Page 34 of Wanting a Family Man

“Yeah. The film industry can be problematic, but it’s the devil I know.”

“Plus, you get paid to tell people why they should save the planet. It may not seem like important work in the way that protecting a habitat might be, but you have to get people to care about protecting it before they’ll vote to do it.”

“True.” It was the way he looked at it, but it was nice to hear it from someone else. “Are you hungry?”

“I am, actually.” She dug out the survival blanket from her backpack while he freed Storm.

As she usually did, Storm had dozed off midwalk. He could always tell when she was asleep because she became dead weight, but she was full of energy now. She immediately tried to crawl off the blanket and into the sand.

“Let’s eat before you get your hands dirty.” He drew her into the fence of his bent legs and offered small chunks of banana with sips of water.

She turned and grasped handfuls of his shirt to pull herself up, catching a few of his chest hairs and making him wince.

“Did you always know you wanted to do your show?” Cloe asked as she dipped into her sack of trail mix and sipped from her water bottle.

“Not at all. I don’t like attention, but that’s the beauty of doing it. For the most part, I work alone or with a small team. By the time I release it, I’m off in some new backwoods location.”

“You’ve done talks at conventions and stuff, though. Sorry.” She sheepishly pushed her mouth sideways. “I sound like a stalker. I’m not. I swear.”

“It’s fine.” He was just glad to be off the topic of his childhood. He hadn’t meant to say as much as he had. His public-facing biography said all that he wanted to say about his mixed heritage and how he had stumbled into his career. Most interviews focused on his dating life and plans for the show, never delving into the personal details he’d revealed to Cloe. Those were all things that anyone who lived here knew about him, but saying it aloud still left him feeling unbuttoned.

“I did do the Hollywood thing for a while,” he confirmed, holding a handful of cereal O’s for Storm to pick at. “I hated it with the passion of a thousand suns.”

“I hear that,” she said on a faint chuckle. “As much as I love and miss Tiff, I had some PTSD going through her things that had nothing to do with grief. I felt myself spiraling back into the vortex of needing to wear designer clothes and meet the right people at the right place, terrified I’d be made to feel inadequate over inane things. I wonder if that’s why she wanted to live here,” she mused, “to get away from that. She always seemed to like the flash, but it grinds you down.” Cloe drew up her knees and hugged them, watching the ripple of waves lap at the shore. She turned her head. “You were seeing someone there, weren’t you?”

Storm tried to crawl over his leg to go exploring.

“Will you keep her from chewing rocks while I warm her food?” He handed the baby across and found his pocket camp stove.

Cloe held Storm’s hands as she staggered toward a smooth piece of driftwood, then she knelt beside her to help balance her.

After setting water to boil, Trystan brought out one of Storm’s food pouches. It wasn’t quite thawed. He gave it a squish to break up the chunks, then set it in the hot water, turning off the flame so the pouch wouldn’t scorch while the contents warmed.

Cloe was keeping her attention fixed on Storm, but there was a stiffness in her profile.

Had he bruised her feelings by avoiding the question about his girlfriend? Their breakup had thankfully coincided with a big news day, so it hadn’t made much of a splash. It was public knowledge, but it felt private because he felt like such a fool over it. All of it. From throwing in with Hollywood in the first place to letting a woman use him.

“Yasmine,” he provided. “We broke up.”

He sensed her surprise even though he was concentrating on finding his own bag of trail mix. He was a little surprised himself. He could have let it go. Should have.

“I’m sorry. Was it serious?” she asked gently.

“Serious enough. We said the words.” Had he been in love, though? He wasn’t sure. The sex had been great. She had made him laugh, but there had always been something that held him back from proposing. “She was part of that vortex you mentioned, but she still had a warmth to her. A way of making everyone feel important. She made it easy for me to swim with the sharks so I bought a house for her. Us,” he corrected. “But I was never there, so it was basically for her. It seemed like a good investment.”

“Were you married? Did she take it?” she asked with alarm.

“We weren’t married.” Thank God for small mercies. “But we were talking about it.” He bobbed and squished the pouch. It wasn’t quite warm enough. “Work got complicated. Initially, when I was offered obscene amounts of money for something I was doing anyway, it seemed like a no-brainer to take the offer. I was promised I would maintain creative direction, but I had a bigger support team. Agents and managers, marketing and a PR consultant. First-class travel. I can’t say I hated that.”

“Money is a drug. It messes with your judgment and is highly addictive. People commit crimes to get their hands on it.”

“I’ve never thought of it that way, but yeah. It can be. And it’s funny how the people who give it to you figure they’re buying the right to tell you what to do. I had built my following on choosing locations that interest me. I bring my audience to somewhere they aren’t likely to visit and show them the environment, what lives there, how humans carve out an existence there. Once Hollywood was involved, I was told the show would have a broader appeal if it was more dramatic. The locations became more dangerous, my survival more of a test.”

“I noticed that.” Her brow crinkled as she glanced in his direction. “It’s kind of stressful to watch.”

“It’s stressful to live it.” Cloe was one of the few people he had ever admitted that to. “Storm”—he waved the pouch, shaking the water off it—“want some?”

She grinned and Cloe caught her when she would have toppled to the sand to crawl toward him. Cloe carried Storm back to the blanket and sat cross-legged, tucking the baby into the hollow of her legs, then helped her slurp at the food pouch.

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