The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,117

friends with a woman and harder still to be friends with a woman once you’ve fucked her.

Maritza stands, wrapping the blanket around her naked body, and ambles toward me. “I don’t want to date you, Isaiah, if that’s what you’re afraid of. You’re not my type for one and for two, I really, really like being single.”

I slip my phone and keys into my pockets and eye the door.

“What do you say?” she asks. “One week. No romance. No lies or bullshit or games. Just a couple of people hanging out and having fun.”

I’ll admit she’s dynamite in bed and maybe “hanging out” a few more times with her before I leave would be better than finding some fast and loose girl at the sports bar down the street from Ma’s, but I don’t know.

Once you sleep with someone a few times and get to know them, shit changes and sometimes you have no control over how it’s going to change—if it’s going to be better or worse or complicated or the kind of thing you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to recover from.

I’m leaning toward the inclination that no good can possibly come of something like this. Someone’s going to catch feelings and get hurt and more than likely it’s not going to be me.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” I say.

Her expression doesn’t waver. “I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer.”

I exhale. I just want to get the fuck out of here, get through the rest of the week, and get my ass overseas where I belong.

“I can get some of my shifts covered for the week,” she says, stepping closer and wrapping the blanket so tight the tops of her breasts practically spill out. It’s a silent bribe, I fucking know it is. “Come on. We could have fun.”

“No romance or dates?” I ask.

“None.” She makes an ‘x’ across her chest.

“No bullshit or lies?” I ask.

I can’t believe I’m even considering this. It’s got to be those eyes. Those big brown eyes. She’s luring me in, casting a spell or some shit. I don’t know. For some reason, I feel almost powerless around her. Or maybe it’s nothing more than curiosity and an amazing sex hangover that left me wanting more.

“Zero.” Her full lips turn up at the sides, like a girl who knows she’s about to get what she wants.

Running a hand through my messy hair, I exhale, locking eyes with her. “Fine.”

This marks the first time in the last ten years that I’ve been defeated by a woman, that I’ve given up control of a situation when every fiber of my being is screaming at me to walk away, to say no while I still can, before this gets messy.

She wraps her arms around my shoulders, bouncing before pressing her body against mine. “Go home. Get some sleep. Saturday number one is tomorrow.”

I just hope I won’t live to regret this.

And I hope she won’t either.

Five

Maritza

Saturday #1

“I never realized how small Miley Cyrus was,” I say as I pull Isaiah toward her wax likeness Sunday morning. “I think I was twelve last time I looked like this.”

Isaiah doesn’t seem amused and he doesn’t seem to care.

“Hey, look, you’re the same height as Ryan Gosling,” I say, pointing.

Yesterday morning a courier delivered my phone from The Mintz at approximately seven AM, and I can only imagine Isaiah arranged that.

This morning I texted him as soon as I woke up and told him to meet me at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard by 9:30 AM. I met him with two coffees in hand—two creams and a half of a sugar pack for him—because somehow I remembered.

“You don’t find this shit creepy?” he asks.

“I find real celebrities creepier than their waxy counterparts.” I take a sip of coffee. “They’re so … all over the place. You never know if they’re going to be nice or rude or in a good mood or a bad mood or if they’re nothing like the last fifteen movie roles they played. These wax people are more real than any celebrity, and I speak from experience.”

He doesn’t ask, but he doesn’t have to. When you live in LA, people just assume you run into famous people on a daily basis. And sometimes you do. Depends on where you work or where you spend most of your time.

These days, living in my grandmother’s guesthouse in her Brentwood estate on the same street where Marilyn Monroe took her final breath, I don’t tend