Say You Love Her, An L.A. Love Story (8 page)

Jacques looks like he has something heavy on his mind. “I’ve been here since Monday, and Josephine and I have been doing a lot of talking. Why does she think you’re in medical school in Los Angeles?”

Angelina closes her eyes. The question hangs in the air, still waiting to be answered. “Because it’s easier to tell her what she wants to hear.”

“Then you purposefully lied?”

“Yes, I did.” Her voice is sharp.
 

Jacques doesn’t let her tiny bark effect him. He glares at her and calmly wipes his mouth with a napkin. “You tell her the truth.” He stands up and jabs a finger in her direction. “You tell the truth.”
 

He strolls out of the dining room. Angelina doesn’t move a muscle. She’s staring into her plate. I don’t know what the hell to do, but what a way to cap off one of the best days of my life.
 

“You okay?” I finally ask.

She nods stiffly. “Why don’t you go to bed while I clean up down here?” It sounds like she wants to get rid of me so she can be alone. I don’t want to leave her like this, but I understand what she’s going through, so I do.

I go to my isolated room on the third floor. I thought at least Jacques would be in one of the rooms up here, but nope. I’m alone, which is kind of good and kind of daunting. I strip down to my underwear and hop on top of the bed. I look out the window. It’s pitch black. I didn’t realize how late it was, but it’s after midnight. That was how much fun we were having shooting the breeze and talking music during dinner.
 

I close my eyes and think of Angelina in that long blue dress. It’s really the color of a clear blue sea. Then there’s her cinnamon-colored skin and eyes. She has a dancer’s body. And that ass… I moisten my hand and grab myself. I rub it and pretend she’s letting me make love to her. I turn on my side and gaze out into the darkness. Jacking off is not easing my yearning for her, but I have to rid myself of a case of blue balls. So I close my eyes and don’t stop fantasizing about all the shit I’m going to do to her tits until I find my release.
 

Chapter 6

Invitation Only

Someone is shaking my leg. “Wake up, Charlie.”

I flip over and am graced by the sexy sight of Angelina in a white halter top and loose-fitting faded jeans. Skin is showing in all the right places.

“What time is it?” I ask, blinking so that I can focus more on her body in that outfit. It’s very farmer’s daughter, and my favorite tits don’t have a bra binding them.
Shit
.

“Late,” Angelina says, tapping an imaginary watch on her wrist. “We have to go to New Orleans. So get dressed.” Her smile is as bright as the light in the room. The bourbon from last night must’ve been more potent than the usual. If it weren’t for Angelina’s tits, I’d let my headache get the best of me.

“Sure, let’s do it.” I’ll take her anywhere she wants to go.

She hitches herself up onto the dresser. “Madame Josephine wants me to drop a note off at her friend’s apartment on Frenchman.”

“How far is New Orleans from here?” I stand up. Angelina’s eyes widen. My dick’s pushing against my boxer-briefs first because of her tits and second because I just woke up. I don’t feel the need to apologize. She felt how hard it was yesterday. I want her to understand how much I want to plain old, down and dirty fuck her.
 

“Um,” she hesitates before looking me in the face. “About two hours, depending on how fast you drive.” She hops off the dresser. “Are you hungry?”

“That a loaded question?” I smirk.
 

She chuckles. “For food?”

“Maybe we can grab something in New Orleans,” I say. Last night’s dinner and bourbon are still sitting on my stomach.

“Fine with me.” She sneaks a glance at my dick. “Get dressed. Meet me on the back porch.” She lifts her eyebrows and closes the door behind her on the way out.

I shower and put on a pair of white Bermuda shorts, a navy blue button-front shirt, and navy blue espadrilles that most chicks seem to like on me. I don’t forget the cologne I wear every now and then. The salesgirl in Barneys suggested it. I tried it and liked it.

When I make it to the porch, the look on Angelina’s face says it all. I can pat myself on the back. She stands up from the bench.

“After you,” I say.

She moves as if she suddenly remembered how to walk. I’d rather skip New Orleans, go back upstairs, and spread her across the bed like creamy butter.

“You smell good,” she says as she sweeps past me.

“So do you.”

