Malibu Love Story: A Novella

Chapter 6: Shopping

Reed woke up, unsure where she was for a moment. Then it all came roaring back, the accident, the fire, being chased by the crazy girls.

She was in Duncan Browne's beach mansion, with nothing but the clothes on her back. Her novel, her precious work, was gone. Her laptop was gone, the tiny life she'd tried to cobble together for herself here in the City of Angels was gone, up in flames.

She rolled over and winced when she felt the pain in her arm.

Oh yeah.

She carefully got out of bed and got dressed in her old clothes, which were definitely looking a little worse for wear. She glared at her puffy face in the mirror and poked at her hair with her one good hand, trying to tame it into some semblance of normalcy. Whatever, she probably wasn't going to run into Justin Trudeau today.

After wandering out to the main area of the house and finding it empty, Reed wasn't sure what to do. Should she go back and wait quietly until the master of the house was awake? Should she turn on the big TV and hope the sound woke him up?

She finally decided to just behave normally, as she would if she were living here, which she was, right? He'd told her to make herself at home, hadn't he? And she was famished, so she was going to make herself some breakfast, dammit.

She wondered if there would be anything she could actually cook with, any actual food. Who knew what kind of crap a rock star kept in his refrigerator?

She was pleasantly surprised to see lots of fresh fruits and vegetables in his fridge, and at least five different kinds of cheese. She found the eggs and decided to make an omelet, and other than having to lean funny to hold the vegetables, she did okay with her limited mobility.

She was just wondering how she could slide the omelet onto a plate when Duncan wandered into the kitchen, shirtless, asking, "What smells so heavenly?" He wasn't using his crutches anymore, Reed noticed. His foot must be feeling much better.

"Breakfast," Reed responded. "Here, get this onto the plate, and it can be yours, okay?"

He took over without a murmur while Reed started on a second, got the coffee going as soon as he was finished, then pivoted smoothly to chopping the fruit that Reed hadn't gotten to yet. The coffee and the second omelet were ready at about the time he finished, so they carried their plates out to the deck to eat while looking at the morning ocean.

"Wow, this is really nice," Reed remarked, gesturing toward the view. There were a few joggers, loyal dogs by their sides, and the ocean was gentle and quiet in the misty morning blue, gentle swells breaking at a towering six or eight inches.

"Yeah, and the house keeps the deck shady until about lunch time, so it's not so blasted hot," Duncan answered.

"Speaking of nice, this omelet is ace," he continued. "Are you a trained chef?"

Reed nearly snarfed her coffee. "Hardly. Though I do like to bake. I worked in a bakery in—in Florida."

"I enjoy cooking," Duncan confided. "Not that I get a lot of opportunity to do it, being on the road so much and everything. I try to keep my hand in when I'm at home, though."

"That's why you have so much stuff in your fridge," Reed said. "I was expecting to find green juice and some beer, so it was nice to find some things I could actually cook with."

They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the day brighten, and drinking their coffee.

"Listen, about today's shopping," Duncan finally said. "You understand I can't go with you myself? It'll cause too much fuss?"