“Dilapidated.” Dry as the Santa Ana winds. “Also, according to the real estate agent, storybook. Or Hansel and Gretel.”
“Did you know—” He had to stop for another fit of laughter. “Did you know that Ian has a castle too? And it’s the tackiest fucking place you’ve ever seen? He got it a month after I moved into my house, so I think he bought it as some sort of weird dick-measuring thing.”
She choked a little too, seemingly on thin air. “Like, my turrets are taller and more upright than yours?”
“There are made-up coats of arms and long axes on the walls inside.” Ah, happy memories. “The one time I visited there for a cast thing, I told him straight-faced that my castle had a long axe too, and it was longer than any of his. The next time we were filming together, he showed me a photo of his brand-new custom axe. The shaft was twelve goddamn feet long, Lauren, no lie.”
And there he had it. She was actively laughing again, her eyes bright, her smile wide.
“Now, then,” he said with satisfaction, “let’s go inside and survey the lackluster contents of your wardrobe. We don’t have all day for your chitchat, Nanny Clegg. Chop-chop.”
She stopped laughing and glared at him, then sighed and got out of her hybrid.
The turret was fun, but the interior of her duplex—which she apparently shared with her best friend, Sionna, who was at work and thus not available for his interrogation—wasn’t especially prepossessing. The apartment had decent enough wooden floors and casement windows, but also a tiny, tiny bedroom and an equally tiny kitchen that had, at some point in its lamented past, undergone disastrous updating.
He recognized the IKEA furniture from his lean years in Hollywood, pre-Gates.
“Hey, Billy!” he greeted the bookshelves as he moved past them. “Long time no see!”
She just rolled her eyes and waved him into her bedroom, which was disappointingly neat and free from clutter. Any personality she had here, she kept locked away, apparently. He really needed to get a closer look at those bookshelves, or possibly her nightstand.
Women kept all sorts of fun stuff in their nightstands. He knew that for a fucking fact.
Like her kitchen, her wardrobe was outdated and disastrous. At least, assuming she wanted to wear anything other than tees, jeans, leggings, black pants, or neutral button-downs for the rest of her benighted, boring-ass life. Which she apparently didn’t, since the clothes she kept packing in a suitcase were from those groups.
“You have a suck-ass wardrobe, Nanny Clegg,” he told her.
She blew out an exasperated breath. “My nicer clothes, I brought with me to Spain. They’re already in the guesthouse.”
He tried to think back. “I don’t remember any nice clothes.”
“I wore a dress to dinner that first night!” She threw up her hands. “A swing dress! It’s dark green and pretty!”
He’d like to see her in it again. At the time, he hadn’t paid sufficient attention, clearly.
“Maybe so, but it’s not a cocktail dress either.” He perched on the end of her bed, and holy Jesus, the woman needed a better mattress, stat. “What do you have that’s sparkly?”
Another withering look. “I don’t do sparkly.”
When she produced a black dress, he nodded. “I see. You do funereal instead.”
“It’s lace.” She shook the hanger in his face. “It’s a lovely dress, and I feel good in it.”
That brought him up short. If her depressing black dress and unmemorable green swing dress helped her feel comfortable in her own skin, he’d have to be a real asshole to insult them.
He frequently was an asshole, of course. But maybe not so much today.
“Let’s see it on,” he said.
“What?” Her face scrunched up in confusion, and honestly, it was kind of adorable.
“Try it on.” His flick of the hand directed her toward the bathroom. “If it’s not appropriate for the red carpet, we’ll figure something else out. I can call in some favors, or there’s always Gates’s wardrobe department. They’d probably be able to whip up a suitable dress in time.”
“I’m not playing dress-up with you,” she said dampeningly.
“Why not?”
She didn’t have a good answer to that, apparently, because she bustled into her bathroom with the dress. Or, more accurately, stomped, which was a different sort of victory.
After several minutes, she poked her head around the door.