Annabelle had come to him with this idea, he’d proposed doing the whole thing with hired actresses, but she’d nixed that. He’d still been deep in his grief over Uncle Joe and hadn’t protested too hard. He’d been happy to have some project forced upon him so the endless future hadn’t seemed so endless.
He should have protested harder. Meeting real women hadn’t felt so distasteful when it had been conceptual, but now that he was faced with a buffet of individuals, he couldn’t get the sour taste out of his mouth.
“Can you filter based on profession?” he asked abruptly, when they were about halfway through.
“Sure,” Tina said. “What are you looking for? Fellow athletes?”
“I haven’t been an athlete in a long time.” His main method of getting out of the house for the past five years in Cayucos had been twice daily runs on the beach, but that wasn’t anywhere near his fitness regimen when he’d been a professional football player. “Filter it down to entertainment. Actresses, models, singers.” This was L.A., and it wouldn’t be hard to find at least one woman who was in the business. Being an actress didn’t mean that his potential date’s heart wouldn’t be soft, but at the very least, she might get something out of a contrived hour that was more entertainment than a meeting of hearts. “Someone who will be good on camera and fine with this being a business thing.”
Tina’s gaze turned knowing. “Gotcha.” She typed something, and all but two of the matches vanished. She leaned forward. “We got an actress and a model. Let me contact them and see if either of them are interested in our project, vet them a little to see which of them would be the most natural on film.”
“Fantastic.” He was so glad he wasn’t actually emailing back and forth with them like he might if he really was looking for love on Matchmaker.
Tina gathered up the laptop and Samson shoved back his seat. “Have you heard from Annabelle?” His aunt had been pretty silent for the past week, though she’d sent him a quick text reply in response to his check-in.
“Yeah, a little, for some necessary business stuff. I keep her updated daily via email. She doesn’t always respond. That’s normal when she goes on the run like this. She gets overwhelmed, disappears for a while, but she always comes back.” Tina wrinkled her nose. “I should have gone with you two to the conference. I told her the crowds might overwhelm her, but she was so dead set on trying to be Jennifer, she didn’t listen.”
Samson grimaced. He hadn’t been very close to Jennifer, but the older sister had been protective of Annabelle and had kept her little sister out of the spotlight. “Yeah. Luckily, everything worked out for the best.”
“Good thing you were there. You handled that interview with Crush like a champ. I hear Helena might even have you on her talk show? Good deal.”
Oh, that was right. On her talk show with Rhiannon.
Hope at the thought of seeing Rhiannon again filled him. Pathetic.
The timer went off on the oven and he glanced at it. Tina waved him away. “You take care of that, I’ll see myself out.”
He was pulling mini pizzas out of the oven when he heard the door open and a deep male voice say, “Damn, I know we haven’t seen Samson in a long time, but when did he turn into a small blond woman?”
Tina’s reply was muffled, but the tartness of her response was clear from her tone. Samson grinned and dropped the pan on the counter and came out to the foyer.
Harris and Dean Miller both smiled when they saw Samson. For a second, none of them spoke, but then Dean erupted into a whoop and they closed in on him, engulfing him in a big hug.
His two closest friends were both settled in L.A. Getting together over the past few years had been a challenge, what with their lives taking them on different paths.
Harris slapped his back and stepped back. “Look at you. How long has it been, a couple years?”
“At least,” Dean said. The two of them were cousins and were both tall, African American, and handsome, with some similarities in their eyes and the shapes of their face. Dean was way bigger, but he’d been a linebacker, like Samson. Harris was leaner, and still a quarterback. The three of them had played college ball together, but Samson and Dean had also