Page 46 of The Bride Bet
The city arrived gradually, first the traffic thickening, then the buildings multiplying, then the full familiar sprawl of it spreading out in every direction like it had never stopped and never would. Jasmine watched it come and felt the mixture of things she always felt when returning to LA. The electricity of it. The weight of it. The way it immediately asked more of you the moment you crossed back into its orbit.
They stopped for coffee in Silver Lake, a small place she liked where nobody generally looked twice at anyone. Nate ordered for both of them without asking, because she’d told him her order once, two weeks ago, and he’d remembered. They moseyed out of the coffee shop and onto the sidewalk, close together, her shoulder against his arm, the morning mild and unhurried around them.
He said something dry about the drive and she laughed, and he looked down at her, the way he’d started doing at the beach house, and she looked up at the same moment, and it was the most natural thing in the world that he kissed her there on the sidewalk with the coffee warm in their hands and Silver Lake going about its Saturday morning around them.
She kissed him back. A real kiss. Not for the cameras, not for the rest of the world. Just for the two of them.
The drive up to the ridge took twenty minutes, and they spent it the way they’d spent the drive up from the coast. Easy, unhurried, the radio low. Jasmine had her feet tucked up andwas telling him about the time Eden had tried to teach her to surf in Malibu, and how it was one of those experiences that feels traumatizing at the time and makes for a good story later.
“I looked like I was drowning out there,” Jasmine said. “But I wasn’t. The lifeguards came anyway, and by the time they got to me, my wetsuit was ripped in two. It was so embarrassing.”
Nate laughed into his hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh.”
“No, it’s funny. Mortifying but funny.”
“I will never get on a surfboard again. Mark my words.”
The street curved, and she realized they were back at his house. The drive had seemed to take hardly any time at all.
Not only that, there were cars and people on this side of the gate.
Jasmine stiffened. “What’s going on?”
Nate didn’t answer. He was too busy surveying the scene as well, slowing down the car.
Journalists. Not one, not a stray photographer who’d gotten lucky with a tip. Seven of them, maybe eight, clustered on the verge outside the gate with cameras and microphones. There was a restless energy about them, and the moment they saw Nate’s car, they turned into vultures. They surged forward, lenses coming up, two of them stepping directly into the road.
“Windows up,” Nate said. His voice had changed entirely. Flat and focused, all the ease of the last ten days gone in an instant.
Jasmine had already pressed the button. She kept her face turned slightly from the glass, her pulse climbing. There had been paparazzi outside of the house before, but this wassomething entirely different. Journalists didn’t show up unless there was a story to be had.
The voices came through the rolled-up windows, muffled but audible, calling both their names, shouting questions she couldn’t fully make out.
“This isn’t the usual,” she said, watching them through the glass as the car moved slowly forward.
“I know.” He kept his eyes forward, his hand steady on the wheel.
The gate opened on the sensor and they pulled through. It closed behind them, cutting off most of the noise.
The security guard in the post shook his head at Nate, lips pursed. Nate rolled down his window.
“They’ve been there for hours,” the guard said. “The police said they can’t do anything about it since they’re on the other side of the fence.”
Nate sighed. “Thanks anyway.”
They continued up the driveway to the house. Nate parked, turned off the engine, and sat for a moment without moving, both hands still on the wheel.
The quiet inside the car felt different from the quiet they’d had all week. Heavier. Jasmine looked at his profile, the jaw set, the eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance.
“Nate.” Her voice came out smaller than she meant it to. “What’s happening?”
He didn’t answer, which was its own kind of answer. He reached for his phone from the cupholder, looked at the screen, and she saw the worry in his face.
The phone rang in his hand before he could dial out. He looked at the screen again, and the muscle in his jaw worked once.
He answered. Listened. She watched his face as he did, and she could read enough of it now, after weeks of learning him, to feel the cold start to move through her before a single word had been said. His eyes found hers across the car, and what was in them made her stomach drop.
He lowered the phone.
