Love Like That

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Katherine and Kelli

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am so incredibly fortunate to have had such wonderful people help see Love Like That on its journey: Thanks to Stephanie Lee, my agent at Manus & Associates, because she was its motivational force; and to Farrin Jacobs, my editor at Red Dress Ink, for believing in this book enough to publish it. To Mom, Dad, Lisa, Terry and Mimi, for their encouragement, support and love. To Tammy Jensen, my mainstay, because after hearing the story countless times, she still read every word. To Ann Phillips, for her unwavering enthusiasm. To Regina Sanchez, for her invaluable guidance. To my friends from Ventura, for their many timeless qualities that will always call me home. And lastly, a bit of gratitude to those not named who provided such unforgettable inspiration for the people who live between these pages.

In the city you’ll find me

mixed beliefs in liquored drinks

confidence purchased in sleek boutiques

lost dreams in rings of nicotine

sordid nights triumphant with poetic lies

carnal pleasure anointed with tight-fisted thighs

comfort snorted in glittering lines

red lips rebel in a sea of neurotic faces

street lights flicker inconceivable wishes

hidden beneath my cheapened skin

nurturing my inconsistent sin

In the city you’ll find me

—Katherine Larsen

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Epilogue

Prologue

My vomit was teal. When I first saw it I screamed and said we should call 911. I thought my insides were really that color and that maybe I was an alien. Jeremy said to shut up and relax. He said it was from the blue curaçao in the drinks. Some of it had crusted on the underside of the toilet seat.

I closed my eyes and imagined I had woken up from a four-poster canopy bed with satin sheets and lace and lush carpeting beneath my feet like a princess in a fairy tale. The faucet was leaking. Jeremy was coughing from the futon. He yelled that he had smoked too much and how could I let him do such a thing. I stumbled leaving the bathroom, and lit a cigarette.

He acted like he didn’t know me. He does that sometimes. I lay down on the futon with him and concentrated on breathing as the smoke circled around us in yellowish-gray streamers. He put Alien in the DVD player and we watched it in silence.

“Are you going to live?” he finally asked.

“I’m not sure. It might help if you rub my back,” I replied.

He scratched it disinterestedly for a few seconds, then stopped.

I remembered when we first met how we would lie facing each other and smile sleepily as we talked about all the things lovers do. Now my back was to him and he didn’t seem to care. I guess because we’ve gotten routine. Or maybe just because we don’t have to care. Maybe that is our routine.

“Can I get something to drink?” I asked.

He sighed like I’d just asked him to rearrange the furniture and got up with exaggerated effort. “I’ll see what I’ve got, okay? But I’m warning you—it’s probably not much.”

He was right. The only thing in his refrigerator was this yucky fruit-soda-type diet drink. He drank half and handed me the bottle. I took a tentative sip and nearly gagged. But it was cold so I drank it.

He settled down again. “Don’t you have to pick Roman up from the airport today?”

“You know I do.”

He yawned. “How long’s he staying this time, anyway?”

“Um…am I totally retarded, or wasn’t I just telling you last night that he’ll be here for three weeks?”

“Well…I don’t know. I wouldn’t say you’re totally retarded,” he replied. “Seriously, though. Three whole weeks?”

I frowned at him. “You shouldn’t have a problem with it.”

“I don’t.” He put his hands behind his head and shrugged into the futon mattress.

“Then why did you say it like that? Three whole weeks?” I mimicked.

“I didn’t say it like that,” he informed me.

I sat up. “Yeah, you did. Like you’re put off by the idea of Roman being here that long because you know you can’t call me while he’s around.”

He eyed me. “Don’t fool yourself, toots. Three weeks isn’t even that long.”

I got up to locate my belongings. “Whatever. I’d better be on my way, actually.”

“Okay.”

How very odd to find my roommate’s shiny blue Prada pumps, which I’d borrowed on the sly the night before, in the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink. I thought the empty tequila bottle on the kitchen counter could probably explain a lot of things. But not everything.

