She hadn’t even heard the relevant portion of his explanation, and her eyes had already warmed, her posture opening—arms no longer crossed, shoulders relaxing—as she bloomed in sympathy for him, and goddammit, she needed to stop being so fucking good.
“I almost lost my shit completely, Lauren. I came very, very close to walking away from that movie a dozen times. The only thing that kept me going, the only thing that made my daily existence bearable, was the local wildlife.” He thought back to his favorite animals. “We saw squirrels. Deer. Birds. Especially this one type of bird, which had an incredibly loud, cheerful song.”
She nodded, obviously cognizant of where his anecdote was going. But he needed to say it anyway, because he couldn’t stand for her to think ill of him.
“It was a wren. A winter wren. Small and round and bright-eyed and …”
Wonderful, he almost said. Amusing. Adorable. Charming.
Her mouth had turned soft, and her lips parted as she stared at him, her face only inches away. She didn’t utter a single word, though. She simply waited for him to finish whatever he had to say.
He lifted a shoulder. “Ever since then, I’ve liked birds.”
Still, she said nothing. Her patience was endless. Endless, and agonizingly sweet. He couldn’t comprehend how someone could simply sit and listen for so long, without needing to interject her own thoughts, without defending herself or leavening the mood somehow.
He’d bet his mini-castle that she was an exemplary therapist.
He already knew she was an exemplary human.
“If you don’t want me to call you Wren, I won’t,” he said. “But it’s not an insult. It never was.”
He rose to his full height once more, and she tipped her head back to watch.
When she’d ascertained that he was done speaking, she finally responded, her words simple and ringing with sincerity. “I apologize. I thought the worst of you without asking for an explanation. Again. I’ll try to do better. And yes, you can call me Wren.”
He couldn’t stand the remorse in that low, sweet voice. “Well, it’s not as if I’ve never insulted you. You had cause to be suspicious.”
“True. You’ve insulted me once or twice.” Her lips twitched, and his own shoulders relaxed. “Not about that, though.”
“Not about that,” he agreed.
As he tugged on his damp shirt, she tipped back her chin to stare at the dark sky wheeling above. “Did you work out your restlessness? Or do you want to do more stairs?”
“I’m done with the stairs.” For tonight, at least. He couldn’t make any promises about tomorrow. “Do you want to head back? Or do you want to sit for a few more minutes?”
After his late-night rambles, that was his custom. His mind finally calm and clear, he could take time to reflect on the beauty around him and be grateful. But she’d been awakened from sleep, and they’d been out for well over an hour now. Any normal person would want to start the hike back to the mini-castle.
“I’d like to sit for a while,” she said, to his surprise. “Is that okay?”
“Sure.” He perched on a nearby step. “I’m in no hurry. Just let me know when you want to leave.”
She gave a little hum of agreement, and they sat in peaceful silence. After a few minutes, the motion-sensor lights from surrounding properties extinguished. Stars seemed to wink into existence then, suddenly much more visible in the velvety darkness. At the foot of their mountain, Hollywood sparkled in the distance.
Stars above, stars below.
“I told you about the job I almost walked away from.” Angling his body toward her, he studied her face upturned to the sky. “You owe me, you tight-lipped vault of a woman.”
At that, she lowered her chin, meeting his eyes. “What, precisely, do you think I owe you, Woodroe?”
There was tolerant fondness in that gaze, in that voice, and he wanted to wallow in it.
“Tell me why you left the hospital.” It was ostensibly an order. A challenge. But even he could hear the hint of a plea beneath the bluster. “Why leave a good job to work for someone like Ron?”
He infused her cousin’s name with all the loathing it deserved, because he couldn’t seem to get over it. The bastard hadn’t even asked how Lauren was doing after she got body-slammed by that asshole on the red carpet. Not once.
Her hesitation strained his limited patience, but he held steady, stayed silent, and received his just reward after several fraught seconds.