We grin at each other on our way to the car. I open the door for her. It’s already happening. My dick is going up and then halfway down and then back up. It’s going to be fluctuating all day long. I’ll have a serious case of blue balls by bedtime.

Angelina guides me to the highway. She doesn’t need to. I’m good at remembering how I got somewhere in the first place.

“Did you grow up in New Iberia?” I ask once we’re on the open road.
 

“Some,” she says, fiddling with that letter in her hands.

“Did you split the time between here and California?”

“No, not California.” Angelina looks preoccupied as she gazes out the window.

“Oh,” I say. She’s distant. I hope it’s not because of me.
 

Finally she turns to smile at me. “Sorry, I’m somewhere else right now—mainly inside of this envelope. It’s awfully strange.” She shakes the envelope and holds it up to the window so that it catches some sunlight. “Doesn’t feel like there’s much to it. And it’s not even sealed.”

“Just open it.”

Angelina flexes her eyebrows naughtily. “I should. Shouldn’t I?”

“It’s just me and you, and I’m not going to tell on you.”

“You’ll keep my secrets?”
 

I take my eyes off the road to glance at her. She’s batting her eyelashes.
 

I smirk. “Every single one of them.”
 

Her eyes narrow to slits. After a beat, she sighs. “Okay, I’ll control myself.” Angelina stuffs the letter into the small handbag she’s carrying. “What did you ask again? Oh, that’s right. I went to school in D.C. for two years, and then when my mom booked a two-year gig in Paris, I lived there.”

“Oh,
parlez-vous français, Mademoiselle
?”
 

“
Très peu et très mal
,” she says with a cynical air.

I laugh.

“What about you?” she asks. “Where did you grow up?”

“Colorado.”

“And now you live in L.A.”
 

“I don’t live in L.A. I’m just passing through.”

“Then you call Colorado home?”

“I call Martha’s Vineyard home.”

“Oh.” She sounds intrigued. “I’ve never been, but I’ve heard it’s gorgeous and a lot of rich people live there—you being one of them.”

“What’s wrong? You don’t like rich people?” I smirk, waiting for her response.

 
“Why did you ask me that?”

“You’ve blasted me about shopping at Barneys and having a cook.”

“Oh, I wasn’t blasting you. I would never criticize anyone for being something that doesn’t hurt anyone else.”

It falls silent between us. Molecules of pure chemistry are pulling us together. I want to kiss her so badly. I wonder if she feels the same way.
 

“So what do you want to do in New Orleans?”

That smile of hers always gets me in the heart. “Everything and anything.”

My eyes take a dip down to her braless tits. “I like the sound of that,” I say.

She snickers. “Do you dance?” I think she’s purposely changing the subject.

“I can dance.”
 

“Good. Today I want you to be a voyeur, not a music man. Experience the thrill of sound and movement with me. Can you do that?”

The car swerves. “Shit!” I pull the steering wheel to set the tires back between the lines. She must know what the fuck she’s doing to me.
 

For the rest of the drive we talk about some of the places she lived in New York over the last five years and try to figure out if we were ever in the city at the same time. Just knowing she was there during some of the worst periods of my life is like finally putting a Band-Aid over the crazy shit that happened. We barely take notice of the trees lording over the sides of the highway, the dank waters under and around the bridges we cross, or the white stone plantations, relics of the antebellum South.
 

“The first time I came to Hollywood I was one of those people who criticized everyone for being fake. Then, I thought, how could they be fake when they’re real people, and there are more than one of the same kind?” Angelina takes that pause where she waits for me to reply.
 

“Right,” I say on cue.
 

“My mother taught me never to come to a conclusion until you know the whole story, which you’ll never fully know. So I learned to respect L.A. for being different from everywhere else and everywhere else for being different from L.A.”

“Josephine is a wise woman,” I say.

“In a lot of ways she is, but in some ways she isn’t. She just won’t get off of this doctor thing. Can you ever see me as a doctor? It’s just nonsensical to put that kind of pressure on me.”

“If you were a doctor, I’d be a hypochondriac.”

She tosses her head back and pushes her chest up as she chuckles. That’s something she does unintentionally. Hell, she doesn’t know that every time she does that I have a reaction.