I felt Jeremy’s eyes follow me to the door before he said, “Hey.”

“What?” I paused with my hand on the doorknob.

“C’mere for a sec.”

I went over to the futon and knelt down. He placed a hand on the back of my neck and pulled me down for a dizzy kiss. He let go first and stroked my chin with the pad of one thumb. “Have fun.”

“I will.”

“Give Roman my best,” he chuckled.

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

He gave me a little wave and I closed the door behind me.

The thing about Jeremy is that I can always tell he’s irritated by the idea of Roman, but then he acts like it’s nothing to him. And I don’t really think he has the right to be irritated, anyway. His girlfriend lives right here in L.A. Maybe he was worried about the bigger picture. Maybe I’m always fooling myself.

Outside it was hot and bright with the end of June and someone was having car trouble in the alley. I walked down the stairs and thought for the thousandth time that someday I’m going to trip and fall down these stairs. My head will be crushed open on the cement with brains and blood pouring out and trickling down into the dirty flower bed, where we used to throw cigarette butts and beer caps before the neighbors yelled about it. They’ll call the police and say there’s a dead girl at the bottom of the stairs outside of their apartment. Jeremy will be questioned and will say he has no idea who she is. He’ll get his camera and take pictures of my gooey head and the ooze that’s seeping from the hole and he’ll hide them in a box with a lock and look at them sometimes with a guilty pleasure. Roman will wonder what I was doing there. He’ll find out. He’ll find out about me, like in that Gin Blossoms song I loved in high school.

I went into the mart next door. Figures they would be out of my cigarettes. I encountered two crazy homeless men on the way out. They were smelly and filthy and talking nonsense. They asked me for money and I lied and said I had none.

I drove home feeling gross. Raw and exposed. I usually don’t feel like that after being with Jeremy. I guess only when Roman’s coming to town later that day. It takes just a little time to adjust. Los Angeles looked exactly how I felt. Tarnished.

When I was a little girl, my mother would bring me down from the northern surf haven of my birth to shop at ritzy stores Ventura just doesn’t have. She wanted to expose me to all walks of life, despite the quasi-paradise existence of my seaside hometown that has made many a native never leave it. We would lunch in upscale cafés and swing glossy bags from swank boutiques as we walked on sparkling streets. L.A. was so nice to me then. She lured me to her. Now L.A. treats me like the grown woman I’m supposed to be. She refuses to give me guidance. Still she leads me on.

I told myself that any girl feels tarnished coming home still dressed from the night before—sequined jeans all wrong for day, sultry dark eye makeup a testimony to her underworld nocturnal activity. I said any girl would feel awful leaving her lover’s apartment with nothing but a seriously bad hangover.

I stopped at 7-Eleven for the cigarettes. I encountered Bruce Willis. He was coming out as I was going in. I wouldn’t have even noticed it was him if he hadn’t said, “Here you go,” in that Hudson Hawk/Butch Coolidge/John McClane voice of his as he held the door open for me. I was unfazed. He was wearing a baseball cap and dark sunglasses. I thought about busting out one of his movie lines on him to show my respect, but then thought he probably got that all the time so I didn’t say anything. I did have to wonder what Bruce was doing getting coffee at a convenience store east of Fairfax. It’s the heart of Hollywood, sure…but the Hollywood they only show in movies about snuff films and prep-school prostitutes.

There are some charming little pockets in this alarming neighborhood, though. Such as the blue-and-white cookie-cutter house where I live with my two roommates. It’s a nice house for three people. It even has a breakfast nook and a little backyard with a brick patio. I pulled into the driveway as Ava’s boyfriend came charging out the front door. He screamed something I didn’t hear over his shoulder. Ava chased him out onto the porch in silky pink pajamas, her white-blond hair fixed in two childish braids. She hurled an empty beer bottle at him and it shattered on the sidewalk.

“Jesus Christ, Ava!” he shouted. He stood there hitching up his cords as if he’d been without pants when this fight had begun.

