You set up the new network too. So, yeah, holding things together. It’s what she does. How do you and Cora know one another?” Rachel repeated Maybe’s earlier question more firmly, clearly taking his measure.
“At first glance you think it’s Maybe who’s the pushiest. But Rachel is way sneakier,” Cora told him with a shrug. “Beau and I met when he and Walda lived in the same building in Santa Monica. I was fifteen or sixteen at the time. He was a model so Mom kept herself between us. As if he even noticed me when he was surrounded by gorgeous models.”
He hadn’t noticed Walda getting between him and Cora, but Cora had been correct that he hadn’t seen her in that way. For a whole host of reasons, chiefly that she was simply too young.
Then. Not so much now.
“We were there a year so I had a tutor, who, if I recall correctly, Beau definitely noticed.” Cora snickered.
Beau hadn’t learned algebra until he was an adult. Hadn’t read a single classic literary novel until he was twenty-one. Education was a tool, something to dig yourself out of a bad spot—especially if you didn’t have the face and fortune to be a model while you got your education—so he was glad Walda snapped to it when it came to being sure her daughter got what she needed.
He honestly couldn’t even remember the tutor, just the sweet kid who’d grown up well.
“Anyway, that’s how we met, and in the intervening years he’s been a supermodel and now a celebrity chef and cookbook author.” Cora smiled at him. “Go you.”
“How do you know Gregori?” Rachel asked once they’d settled in at the long table in the main room.
“Beau and I were young men with more money than sense in the art scene,” Gregori said. “He was one of the first friends I made here in the US. We’ve been in contact on and off since. I had no idea of the connection between him and Cora.”
“It was a pleasant surprise,” Beau told them with a shrug. “I know many people. I’m friends with very few, so those I like to keep around.”
“I didn’t even know crab and scallop cakes were an actual thing. I vote yay,” Cora said as she put another two on her plate.
In addition, there were brussels sprout leaves roasted with parmesan and walnuts, fruit and cheese with honey, wine, champagne and at the end, not just one cake, but two.
Not a lot satisfied Beau more than seeing people enjoy food he’d made. Cooking was his way of pleasing others. Of being worthy.
Even as fucked-up as he was, he’d managed to substitute out the most harmful ways of feeling worthy and pleasing others. His life was his own now. No one made his choices. He owed no one anything he didn’t want to give.
A far cry from his days in Road to Glory, when every bit of his life had been chosen for him and the others in the group.
“You’re having a very intense conversation in your head,” Cora said quietly.
He shrugged. “Not really,” he lied.
She sniffed, like she wanted him to know she saw right through him. Defensiveness rose in his gut, warring with fascination and no small amount of admiration that she would not only see the truth of it, but also let him know she got that he was evading.
But she let it go and he appreciated it a great deal.
A few hours in, Vic and Rachel peeled off. Gregori explained that Vic worked in a bakery, the same one that had provided some of the sweets they’d eaten that night, and had to be up by four-thirty.
He realized, as they cleaned up, that he didn’t really want his time with Cora to end. Which was unusual. Unusual enough that he paid attention to it. She was a gorgeous, creative, interesting woman and an old friend. That was it. Probably.
Still, when she headed to the door, he followed. “Hey, where are you off to?”
“Home. I’ve been up well over twenty-four hours at this point and the travel has just sort of smacked me in the head. Now that my belly is full and I’ve been loved up on by my friends, I’m going to head back to my place and sleep for many hours.”
“Where are you parked? Do you need a ride home?” Wren asked Cora, and then Gregori sighed. Clearly he’d noticed the chemistry between Cora and Beau all night.
Cora hadn’t seemed to hear Gregori’s sigh as she replied, “I’m just parked right around the corner at the lot near Ink Sisters. I’m good. Thank you though.” Cora hugged Wren, and then tiptoed up to do the same with Gregori.
“I’ll walk with you,” Beau said, grabbing his coat. “If that’s cool with you.”
Cora shrugged. “Sure. You don’t have to. It’s not that far.”
“And then you can give him a ride,” Gregori told her. “He’s staying in a flat in the Bay Vista Tower so he’s on your way home anyway.”
Gregori gave him a very slight smile. Beau owed his friend a beer for that little suggestion that allowed him more time with her.
“Ah! Yes, that’s totally on my way home. I can easily drop you off as a thanks for walking with me and defending my honor in case a drunken Pioneer Square reveler gives me any guff. Not that they would with an eleven-foot-tall dude, but you know what I mean,” Cora said.
“There are perks to being tall. And I’d appreciate the ride as I walked over earlier today.” And he’d get to be alone with her in the car, where he planned on asking her out.
He shouldn’t. He usually kept himself clear of getting involved with a friend or anyone in his social circle that he might have to see regularly in the wake of something unpleasant.
But she felt like home to him in a way that he couldn’t really put into words. And he really needed home after drifting for far too long.
* * *
CORA LIKED WALKING with Beau. When she stopped to peer more closely, and then photograph a wet leaf, he didn’t get impatient. When she wanted to look in a window or pause to stare up at the lights, he paused too. He meandered like she did. Which was something she found herself charmed by.
Certainly there was no denying the way people tended to get out of their way as they came along. Even sauced-up patrons, who’d poured out of bars and onto the sidewalks, parted to let them pass. He was big. Sturdy and broad shouldered. As a short girl, it was pretty freaking nice, she had to admit.
So she told him. Or, well, she thought it out loud, and then just went with it because it was too late to do anything else.
He leaned closer and the heat of him seemed to brush against her skin. “It’s a novel thing to imagine the world from your perspective,” he said in a voice that wrapped around her and tugged.
What an unexpectedly wonderful compliment that was.
“Thank you. You have a great voice. I figure I should go ahead and tell you that.” Flattered and a little flustered, Cora pointed at her car as they came upon the lot where she’d parked. “That’s me.”
Cora didn’t think herself overly concerned with things. But this car—named Eldon—was her not-so-guilty pleasure.
A gift from her mother—because Cora never would have done it for herself and because Walda loved giving extravagant gifts. When it appealed to her anyway.
It was low-slung and sporty, and when she got in and closed the door, the world drifted away.
He came to a startled halt. “That?”
Cora was glad it was dark enough he couldn’t see her blush. “Okay. I know. It’s an extravagance. My mom decided I should have it. And I tried to turn it down or talk her into a less, uh, over-the-top choice. But she’s Walda and she does what she wants.”
“I’m jealous. I nearly bought a TT S last