“I have to figure out a way to break the bad news. Maybe I could say, ‘Mother…’” She looks upwards to ponder. The silence rolls on and on.

“You could say, ‘I’m not a doctor.’”

“Well she knows that.”

“And, ‘I’m not in medical school.’”

She shrugs one shoulder. “Now that’s the truth.”

I pet her thigh without realizing it. It was a good call. She puts her hand on top of mine, and we stay like that as I drive into the city.
 

“We’re going to the French Quarter?” I ask, and decide to ignore the way my voice croaks. I rub the outside of her thigh with my thumb.

She hesitates. “Yes.”

I exit on Esplanade Avenue and head up to Frenchman. Angelina compliments me on knowing my way around. That’s when I tell her that if I’ve been somewhere before, then I never forget how to navigate the area. She’s impressed. I’m lucky to find a parking space along the main drag in front of a tattoo parlor. I take my hand from her thigh and immediately can’t wait to touch her again.
 

Some of the small cafés are open. Hunger has finally caught up with me. The smell of coffee and fried pastries makes my stomach grumble. Angelina mumbles the address on the front of the envelope. The sun is beaming down on us. The humidity makes it feel hotter than it is.
 

“This is it,” Angelina says.

I look through the window. “It’s a bar.”
 

“That’s what it looks like.” Angelina seems just as confused as I am.

I step back and look up. “Maybe it’s up there?” There’s a second level.

“Maybe.”
 

“It looks empty though,” I say after closer examination.
 

“I should just open it.” She lifts the flap on the envelope.

“I think so.” The sooner we get this over with the better.

Angelina takes the slip of paper out of the wrapper and reads. “What the…” she whispers.
 

I move close to look over her shoulder. “It’s an invitation.”

“From seven o’clock until whenever, the Real Deal Down Dirty Jamboree, invite only,” she reads. “Why would she send us to a party?” Angelina shakes her head as she ponders.

“I don’t know, but we have four hours until we can find out.” I raise my eyebrows suggestively.

“Of course,” she says.

I wrap my arm around her waist without even thinking about it. “Let’s eat.”

We walk over to Cafe Rose Nicaud for a late breakfast made complete by alligator sausage. Angelina names friends she has in the area as we eat, and we discover that we have three in common, one of whom is always playing with an ensemble on a stage around Jazz Park.

“So Charlie Lord knows Chuck Moon?”

“How good of friends are you?” I ask, hoping like hell they never slept together.

“Pretty good. He drives out to Karina’s parties every now and then. He doesn’t go as much as he used to since he started booking more gigs around here.”

“I remember Chuck Moon being an unrepentant ladies’ man.”

“He still is,” Angelina says. “At least that’s what he wants everyone to think.”

“Has he ever tried to sleep with you?”

“A billion times!” she says, laughing. “But I’m more discriminating than to get down with him. Although I bet we can catch him if we leave now.” There’s an adventurous dare in her eyes.

“Sure, as long as he doesn’t ask you to sleep with him for the billionth and one time.”

“He will.” She winks. “But I’ll turn him down. He’s used to hearing ‘no’ from me.”

We share a laugh, then I pay and we head out. We decide to walk since I found a good parking spot that more than likely will not be available later. It’s a small hike through the old and charming neighborhoods on our way to Decatur Street, but Angelina still lets me put my arm around her waist. Her bare skin is soft and warm against my hand. Neither one of us has mentioned what’s going on between us, but something has definitely happened.

“I love how it feels in the French Quarter. I swear if New York falls into the ocean tomorrow, then this place will be my next stop.”

“I could live here too,” I say.

 
“Do you know what’s funny?”

“What?”

“Your house in Malibu doesn’t fit you.” She motions toward a white Queen Anne cottage with a colorful stained-glass window in the triangular gable. “That does.”

“I like it,” I say.

“I know. It’s you.”

“Too bad it’s not for sale. A rich guy like me would throw his money around and buy it on the spot—all cash.”

She laughs. “Oh, Charlie… What am I going to do with you.”

“I can think of a few things.” I pull her hip against mine. I would pull her front side against mine, but my dick is hard.