She threw another bottle. There was a whole stash of empties lined up on the porch railing. She threw them all before storming back inside and slamming the door behind her.

“What’s going on?” I asked him. He looked funny, standing in a pile of broken glass on our sidewalk. I wanted to laugh at him.

He shook his head. “I just can’t handle this lunacy a second longer. See you later, hon. It’s been real.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and ran to his Saab, peeling away from the curb and disappearing down the street. I knew he’d never be back.

Ava was in the kitchen fixing cereal when I went in. My other roommate, Electra, was sleeping on one of the couches in the living room. We really splurged on them but it was a good buy. They are both red with huge cushions and you’d think you’d get tired of red but it’s amazing what you can do with it. They face each other against opposite walls and there’s a big square coffee table in between them with a Zodiac wheel carved into it. The walls are painted cream, not white, and the floor is paneled in wood. We have posters around of our favorite movies like St. Elmo’s Fire and Legends of the Fall and the people we idolize like Marilyn Monroe and Ella Fitzgerald.

Electra wasn’t alone. She was sleeping with a man. They were both naked from the looks of things, all arms and legs hanging out from beneath a lavender chenille throw.

“What’s with the random dude?” I asked Ava.

“Oh, Electra wanted it last night so we took her to Crazy Girls to pick it up. She figured a strip joint would be a good place to find a ready and willing male.”

“I see. So what was that scene with Tim just now?” I asked. She got out the milk. I knew it was bad but I didn’t tell her.

She looked wounded. “Oh…the usual. There’s always something wrong with me.”

“That’s not true.” I looked in the fridge to find something to drink. Electra’s Brita pitcher was labeled with a note that said if either one of us drank her cold water she was going to kill us.

“But they think so.” Her lip was quavering. “You know what he said? He said our house was so dirty that he always had to go home and take a shower after he left.”

I poured water from the tap and pretended that the metallic Hollywood taste of it was ambrosia. I took a look around the kitchen. Food-stained dishes were piling up in the sink. The trash was overflowing by the wall. There was an empty jar of spaghetti sauce on the counter, next to two dry stems of angel hair that had dropped out of the package. A handful of them had fallen onto the floor and been stepped on several times.

“And then he was looking at my books and saying I wasn’t intellectually literate and that I should read the classics—like I haven’t. I said, look, for your information, I went to just as many private schools as you did,” she went on. “Then I told him this is California, not Connecticut—and it’s more important to impress people with what I’m wearing than what I’m reading. The next thing I knew we were screaming at each other.”

I sagged against the fridge and packed my cigarettes. “Tim was an incredible snob, anyway. That Ivy League act he had going on was annoying. I never liked him.”

“Yes, but I did.”

“You’ll get over it.”

“I always do.” She looked all hurt again.

I thought of something to say while I watched her douse her Fruity Pebbles with the stinky milk. “Come on, Ava. Just think of the next girl he dates and how she’ll recoil with horror when he asks her to stick her finger up his ass while she’s giving him a blow job.”

She spit cereal into the sink she was laughing so hard. I had to laugh, too.

“How’s Jeremy? Where’d you guys go last night?” she asked.

“Ugh. The Liquid Kitty.”

“Oh, no. Did you drink Lolitas?”

“Lolitas and Low Lifes. How’d you know?”

“There’s some bluish puke on your sweater.”

“That’s got to be attractive.”

“Bewitching. Matches your shoes, too. Hey, those are my shoes!”

I glanced down. “Oh, yeah, sorry. Forgot to ask.”

“That’s okay. I wore your green glitter tank top last night.”

Everything is community property when girls live together. At least it is with us.

I yawned. “I’m tired.”

“No time for a nap. Roman’s coming in at two,” she reminded me.

“I remember.”

“Can I go to the airport with you?”

“Sure.”

She put her bowl in the sink with a frown. “This tastes awful. I’m making Mini Raviolis instead. You want some?”

My stomach lurched. “Sounds divine.”

