throw.” I mumbled, praying he didn’t notice the candles.
Of course he noticed the candles.
“And this?” he asked, the corners of his mouth turning up a little as he brought the pillar to his nose. “Is that vanilla?”
“And sandalwood.” I could have died from the embarrassment. I had clearly gone too far and—
“Why did you buy these things?” he asked, but there was no anger or annoyance in his voice. He sounded genuinely curious.
I shrugged, looking at my feet. “I just… It didn’t feel very homey in here.”
“So you made it more homey for me.”
I nodded at the ground, but then his arms were coming around me, squeezing me briefly to his side. “Thank you, Sofie. That really… It means a lot to me.”
I dared to peek up at him. “It’s not stupid?”
The corners of his eyes crinkled in a way I had never seen before as he smiled down at me. “Not at all. This already feels more like home than the last place I stayed.”
I still felt a little silly, but I couldn’t help but smile back at him. “I’m glad.”
“Speaking of homey.” He released me. “You promised you would go with me to pick something out for this place. Remember?”
I did remember, of course, but I was more than a little surprised that he did. “You still want to do that?”
“Of course I do! You were right. It will help me feel more connected to this place. We should go right now.”
“Aren’t you tired? You just flew across the ocean!”
“I’m a little keyed up, to be honest. I think some retail therapy will be good for me.”
“If you say so.”
He leaned against the marble counter, his face lit up. “So where should we go?”
“There are a lot of shops here in Royal Oak. If, uh, you feel like walking. Or we could get Bill and Hector. They said to call if you wanted to go out.”
He rolled his eyes and pulled the baseball cap lower on his forehead. “I am perfectly capable of walking, Sofie. I don’t need to be chauffeured around every second.”
“What about security?”
“No one even knows I’m here. It will be fine.”
I grabbed my purse from where I had dropped it on the entry table. “Look at you. Flying commercial. Driving a Ford. Doing your own shopping. You’re a regular old man of the people, Jackson Coles.”
He snorted as he followed me to the door. “That’s me all right.”
***
Jackson picked a lamp for his condo. We found it in a little art boutique a few blocks down from his building. Made from reclaimed pieces of iron and piping, it looked both rustic and modern. There was an entire section of them in the back, all different shapes and sizes. They were exactly what I would have picked for my own house, and I promised myself that if I managed to save enough money for my own place, I would look up the artist and buy one for myself.
After returning from the shopping trip, I showed Jackson where the groceries were and whic
h drawers had the cutlery and cooking tools. “The chef will be here tomorrow,” I told him. “If you need anything tonight and you don’t want to cook, the doorman will be happy to help you order some take out.”
“Sounds good.” He seemed a little out of sorts, but I attributed it to the time change catching up to him.
“You should rest,” I told him, heading to the door. “You have a big week.”
“I guess so.”
I stopped at the door and looked back at him. He looked more than tired. He looked…sad. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Of course. Go ahead, Beth is waiting for you.”
“Jackson.”
He pushed off from the counter where he’d been leaning. “Really. I’m fine.” He smiled, but it looked a little bitter. “Your babysitting duties are over.”
“It wasn’t babysitting.” I wasn’t sure why his words bothered me so much. Maybe because they seemed to bother him so much. “I had a nice time.”
I watched something like hopefulness battle with the frown on his face. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I did.”
I moved to open the door, but I just couldn’t make myself do it. It was his first night in a strange city. He didn’t know anyone here. I remembered the lonely look on his face in L.A. when it was time to go our separate ways. He didn’t like to be alone. And here I was, leaving him alone until Monday morning. He had that dinner with the movie people tomorrow, but they were all virtual strangers.
“Jackson, my family usually has a big dinner on Sunday,” I heard myself say. I hadn’t planned for it. I knew it might cause me a massive headache. But I couldn’t just leave. “Would you like to come?”
“I couldn’t intrude, Sofie.”
“It wouldn’t be intruding. There will be tons of people there—you saw what it was like at Christmas.”
He smiled for the first time since entering the apartment. “I did.”
“So why don’t you come? It will give you a chance to get to know Sam. You’ll be seeing him a lot while I’m working.”
“Your parents won’t mind?”
Well… My mother would never turn someone away, I knew that much. Even someone she was convinced I was only working for because I was living in some romantic fantasy based on a single night of dancing. And maybe if she got to know him a little better, she might not mind me working for him so much.
“Of course they won’t mind,” I said firmly. “They would love to have you.”
He looked like he might argue for a minute, but then his face broke into a smile. A smile that somehow made my heart clench in sadness. He looked so happy—over a stupid family dinner. The kind of thing I experienced every single week.
“Then I would love to come,” he said. “What shall I bring?”
“Just yourself. There will already be way too much food.”
“Can I at least bring wine?”
He looked so hopeful—how could I say no?
“Wine would be great.”
“Wonderful!” He reached for his carry-on bag, pulling a slim, silver laptop from within. “What do you think she’ll serve?”
“Are you going to research wine pairings?” I asked, not sure if I should laugh or roll my eyes.
“Why not?” He shot me a self-deprecating smile. “It will give me something to do tonight.”
“You should rest tonight. Especially if you’re going to be out tomorrow and Sunday. You have a big week coming up.”
“I’ll rest, promise. Now. What will she be serving?”
“It probably won’t be paleo.”
“Sod paleo.”
Oh, what the hell. “She’s making carnitas. Pork. It’s my dad’s favorite.”
“Got it.”
I shook my head as he opened his computer and immediately began typing away. “I’ll see you Sunday. Five o’clock.”
He stopped what he was doing to meet my gaze. “I’ll be there. And Sofie…thank you.”
