I scoff. “Denver’s the worst of them all.”
“Oh. Oh, dear. What happened between you two?”
I still don’t know why he avoided me. Not entirely.
“Did you fight over a girl?”
“Hardly.” I wish it were that simple.
“I still think you should consider it. You’re miserable at home, and don’t lie and say you’re not. You miss that life. You miss performing.”
I grit my teeth. “It’s not going to happen.”
“We’ll see.”
“No, we won’t see. It’s not happening, end of story.”
Apparently, it is happening.
Go to LA, she said. Try to get back your old life.
Motherfucker. What am I doing here?
As I stare at Denver’s Malibu home, I curse my mother and the millions of paparazzi swarming Big Sky.
Denver’s house is still the same as it was. It’s not your typical Hollywood celebrity home where the house is hidden by trees or a long driveway with a locked gate out front. There is a gate, but the front door is visible from here. The gate is closed and locked, but it’s late, so he might be inside, or he might not. I’m just trying to build the courage to hit the intercom button.
With one extremely unflattering photo published of me, the media turned up in droves to try to get a photo of, and I quote, “The Train Wreck That Used to Be Mason Nash.”
Yeah, the headlines were worse than I was expecting.
Speculation about my weight gain has started. Apparently, according to one source, I have a rare blood disease and the medication for it makes me appear bloated.
That’s good to know.
Someone in town who knows where our property is must have a big mouth, because reporters and paps were camping outside my damn house along the fence line.
Mom’s solution? Get the hell out of Dodge.
Coming here, though, I might have made a mistake. This thing with Denver … I don’t think I’m ready to put all of that behind me.
I was prepared to come out here and hide in a hotel suite for as long as it took for the world to realize I’d left Montana, but money is tight. I still have some royalties coming in from the Eleven days, but I have no savings. My gut twists when I acknowledge that I’m basically broke. Well, not technically, because the millions of dollars I earned from Eleven went to building my house and bailing out my family on the failed tree farm. The land in Montana is technically all mine, but I’m not going to divide it and sell off blocks to support a hideaway location for me. I had the perfect hideaway, and then Harley fucked that up by showing his face in my town.
Now I’m here, after a sixteen-hour drive, regretting the choice to pick Denver to turn to. Not that I had many other options. Ryder has his daughter, Blake’s on location I think, and Harley … Yeah, no, I don’t want to have to make a deal where I say yes to a reunion so I have somewhere to sleep for a while.
Both Harley and Denver owe me—Denver for our past and Harley for the current predicament I’m in—but I went with the lesser of two evils. Not that Harley’s evil. He’s just intense. Especially when it comes to work, and especially when he gets an idea in his head. He almost always gets his way.
If I were going to even consider going back to Eleven, I’d need Denver and me to be okay again. Even if it means swallowing my hurt and trying.
Yeah, this whole trying to convince myself I’m doing the right thing is not working.
I turn on my heel to head back for my truck when Denver’s Maserati pulls into his drive. The headlights blind me, and I hold up my hand.
He doesn’t drive into his garage. The car door opens, and his tall frame appears in a silhouette, hidden by the lights. “Mase?”
“I need a place to crash.”
Silence. Denver stands stock-still. Maybe it was a mistake coming here.
“Or I could go somewhere else. It’s fine.”
Denver leaves his car door open, the engine running, and rounds the hood to approach me. He looks exhausted again. Or still. I thought it was because he was hungover when he came to Montana, but he can’t be hungover now at nine o’clock at night. I hate my first instinct is to coddle him and make sure he’s okay, but I refrain.
He steps in front of me. “Don’t go anywhere else. You can stay here as long as you want. I, uh … This is not what I was expecting after …”
“Yes, well, after you guys visited me and made your presence known, paparazzi followed the story and found me. I don’t have many other options.”
He stares at me. The vibe between us never used to be like this. I don’t know if we can get back what we once had, but I hate what we have now—strained tension.
“I’ll go put the car away and show you the guesthouse.”
That should fill me with relief—staying with him but technically not—but I’ve stayed in his guesthouse before. It’s a small hut out by the pool that has a bed, a TV, and a single bathroom. If I want anything to eat, I have to go to the main house. It’s no different than giving me the room right next to his because we will inevitably still run into each other.
You’d think the long-ass drive down here would have prepared me for this, but it hasn’t. I’m torn between wanting to hug him and yell at him.
I still think we can’t come back from the last few years, and I hate that I’m here having to swallow my pride because I have nowhere else to go, but there’s a part of me who has missed Denver so much, it’s already made peace with him.
I already know it’s going to be a constant fight with that side of me to stay mad.
Denver parks the car in his garage and goes through the house to meet me at the front gate.
He leads me inside, through his expansive foyer and living room that’s filled with more god-awful trinkets and “art” than last time I was here, and as he passes that horrible duck he’s owned forever, he pats his head. “Good boy.”
“I can’t believe you still have Bill.”
“He’s my good-luck charm.” Denver goes out to his back balcony, and I follow.
His house is built into the side of a hill, so his entry level hides the whole underneath part of the house where he has a gym and a music room.
We go down the stairs and walk across the grass to the standalone square hut I guess I’m calling home for a while. At least until everything blows over.
Denver slides open the wooden door and lets me in. “Umm, so I’ll be on set again tomorrow all day. We’re pulling long hours on this stupid reality show, so you’ll have the place to yourself.”
I read he’d signed on to be a judge on a reality talent show, and I’d wanted to call him to congratulate him but knew it would go unanswered.
So, I don’t congratulate him now either. “Okay.”
“’Kay.” He spins on his heel but pauses. “I’m really happy you’re here.”
I wish I could say the same, but maybe I’ll get there.
Is there a self-help book for that? Forgiveness for Dummies. I’d buy it.
Chapter Seven
Denver
Having Mason in my guesthouse is weird. Especially because I’m gone from sunrise to way past sunset throughout the week, so we haven’t run into each other.