And I don’t say that out of arrogance.
One-night stands and short-lived flings are kind of my specialty, and I’ve been told I’m the best, that I always deliver.
“Oh, my God!” A woman’s voice shrieks and the front door slams.
Maritza climbs off me, tugging her shirt back into place and fixing her hair. “Melrose, hey. I didn’t know you were going to be around today. Thought you had auditions?”
The other woman, who’s easily the blonde-haired version of Maritza, stands with her mouth agape and eyes wide as saucers, shocked gaze flicking between the two of us.
“Melrose, this is Isaiah. Isaiah, this is my roommate slash cousin, Melrose.” Maritza and her cousin exchange looks. I take it they’ve discussed me before.
She looks familiar, like a face I’ve seen before. Maybe on TV. Or it could just be the striking Claiborne resemblance.
“My audition ended earlier than I thought.” Melrose hooks her bag on the back of a living room chair.
“Oh, yeah? How’d it go?” Maritza asks, pretending like Melrose didn’t just walk in on us about to fuck.
My cock is still hard, though it’s beginning to diminish thanks to the sheer fucking awkwardness of this situation.
“Fine,” she says. “I read for some part in some Ryan Gosling movie. I’d be playing his snarky younger sister. It’s got about twenty lines, so that’s something.”
“No kidding. Better than ‘victim number two’ on Law and Order,” Maritza says with a wink.
“That role put me on the map.” Melrose points. “I landed two other parts because of that role.”
“I’m not knocking it,” Maritza says, palms up.
“Anyway, I’m going to go for a run,” her roommate says. I don’t know this chick from Adam, but she seems a bit down. I imagine it gets exhausting auditioning and getting your hopes up and dealing with disappointment after disappointment. “If you two feel the need to continue to get your freak on, kindly do it in the privacy of your boudoir.”
Maritza rolls her eyes and Melrose disappears down a hallway.
“She’s always in a mood after her auditions,” she tells me. “She wants so badly to be the Gloria Claiborne of our generation. Her words, not mine.”
“Nothing wrong with setting goals.”
“Right. I have no room to talk. At least she knows what she wants to do with her life and she’s taking the necessary steps to get there.” Maritza reaches for her water bottle on the coffee table, lifting it to her swollen lips, the very same ones I was claiming a few minutes ago.
But now the moment is lost.
And maybe it’s for the best.
“I should go.” I rise, grabbing my phone and trying not to acknowledge the disappointed look in her eyes that has no business being there. She should be fine with me staying and equally fine with me going. “See you tomorrow. I’ll text you the info in the morning.”
Showing myself out, I walk toward the front gate and wait for my ride.
Half of me wants to stay.
The other half of me knows it’s best that I go.
Chapter Nine
Maritza
Saturday #5
“Okay, let me just apologize quick.” I hobble up to Isaiah the second he enters the main doors of the La Brea Tar Pits, maneuvering through groups of families, mothers with small children, and preschoolers on field trips. “I had no idea this was, like, a children’s science center type place.”
His eyes scan the lobby before dragging the length of a realistic-looking woolly mammoth.
A little curly-haired boy in a red polo plows into him, shouting sorry as he runs off. His mother chases after him, and just outside a yellow bus full of elementary schoolers pulls into the drop off lane.
This place has been open all of twenty minutes and already it’s filled to the brim with tiny humans, their loud voices echoing off the high ceilings and expansive wall space.
“We can go somewhere else,” I tell him, apologizing with my eyes and my voice and the placement of my hands on his broad chest.
Raking his teeth across his lower lip, he pulls in a deep breath, like he’s mulling it over, and then he shrugs.
“It’s fine. We’re here,” he says.
“You sure?” I lift a brow. “I’ve got some other ideas, more places we can go.”
Isaiah shakes his head and hooks his arm over my shoulder, which catches me off guard for a moment. We walk to the ticket desk, the warmth of his body permeating through my cotton tee and his spicy cologne filling my lungs.
“How’s the ankle?” He asks when we reach the line.
“Better. Sore but better.”
Ten minutes later, tickets in hand, we begin a self-guided tour, beginning at their Titans of the Ice Age exhibit and moving on to the Fossil Lab, which seems to be popular with the preschoolers surrounding us.
We stop at Pit 91, where they’re conducting a live excavation, unearthing saber tooth tiger and dire wolf fossils, and Isaiah stops to watch.