Starlight (Peaches Monroe #2)(49)
Author: Mimi Strong

Mitchell gave Dalton his address, and we were at the door in twenty-five minutes.

I took the first shower, while Mitchell very awkwardly entertained Dalton by showing him his collection of vintage LA postcards from the sixties.

Alone in the bathroom, I pulled off my sticky, sweaty dress, and stared at myself in the mirror. I still had a square patch of paper towel stuck to myself, a few inches inside my front hip bone, and I didn’t have the nerve to see what lay beneath the bandage. The skin stung, like a scrape or a burn.

There was cellophane over the paper, so I made sure the tape was water resistant and got into the shower. The bathroom was really old, everything pink and blue from the fifties, but it was clean and welcoming, and I was grateful. The shower head was better than average for an old apartment.

Steve/Luscious Hilda Mae Sparkles was at her day job at the coffee shop he/she managed, but had given approval by text message for me to wear anything from the costume closet. After my shower, I zipped into a retro floral dress with a pink sash for a belt. I’d hand-washed my champagne-sticky underwear in the shower and dried them somewhat with the hair dryer before putting them back on.

I let Mitchell take over the bathroom, and I came out to find Dalton sitting at an easel with a paintbrush in his hand.

“That’s random,” I said.

“I like to paint.”

CHAPTER 18

I took a seat on the orange-vinyl vintage sofa across from him. “You like to paint? Yup, that explains everything.” The sofa cushion compressed slowly under me, letting out an embarrassingly audible wheezing of air.

Dalton continued to dab at a canvas with his paintbrush, loaded up with tangerine-orange paint.

He said, “Mitchell likes for guests to contribute to the decoration of the apartment, by putting a cheerful saying on a canvas.”

I looked around the room, noticing that some of the paintings I thought were abstract color washes actually had words on them.

The biggest painting, on the long wall, read: After a storm comes a calm, Matthew Henry.

I said, “Holy sheep tits, we’re sitting inside a Pinterest board.”

Dalton laughed. “Is that an internet thing? I don’t go online. Too toxic.”

“It’s a page where you share over-engineered craft projects you’ll never actually do. But look at my man, Mitchell. He’s really doing the whole make-your-own-art thing.” I crossed my legs, feeling it was the only appropriate pose for such a low-rider sofa. People must have been way shorter a couple generations back, because the furniture legs are tiny.

Dalton got up and fetched us both bottles of water from the kitchen.

This is weird, I thought, and then I couldn’t un-think it. Here I was, hanging out with Dalton Deangelo, in LA, only we weren’t dating. I wouldn’t be licking the side of his gorgeous neck or riding him like a pony back in his palatial master bedroom. We were going to have brunch. With our chaperone/fanboy.

And then, after a few minutes, it didn’t feel so weird anymore. We could just be in a room, and not put each other’s body parts in our mouths. That’s how friends are.

I raised my water bottle. “To future old friends, which is what we are.”

He cracked the lid off his bottle, but didn’t move in for the toast. “Are we friends now? Have you forgiven me for words written on a piece of paper by someone who isn’t me?”

“I wasn’t mad about the words on the paper. It was you saying them.”

“I thought you were mostly irate about the tasteless threesome joke in the manuscript. By the way, we cut that out in the final draft. I thought the joke made my character unlikeable.”

“Fuck your character. He sucks.”

Dalton stared steadily at me, his green eyes giving away nothing but inner stillness and control. “Why were you out partying last night with your new buddy? What happened to underpants boy? Michael Crow or whatever?”

“Keith Raven. Don’t act like you can’t remember his name.”

Dalton’s sultry lips quirked up in a smirk. “You didn’t answer my question. Why didn’t you spend the night in your new man’s arms?”

I looked down at the piping on the orange vinyl sofa and flicked at the worn-thin spots with my fingernail. Fine filaments like fur were sticking out along the cracks.

After a moment, I said, “I think he spent the night in the bony arms of his model skank ex-girlfriend. I’m not sure. I kinda just left and haven’t checked in yet.”

“So you ran out on him, lathered up in an emotional tizzy, yet he’s the one in the doghouse?”

“Maybe.” I chugged my water, still avoiding eye contact.

“I’m starting to see a pattern,” he said.

The tissh-tissh sound of the paintbrush on the canvas started again, so it was safe for me to look up.

“What are you painting? Turn it and show me. My bare legs are stuck to this ridiculous couch and I can’t get up.”

“Peaches Monroe, guys always let you down, don’t they?”

“No comment.”

“They say every story has a happy ending, if you stop in the right place. I’d say you make sure your relationships have a bad ending, because you run out before a minor misunderstanding can run its course.”

I swallowed hard. “If you’re trying to make me feel like shit on toast, it’s working. I’m dressed in a drag queen’s clothes, I got a tattoo I’m too scared to look at, I narrowly escaped getting arrested, and now the world’s most beloved TV vampire is telling me I suck at life.”

Dalton slowly turned the wood-framed easel to face my way. The image was mostly blue, like sky above ocean, with an orange circle like the sun, and in white letters: Trust the process.

“I don’t get it.”

Dalton stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Trust the process is one of the things my best acting teacher used to say. Basically, it means… well, it means whatever you want it to mean. My process is not your process.”

“Maybe you should be dating Keith. He’s into all sorts of spiritual stuff. Do you like parsley shakes?”

“You don’t suck at life. And Keith seems like a good guy. I feel protective of you. I’m your friend, remember? I knew it from the day we met.” His expression got serious. “I feel rotten about the NDA I had you sign. I’ve never told anyone about my past before, and I was caught off guard by how exposed I felt. I’m sorry I put you in that position.”

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry I freaked out and ran off all those times. Especially the last time.” I drank the last bit of water from the bottle. “But here we are. No hard feelings. I’m ready to be your friend.”