I thought about Saturday mornings when I was little as I walked down the hall. My mother making pancakes and my father reading the newspaper on the back patio, drinking coffee. The radio turned to 94.7 playing smooth jazz. My little sister and me watching Jem while waiting for our breakfast. No worries, no cares and no reality.

I could have carved out my own version of that life. I could be back in Ventura right now, undoubtedly married to my high school sweetheart. We would have one or two children. On weekend nights we would go to high school football games—at our high school stadium—with wink-wink plastic cups full of domestic beer. On weekend days we would brunch with my parents or his, maybe both, and then engage in home improvement or family time at the beach. And we would go to neighborhood barbecues, and we would buy our fruits and vegetables at roadside stands, and we would wish the 101 Drive-In hadn’t been torn down because wow, what a lot of great memories we made there back when we so weren’t watching movies, and we would probably be very happy.

Hometowns, though. They either suck you in or they spit you out.

I went into my room and sat down on my bed as daylight streamed through the dusty blinds and birds chirped annoyingly from the neighbor’s avocado tree. I was glad Roman was on his way because just then I wished I could run away to Australia and never come back again. I took a shower. I looked at myself in the mirror. I saw long strands of wet blond hair. A smear of Mango Mandarin lotion on one pale cheek. Blue eyes puzzled by the sight of a familiar stranger.

I couldn’t feel clean. I couldn’t feel good.

It’s not always like this. But when it is, I could just scream.

Sometimes I hate this dirty city. I’m starting to hate this dirty life.

Chapter 1

Roman didn’t mind that Ava was waiting at the airport with me. He’s not the kind of man who would think that was irritating. He hugged us both and kissed me and it was so good to see him. I don’t see him very often because he lives on the other side of the country. Sometimes he goes and lives in other countries. Sometimes I forget about the wonderfulness of him because he’s gone from me so often. But when I see him I always remember right away. I’m reminded that a smooth dark midnight sky is okay, but a sky with bright glittering stars is even better.

Ava talked most of the ride home about what had happened with Tim. How she couldn’t believe he would ditch her when they started off as friends. Roman was good-natured about it and listened as if he was really interested, even though I knew he really wanted to be hearing about my life and not Ava’s. He’s very nice to her, though. He doesn’t say cruel things about her like Jeremy does, like that she’s fucked up and beyond help. He says she’s just a sweet, wayward kid. I think she just gets involved with guys who are friends way too often, and there are risks involved in that situation. The same thing happens every time. A guy friend, most likely suffering from lack of a consistent lay, starts thinking his girl friend is a halfway decent piece and he should probably fuck her. The girl friend assumes that means he has fallen in love with her, so she falls in love with him. Then they’re not friends anymore. I could tell Ava a few things about that, and do, but she never listens, and she never learns. She says I’m a hypocrite.

She says I’m a hypocrite because I try to give advice and then I act however I want to and don’t even care at all. She says I’m a hypocrite for having a nice boyfriend like Roman and cheating on him when he’s away.

But that’s not what it’s about. I think Ava just doesn’t understand. She loves eternal. No questions asked. When she’s in love, there could never be anyone else. Even if her man was on the moon.

It’s not like I don’t love eternal. It’s just that I suppose I am more guarded at first. Ava dives right in without checking to see if the water is shallow. I guess what I mean is that when I met Roman, he was unbelievable in an almost ethereal sense…like Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles. I thought for sure it would never last because it just seemed too good. So when Jeremy, who seemed much more like the kind of guy I should end up with, walked into my life about three seconds after Roman did…I took a chance.

And now it’s two years later. And I’m still taking chances.

Roman kept his hand on my knee while he drove us home. He’s not the kind of man who would ever expect me to drive, even in my own car. We kept smiling over at each other. I felt warm and happy. It was good to have him home. L.A.’s not his home and he says it likely never will be, but I always feel like he’s home when he’s visiting because then he’s home with me.

