“Who’s that?” I asked, making him turn and reach for me. I allowed him to draw me to him, leaning up against the solid bulk of his body, a constant presence and comfort.
“It’s just my agent,” he said, pushing the phone away across the table beside his chair. “Fourth call I’ve ignored of his today.” Devon lapsed into silence, and I could hear the faint pound of waves against a shore—the shore where Nana had died. If the weather stayed clear, we were in for a spectacular sunset.
“Is it anything important?” I asked.
“To Chaz, everything is important,” Devon said. “The fact that I haven’t been seen around Hollywood, the idea that the tabloids have put in everyone’s head that I’m moping after my breakup, that I’ve been missing appearances he’s been having to reschedule.”
“That last bit sounds pretty important,” I offered. “You’re the one who told me your image is your life. If you’re not around to promote it and protect it, someone has to do something.”
“Chaz is just pissed that I’m making him do work for once,” Devon mused. “The appearances just keep getting offered to me. He’s doing literally nothing to make them happen. That’s all me.”
“But he’s having to reschedule them for you,” I said, patting his shoulder. “That’s all you, too, not showing up for them. What are they, even?”
“Signings, interviews, the late-night circuit,” he said casually, as if it were nothing to him for people to be falling over themselves trying to book him and see him and worship him. “The usual.”
“We’re going to have to go back,” I told him, raising my eyebrows. “I’m sure you know that.”
“I know.” He took my hand and turned it upward, kissing the sensitive skin of my palm.
“I have Nana’s estate to settle back home in Dallas,” I said, the words sticking in my throat. Dallas didn’t seem like home anymore. Not without her there.
“That’s fine,” Devon said. “We’ll fly directly to Dallas and start wrapping everything up.”
I snorted at him. “You’re just trying to avoid your reality for as long as possible.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” he asked, his eyes wide in an attempt to appear innocent.
“You have your own life to go back to,” I told him. “I don’t know the first thing about estates, or even what I’m going to do with all of Nana’s clothes.”
“There’s a simple solution,” Devon said. “I’ll get my lawyer to take care of all the wrangling, and I’ll help you pack up the house.”
“What do you mean, pack up the house?”
“I’ll get you some storage if there are things you don’t want to part with or don’t know what to do with right now,” he continued, looking pleased with himself. “But you’ll want that thing empty to sell, don’t you?”
I blinked at him several times, trying to get my bearings in this conversation.
“Devon, why would I want to sell Nana’s house?” I asked finally. “Where am I supposed to live, then?”
His answer was prompt. “In Malibu. With me.”
It was a good thing Devon was holding on to me, planted firmly in his chair, or I might’ve lost my balance and tumbled to the ground. Where was this coming from? Since when had we decided that we were moving in together?
“Devon, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said slowly, trying just as hard to understand the situation as I was trying to make him understand what I was saying.
“Which part?” he asked, cocking his head at me.
“You don’t have to keep helping me,” I said. “Really. Once I’m back in Dallas, you don’t have to feel like you have to linger. We…had a fling in Hawaii. It was great—amazing, even. We helped each other through some sad times in our lives, but now we have to get going again. You know. Back to our own lives.”
“June, this doesn’t have to be the end,” Devon said after a long pause. The sun was sinking lower and lower and I couldn’t help but wonder what it looked like down at Nana’s beach, glowing over the waves.
“We’re two entirely different people,” I said. “We don’t have to force anything to work. We can be adults about this. We can agree to call it what it is—a fling.”
“I’ve had flings before.”
“So have I.”
“This doesn’t feel like a fling.”
In that magic light of an ending day, Devon’s eyes glowed with gold flecks I hadn’t noticed in them before. He looked at me without a trace of humor. He wasn’t kidding. I’d known him for long enough, studied his expressions, to realize when he was being serious.