smiling as she saw Kenzie Wendell standing over at the edge of the garden. “Well, hello.” Peering past her, she glanced toward the corner where she could just barely see the faintest edge of the bright lights that spilled out from the event area in the back. “Shouldn’t you be at the party?”
Kenzie shrugged. “I can always be at parties.” She rolled her eyes a little and with the temerity of the young, she headed over to the bench where Abigale sat and plopped down beside her. “I’m having fun and stuff, and I love the presents, but I’ve been to like eight of these parties this year. I’ve never talked to anybody famous before.”
Abigale laughed quietly. “I’m not famous anymore, really.”
“Sure you are.” Kenzie cocked her head and the dim lights glinted off the pretty little jeweled band in her hair. “You were on a TV show for like forever. My mom has them all on DVD. I even watched a few.” She paused and then grinned, her nose wrinkling up as she added, “Nate was kind of cute. Were you two really . . . um . . .”
Abigale grinned over at her. “It was a TV show. Nothing you saw on it was real.” Then she frowned. “Well, the guy who played Nate was cute.”
“But you two weren’t like boyfriend and girlfriend or anything?”
“We’re friends.” She smiled a little and glanced back at the teenager. “You want to hear the truth? We still are friends . . . we’ve been friends since the show was on. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“Wow. You’ve been friends for like . . . forever.”
Abigale winced. “Well, really, it’s like twentysomething years, but to a thirteen-year-old girl, I guess that seems like forever.”
“Yeah.” Kenzie was quiet for a minute and then she asked, “Is he still cute?”
Abigale’s mouth went dry. Cute. Cute might have touched on what Zach had been all those years ago, but now? She thought of the dark, heady blue of his eyes. Thought of the way his hands had felt on her, and all he’d been doing was giving her a damned tattoo. And it had hurt, but she’d still loved the way his hands had felt. She was sick. So damned sick.
She thought about the way those tattoos twining around his arms had always gotten to her, and the way she could lean against him and just know things were going to be okay if he was there.
Something odd shifted in her heart as she realized that last thing wasn’t anything new. Yeah, her serious interest in his tattoos wasn’t a new thing, either, but Zach was a physical work of art. All long, lean muscles and those colorful tattoos that curved and colored and lined his skin only accentuated the utter perfection of his body.
It went deeper than that, though. So much deeper.
Zach . . . he’d always been there.
“Yeah,” she whispered softly. “He’s still cute.”
“Kenzie!”
Kenzie groaned and shoved upright off the bench. “That’s my aunt. She’s going to insist on more pictures, I know.” Then she grinned back at Abigale. “It was nice meeting you.”
Abigale smiled back, but her mind was still on Zach.
* * *
A good four hours passed before she was done. Nearly one o’clock in the morning and the city was quiet, the night sky spread out around her like a blanket. The brilliance of the stars was so much more vivid than it’d ever been back in LA.
If she wasn’t so damned tired, she wouldn’t have minded going for a drive through the desert, just her and the night sky. But there was no way. She was tired, her body was sore, and her clothes smelled like she’d been cooking all day.
Which was true.
So instead, she drove home and brooded over the tasks on the list that she hadn’t done.
Call Roger.
That was the most pressing thing, although she couldn’t exactly explain why.
Unless it had something to do with the way his words kept haunting her. You’re not being true to yourself.
Not being true to herself.
She didn’t want Hollywood back.
Yeah, there were odd, random thoughts that would drift through her mind every now and then. But it was more like a pang of nostalgia for the few good times she remembered about that life. Not anything that she wanted to have again. Sort of like high school. Plenty of people thought fondly of those days, she knew, but most of them wouldn’t go back if you paid them.