Electra was doing her toes in the living room when we got back to the house. She was wearing a turquoise-and-silver kimono with silky butterflies all over it. She got up to give Roman a hug. She highly approves of him. He doesn’t drive her crazy hanging around like most other guys would.

“Hey, I like that new poster of Marilyn,” Roman said appreciatively. Never mind the layer of dust coating the TV screen, the coffee table crowded with multiple nights’ worth of discarded Del Taco trash. Never mind the array of empty bottles nobody’s bothered to toss, the overflowing ashtrays. Roman only notices the new poster of Marilyn. I love how he looks on the bright side. I think that is a special quality in him.

“Thanks,” I told him. I didn’t tell him Jeremy gave me that poster for my birthday. He also gave me The Exorcist on DVD, which I suspected he purchased more for his own enjoyment than to celebrate the fact that I was turning twenty-five. He’s twenty-seven already so the thrill was lost on him. The thrill usually is.

Roman kissed my neck. “Want me to make drinks, Dalton?”

“I can do it,” I told him as I kissed his neck. I love my man. I think we are the perfect combination, just like peanut butter and jelly.

“So what’s new with you?” Electra asked Roman as he settled down to relax and I went into the kitchen to fix us some drinks.

He leaned back against the cushions and looked content. “I’m waiting to hear about my next placement. I won’t know anything definite until next week or so, but I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

“Really? Tell me about it,” she said. “I find your career so fascinating.” Electra can be overly sarcastic, but she was actually sincere.

Roman’s career is pretty fascinating. He works for the International Center for Relief and Advancement, which is a D.C.-based nonprofit organization. He and his colleagues are relief specialists who travel to nations with underprivileged economies and try to help them. Most of them have Dr. preceding their name, and a long string of impressive credentials to follow. At Roman’s level they research countries to assess their assistance needs. Then they strategize and write proposals about how to go in and improve the quality of life for the people who are most affected. If a proposal is accepted, it becomes a project, and then a team is sent to carry it out. It’s a far cry from event planning, which is what I do, but Roman says in many ways our jobs are similar. I think he is incredibly kind.

Roman lit a cigarette and tossed the pack to Electra. “Okay, so you really want to know? I have been busting my ass lately. I’m trying to get the director position for this next project so that Landon might finally start giving me the respect I think I’ve earned over the last six years that I’ve given my entire goddamn existence to ICRA. As it is, I’ll be working out of our charming West Coast bureau during most of my visit so Landon doesn’t think I’m just out here fucking around. That’s the one good thing about L.A.—having an office to go to when I’m here.”

I handed him a refreshing vodka tonic as I sat down on the couch with him. “That’s the one good thing?” I asked skeptically.

He relaxed an arm around my shoulders and kissed my cheek. “Not the only good thing, baby. You know what I meant. Gets Landon off my ass if I say I’m coming out here for work and not just to see you. We both know I come out here just to see you, but Landon doesn’t need to know that. If he did, he’d be imagining that all we do here is eat health food and go surfing, and that would horrify him, and then he’d give me a bunch of shit. Landon doesn’t understand the concept of leisure—even if we hardly eat health food and have yet to catch a wave.”

I laughed. Landon is Roman’s totally demanding asshole boss. Roman says he still treats him like an intern even though everybody else knows Roman has fully reached big-cheese status. Roman says Landon is on his case all the time, which is one of the reasons he has to work so hard. He loves his work, he says, and loves working hard—but Landon says, “Don’t just love it, Roman. Be in love with it.”

“Where will you be going this time?” Electra asked.

“I put in proposals for three places in Africa.”

“Africa’s awfully far away,” I said dubiously.

He jostled my shoulders. “It’s really not when you think about it. You just get on a plane and go. Besides, I’m staying here for three whole weeks. Just to be with my baby.”

I smiled. He wrinkled his nose at me as he smiled back.

“Can we go to Ruth’s Chris tonight like we did the last time when you came, Roman?” Ava piped up. She was sitting on the floor, cutting out magazine pictures with pink-handled scissors.