I shake my head and shrug. “Nope. Never saw the point. Not gonna get all dolled up to go get treatment, and I’m not gonna wear it around the house when I feel like poop. And when I am feeling good and going out, I don’t want to waste time on caking makeup on my face.” I make a ninety-degree angle with my hands, fingertips to heel of my palm, around one side of my face. “Besides, with a face like this, who needs makeup?” I say it with a grin and a laugh, as a joke.
He’s utterly serious, though, when he replies. “Can’t improve upon natural perfection.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I say, but I kiss him, because I can’t help it.
He pulls away from the kiss with a reluctant groan. “Gotta stop before I get carried away, and you need to eat.”
“I mean, I could wait, a little bit.” I nip at his lip with my teeth, playfully. “When I’m kissing you, the last thing I’m thinking about is being hungry.”
“We have all day,” he murmurs. “Let’s eat, and I’ll show you the house.”
I fake a pout. “Fine. Reject me, if you must.”
He groans a laugh. “I’m not rejecting you, I just—”
I laugh and push him away from me. “I’m teasing, Wes, jeez.”
“Don’t tease me, Jolene. I’m very sensitive.”
I pat his cheeks. “I know. That’s what makes teasing you so much fun.” I boop his nose with a fingertip. “I don’t really need a shower, but I wouldn’t mind brushing my teeth. Is our stuff still in the car?”
“Yeah, I’ll grab it.”
* * *
His house is surprisingly modest.In size, at least. A sprawling ranch with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a big kitchen open to a dining area and den, and a huge outdoor living space which opens to the kitchen and den area via accordion glass doors; the backyard is dominated by a rectangular infinity pool surrounded by an intentionally overgrown English garden, run through with little stone paths, an occasional concreter bench here and there underneath a spreading tree, the whole enclosed with a tall stone wall for privacy.
The interior of the house is comfortable, but not ostentatious. There’s only his one car, the Range Rover, in the garage. His closet is large, but it’s not an entire room like I’ve seen in some celebrity house tours. He doesn’t have any expensive collections or extravagant indulgences. The only thing I could reasonably call an indulgence is the recording studio built over the garage; it’s a full, professional studio, complete with sound baffles on the walls and separate booths for the mixer and musician. There’s a piano, several guitars both acoustic and electric, a ukulele, and a mandolin.
All in all, it’s just a comfortable home suitable for one person. He says he would have gathered a condo or a loft or something, but privacy and proximity to the film studios dictated this location, and this was the smallest place he could find with the requisite privacy and security needs. And as he’d mentioned before, he doesn’t own it.
He makes us omelets and bacon, and as promised, the omelet is the best I’ve ever had. We sit outside and eat in the shade, drink coffee, and talk. It feels…adult, to me. Just sitting, eating, and talking.
I couldn’t even tell you what we talked about, the whole morning. An endless array of things. The wandering conversation of two people utterly at ease with each other. There’s no hurry, no drive to do or go or anything. Just be with each other.
By the time we consider rousing from the backyard, it’s nearly lunchtime.
“You want to go somewhere? Tour of LA? I could show you the studios where I’m working, currently, and I’m sure we’d run into some people you’d recognize. There’s usually someone around.”
I shrug. “Meh. Maybe later.” I glance over my shoulder at the back of the garage. “I kinda want to play around in your studio.”
He grins and stands up. “That studio is the whole reason I chose this place, and believe it or not, I’ve never actually used it. I mean, I’ve gone in there a few times and dinked around, but I’ve never…” His grin fades a little. “I haven’t used it properly.”
I take his hand and stand up with him. “Well, now’s as good a time as any, right?”
The studio is small and cozy. There’s a couch in the recording booth, along with a stool underneath the microphone. I take the ukulele and play with the tuning while Westley chooses a guitar from the rack; he selects an acoustic, dark brown with lighter brown streaks in it. When he plucks a few strings to test the tuning, it’s clear from the rich tone that it’s an expensive custom guitar.
“What do you want to play?” he asks.
I shrug. “I dunno. You pick.”
“Hold on.” He goes into the mixing booth, perches on the edge of the chair at the mixing board. “Give me a little run real quick.”
I strum and sing a run up the scale and back down, and Wes fiddles with the settings or whatever goes on in the mixing booth. Seemingly satisfied, he returns to the couch and sits down with me, settles his guitar back on his knees. He strums the strings idly a few times, gaze into middle distance, and then his fingers begin picking a melody.
“I need this old train to break down…”
He can’t know about this song. Can’t.
