Page 16 of Scripted for Love and Poison
“I think I should call Claudia and ask her.”
“Not so fast!” objected Lola. “When is it again that I’m meeting Luke?”
11
“Where are you?”Sol asked Luke when he picked up the phone.
“Trying to decide whether I should eat at Gjelina or a place called The Butcher’s Daughter that seems like the perfect spot for unemployed screenwriters and their puppies.” Luke was famished, yet he couldn’t seem to make a decision.
“When in doubt, Gjelina is always the answer,” Sol said.
“But I just told you there were cute dogs at the other place.”
“And how come you still haven’t eaten?” she asked. Did she sound upset?
“I wasn’t feeling hungry, and now all of a sudden I’m absolutely famished,” Luke explained.
“How many times do I need to explain how jet lag works?” It looked like he’d managed to make her lose her not-so-ample-to-begin-with patience—again. “If you want to be out of this travel-fatigue loop, you need to start doing things when they’re supposed to happen here, not in London time!”
He let out a slow breath. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“It’s not that, I’m also tired. We haven’t been able to have a moment just to be with each other. Now there’s this new case getting in the way. And I know you hate being here.”
“I don’t hate being here, it’s just that I don’t fancy it much,” Luke admitted. “I do fancy you, though, a lot. And I know this was an important work trip. And all of a sudden it became a work trip for me, too, which isn’t ideal, but Divya tells me we need to take this case because we’re basically skint. Not that I needed to be reminded about it. The state of my bank account speaks for itself.”
“And you’re hating the idea of having to spend even more days in Los Angeles and away from London,” Sol said.
“Yes, but mainly I hate the idea of being away from you. Especially considering we haven’t exactly been spending proper time together lately and most certainly none since we arrived in Los Angeles.”
“Don’t worry about that, you won’t be away from me,” she said, a playfulness in her tone.
“What do you mean? We were supposed to fly back to London tomorrow. I’ll have to reschedule my flight to work on this case,” he said, and he really couldn’t believe he’d be the one to stay.
“I’m also postponing the return. Julie called me. Since we’re here, she wants me to cover a last-minute junket forRed Carpet. It’s actually an interview with Victor Lago. Apparently they’re doing a second round of press forHaughty Horizons.”
“Doesn’tRed Carpetalready have a correspondent here?”
“Do you want to get rid of me or what?”
“Of course I don’t want to get rid of you! I’m just making sure no more journalists have gone missing,” he protested.
“No one else has gone missing!Red Carpet’s regularcorrespondent has to cover something else happening at the same time. It’s a very common occurrence. Julie wanted their regular correspondent to try to do both but now decided to take advantage of me being here, and she’s put me to work,” Sol explained. “She still wants us to find Simon.”
“Of course she does, and again, there’s nouswhen it comes to the case,” Luke said, and he sounded as commanding as possible. “I don’t want you getting involved.”
“Okay, okay. I promise to stay away fromyourcase,” she finally conceded.
“Good, but I’m very relieved I won’t be alone in this awful maze of motorways and retail parks that calls itself a city.”
“Oh my god! You’re such a snob!”
“And I’m looking forward to seeing you often in a strict non-case capacity,” Luke said.
“You mean if we finally find the time to actually have a nice fuck?”
“We haven’t been shagging as often as before, right?” he said, and he was happy she’d also realized it, and it wasn’t that she’d been actively avoiding him because she was thinking of splitting up or any of the other theories that assailed him sometimes.
“We most definitely haven’t, and I haven’t as much as seen you naked—let alone touched you—since we’ve landed in LA.”