I nodded, already worrying how this was going to go over. “You’re welcome, Jackson.”
Chapter Ten
It was almost kind of funny, watching the war of emotions battle each other on my mother’s face. On one hand, she had no desire to provide an opportunity for Jackson and me to get closer. On the other, hospitality was in her very bones. The idea of refusing to welcome someone into her home, particularly someone who was new in town, without friends or family, was contrary to
who she was. It simply wasn’t in her DNA.
I was smart enough to bring it up in front of my dad, whose sum total contribution to the conversation was, “That English guy from Christmas? He wasn’t too bad. Knew a fair bit about soccer,” before going back to his paper.
“We have room at the table, don’t we, Mama?” I asked, all sweet and innocent. She narrowed her eyes slightly, as if she knew exactly what I was doing, before she nodded once.
I beamed at her, stepping on my own foot to keep from laughing. “Great. I’ll let him know.”
Like everything else, word got out that a legitimate movie star would be at our family dinner. Lizzie’s sister Laura actually cancelled her plans with her in-laws to make sure that she would be there. I noticed a definite uptick in appearance efforts from all of my female relatives—a touch more lipstick here, slightly larger curls there. I even caught a whiff of White Diamonds coming from my Aunt Sofia.
Jackson arrived on our porch five minutes early, dressed in a neat pair of jeans and the ocean-blue sweater he’d worn on our house-hunting excursion that did amazing things for his eyes. And his hair. And his tan. He looked fantastic, basically, and I wondered if that was ever going to become commonplace.
“Hey,” I said, opening the door so he could come in. “Glad you could make it.”
“Thank you for inviting me.” He was all smiles. If he was nervous about spending an evening with my crazy family, which I would not have judged him for in the slightest, he wasn’t showing it. Instead, he walked straight in, shaking hands with my dad and brother-in-law, slapping Sam on the back and welcoming him to “the team,” and kissing Lizzie’s mom on the cheek like they were old friends.
To my mother, he presented two bottles of wine. “Thank you so much for having me, Mrs. Flores,” he said, his voice as refined and velvety as you could imagine. “It’s such a nice welcome to the area. I’m really very touched.”
“Oh, well,” she stammered, looking much more fluttery than was normal. I made eye contact with Carla and smiled—even Mama wasn’t immune to the charming Jackson Coles. Not that I blamed her.
“Can I help in the kitchen?” he asked, slipping his jacket off. “I did such a smashing job with the cookies last time.”
“Of course,” Laura said, boldly slipping her arm through his. “Tonight, we’ll teach you how to make salsa.”
I rolled my eyes at their retreating backs, Carla, Aunt Sofia, Aunt Lucia, and two of my cousins following them. “Well, he fits right in,” Sam muttered to me.
“Maybe now, Mama will stop giving me such a hard time about work.” I looked over at my Uncle Carlos and cousin Matias, whose attentions were fully focused on the soccer game on TV. I lowered my voice. “Speaking of work, how’d the family take the news about your new job?”
He made a face at me. “About as good as you would expect.”
“Well, forget them, then. Tomorrow, you’ll be on a movie set. And where will they be? Doing the same old thing they do every day.”
He held up his beer bottle, and I pretended to click it with my empty hand. “I like the way you think.”
Dinner went off smoothly. Everyone had a million questions for Jackson—about the movie, where it would be shooting, why they had chosen Detroit, what it was like in Hollywood, what actors and actresses he had met. He seemed perfectly eager to share, spilling gossip about the rich and the famous left and right. Every person at the table was clearly enthralled by him. Even my mother asked a few questions.
“This wine is fantastic,” Maria said,
taking a sip. Only she seemed completely unfazed by having a movie star in our midst. “Where did it come from?”
“Oh, that’s a shiraz,” Jackson said. “One of my favorite varietals. From Australia.” I watched his face as he explained the choice to her. There was a subtle difference there. He was smiling, just like he’d been when talking about the entertainment industry. But it looked less—impressive. Less movie-star-esque, somehow. Like he was just a normal, albeit incredibly attractive, guy talking about something he was interested in. It was the same expression I had seen that first day at lunch.
Beth woke up as we were finishing dinner, ready for her own. Not wanting to leave Jackson alone downstairs, and figuring she could use some more practice with bottles before I started work in the morning, I changed her and brought her back down to eat at the table.
There was a collective sigh from the women in our family when I appeared with her in my arms. To say that they were baby crazy was an understatement. I prepared her bottle in the kitchen before settling back in my spot at the table.
“She looks bigger than the last time I saw her,” Jackson said, leaning over to peer at her.
“She grows every week,” I agreed.
“Sam is going to bring her to the set tomorrow?”
I nodded. “Hopefully that’s still okay.”
“Of course it is. You’ll have downtime. And your breaks, of course. Besides”—he made a goofy little face at her that I was sure was melting the ovaries of every female relative at the table—“it will be nice to have her around.”
“Here,” Sam said, reaching for her. “I can use the practice.”
I saw his father’s and brother’s heads both snap down the table in our direction, and I felt a rush of affection for my cousin’s I-don’t-care attitude. Just before I handed her off, Jackson piped up. “Could I, uh, try? I’ve always liked babies.”
“You want to feed her?” I asked, more than a little surprised.
He looked completely sincere, if a little nervous. “Yeah, why not?”
So I handed her to him, helping him adjust her in his arms so her head was supported. “You want to keep the bottle at the angle,” I said, tilting his hand. “So she doesn’t drink too fast. Sometimes she’s a brat about it. She’s not crazy about bottles.”
Starstruck (Lovestruck Book 4) Page 11
