Page 6 of Hello Darling
3
Stella
“That’s an excellent jack o’ lantern.” The tall blonde man nods towards the small jack o’ lantern that sits in front of the letter board on my desk. I carved our business logo into it—made a stencil first, but still. Itisexcellent and not enough people have appreciated that.
“Thank you.”Nice jawline—it’s so sharp you could carve a pumpkin with it.
“Did you carve it?”
“Yes. I did.”
Is that an English accent I’m detecting?
“Once, when I was young, I spent Halloween in Cornwall with my grandparents. It’s traditional to use turnips for jack o’ lanterns there, instead of pumpkins. When they’re lit they smell just unbearably awful. From then on I stuck to Easter visits.” He shakes his head, like he’s not sure why he just told me that. “True story,” he says, smiling sheepishly.
Yup. English accent. Despite what he’s saying, when he speaks it’s like his voice is bringing me a cup of tea and drawing me a bath while composing a sonnet. Or is it calmly disrobing me while feeding me a butterscotch sundae and letting it melt onto my naked body? Something about that accent makes me stand a little straighter, raise my chin a little higher. And yet, something about it makes me want to chomp on chewing gum, blast Metallica from the speakers and make fun of him.
“Sorry—are you talking to me about turnips right now?”
“Well, I was, but I think I’m done. I’m Evan, how do you do.” He holds out his large, manicured hand.
“Hi. Stella Starkey.”
“Of Starkey’s Fitness.” Polite, firm handshake, and yet he holds on just a second too long, holds my gaze three seconds longer than my stomach butterflies can stay still for.
I didn’t even realize those butterflies were still alive in there. “One of them. I mean—I’m one of the Starkeys. I’m the manager. Welcome.” My stomach butterflies and my brain don’t seem to share the same taste in men anymore.
“Thank you. Well, I’ve just arrived in town today, I’ll be here for a while for work. I think my associate called earlier to make sure you’ll take cash in advance for the three-month membership?”
“Yes. She did. We do.”
My brain is whirring. This is the jogger from the beach. Evan is the jogger from the beach. Evan is Evan Hunter. Evan Hunter is the British movie star. Up close, it appears Evan Hunter the British movie star has a bit of a supernatural glow to him. Not like aTwilightvampire, but that healthy glow that beautiful rich people have in pictures and on film and you assume it’s a filter.
I try to concentrate on what this strange vaguely glowing person is saying by focusing on his mouth, because it’s pretty and it’s moving.
What follows is a flood of thoughts and feelings that are so new to me I immediately feel the need to catalog them so I can impose some semblance of control. The first thing I think is: That there is the most beautiful man I have ever seen. The second thing I think is: I don’t like beautiful men. The third thing I think is: Don’t I though? Fourth thing: Nope. Definitely not. Fifth thing: Wait, I have seen this guy in a movie. He was in theRomeo & Julietvideo that Mrs. Greer showed us in English Lit. I was sulking the whole time because I had just had a fight with my boyfriend and thought the play was ridiculous. Sixth: That is a damn pretty mouth. He must exfoliate and moisturize those lips regularly, probably by kissing gorgeous actresses. Thing number seven: Shit, I’ve seen him in something else too. He was in the action thriller that was a modern adaptation ofHamlet. I walked out halfway through. He was good in it, but it was a weird combination of pretentious film school baloney and big budget movie crap. I hated it. And I wasn’t even in a bad mood that time.
I start shaking my head. “I’m sorry, I’m just going to be honest and stop you right there and tell you that I haven’t been listening to a word you’ve said.”
He stops mid-sentence, sucks in his breath and smiles. I’m sure it’s quite common for people’s heads to explode when they first start interacting with him. He smiles with his pretty mouth and his beautiful eyes. He has a kind smile and it still just makes me want to mock him.
“I was babbling for the most part anyway. Is there some sort of form I should fill out, and is it alright if I use an alias? For confidentiality and all that.” He shrugs modestly and searches my eyes to see if I actually realize who he is. There’s no arrogance there. At all.
“Um. Yes. That should be fine. Rest assured, we will keep your membership here confidential, to the degree that we can. I mean. People will see you coming in and out of here. Some of them will recognize you and some of them won’t. Some will care and some won’t. We have no control over that.”
He laughs. “Understood.”
“Promise you won’t sue us if people find out you’re working out here, or God forbid if you sustain an injury on the premises?”
He grins. “You have my word.”
I load up the three-month membership form on the iPad and hand it over to him, glad that I don’t have to use a pen to write anything, because for some stupid reason my hand appears to be trembling.
“Make yourself comfortable.” I wave towards the seating area to the side of the entrance. “Or—are you sure you don’t want a tour of the gym first? You can have a complimentary first day—”
“Not necessary. I’ve checked things out and everything here seems ideal.” He says this while looking directly into my eyes, instead of surveying the gym facilities.
My mouth goes dry again, so I nod and pretend to do some important typing on my laptop while he saunters over to the sofa and pats his jacket pockets, doesn’t find what he’s looking for, then uses his fingers to expand the form on the screen. He probably needs reading glasses and forgot them. I like the idea of him in glasses, but I refuse to Google “Evan Hunter glasses” because I’ve Googled “Jason Momoa glasses” and I am all good, thanks.
