Page 8 of The Road Trip Romance

Tate

Sophia is nothing like what I expected. I’d seen a few photos online, but in person, she’s…different. She reminds me of a girl I dated in college right before I got discovered by the owner of a modeling agency. She’s real. I love that she’s wearing normal clothes and no makeup. I love that she doesn’t seem to care about having her hair and makeup perfectly done just to leave the house. I shake my head as I think of Lacey leaving the house. That woman would take four hours to get ready to go to the grocery store, I mean, that is if she ever went to a grocery store. A pang of sadness hits me as I think about her.Fuck.In a way, I still miss her. Talking with Sophia today has reminded me that I’m all alone again. I don’t have anyone to share my life with and, damn, that hurts.

Sophia is upstairs getting her kids settled for the night, which seems like quite the process. Cal has been down here twice and Lizzie three times. They needed water and a snack, and Lizzie required some stuffed animal that was sitting on the sofa.

I hear someone coming down the stairs. Sophia appears in the hallway leading to the kitchen. She looks tired, and suddenly I feel guilty as if my presence here is draining more of her energy. She leans against the refrigerator and looks at me with a sigh.

“You do that well,” I say.

“Do what well?” she asks with exasperation as she looks around the room.

“The wholemomthing.”

She shakes her head and lets her arms fall to her sides. “I really, and I meanreally hateto ask this, but Lizzie is requesting that you read her a bedtime story and I’m pretty sure she’s going to go on a sleep strike until you do it. She keeps saying something about how you are areal actor”—she makes air quotes—“and will be better at it than me.”

I laugh. “Well, normally I charge for such entertainment, but…” I trail off as I grin at Sophia. She rolls her eyes and then cocks her head to one side.

“Hey, where are you staying?” she asks. And the color drains from my face. Had I thought that far ahead? Nope.

“I…hadn’t figured that out yet,” I admit with a sheepish grin and a shrug.

Her eyes widen a little and then she gives me a pointed look. “You’re telling me that Hollywood’s leading actor jumped on a plane to fly across the country last minute and didn’t even book a hotel or rent a house or whatever celebrities do? Don’t you have, like, a PA or someone that does that shit for you?” she asks.

I can’t help laughing because it all sounds way more ridiculous when she says it. “I do. Paul is taking a vacation to see his family. And…”How do I explain that I had a total epic meltdown and came here to escape life because running away seemed like a way better option than facing my fucked-up reality?

She shakes her head. “You can stay here. There’s a pullout bed in the kids’ playroom downstairs.” She pauses. “I’ll warn you. I haven’t been in the playroom since yesterday, so I have no idea the state it’s in. But there’s at least a bathroom with a shower down there.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate it,” I say, clearing my throat to hide my embarrassment over having to crash on the sofa of a woman I met three hours ago. I haven’t been this big of a disaster since I moved to LA twenty years ago.

“Mr. Tate! Will you read me a story?” Lizzie yells from the top of the steps. I get up and follow Sophia to the front door, turning to look up at Lizzie.

Sophia gives Lizzie a look that I can only describe as amomlook.

“Uh, please?” Lizzie adds.

I press my lips together for a second to fight the grin that threatens. I nod. “Yep.”

“Yes!” Lizzie yells as she throws her hands in the air and twirls. I notice she’s wearing a nightgown that looks like a princess dress.

“My room’s over here,” she says. I glance at Sophia, and she motions for me to go upstairs. I get to the top of the steps and look to my right. I see a bathroom straight ahead and a bedroom on the right and left with the doors facing each other. The one on the right is clearly Cal’s room. He’s already curled up on his bed reading a graphic novel.

“Hey, Mr. Tate,” he says without looking up.

“Hi, Cal,” I reply. Sophia points in the opposite direction to a third bedroom.

“I’ll just be in here packing some things for them. They go to their dad’s tomorrow for vacation,” she explains.

Before I can reply, Lizzie grabs my hand and drags me into her room.

Lizzie’s room looks like how I imagine every seven-year-old’s room who is obsessed with Disney princesses and hockey might look. The oxymoron of the décor is what gives the room all its character. Her furniture is dark mahogany with a four-poster bed that has sheer fabric hung from the ceiling and floating down to cover it. She has posters of various Disney princesses and then next to those are posters of various hockey players. Hockey medals hang from the same wall as dress-up princess outfits and tiaras. A hockey stick is in one corner and a dollhouse is in another corner, a castle dollhouse, mind you. Lizzie sits on her bed surrounded by at least twenty stuffed animals. She watches me carefully. And when my gaze meets hers, she gives me a big toothless smile. She’s adorable.

“Will you read me this bedtime story?” she asks as she holds up a book. Not a short book. No, like a full-length novel. Sophia clears her throat from behind me. “Uh, please?” she begs, mistaking Sophia’s action as a correction to her manners.

“Not the entire story,” Sophia clarifies. Lizzie groans.

“Sure,” I reply as I sit down on a chair near her bed and take the book from her.

“Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates,” I state as I read the cover.

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