Chapter The Idea of You: malibu

It was not supposed to happen this way. Our dalliance was supposed to be easy and casual and fun. It was not supposed to entail me wringing my hands about how and when exactly to break my daughter’s heart. But that is how I spent most of November. When the group’s first single from the new album was released and it felt as if suddenly they were everywhere. On the radio, on the TV, on a massive billboard on Sunset that made me simultaneously giddy and nauseated every time I drove past. Hayes, six stories high. When Isabelle was listening to “Sorrowed Talk” on repeat and I could not share with her that Hayes had given me six additional tracks from Wise or Naked for fear that she would tell her friends and somehow they might be leaked. Apparently this—leaking an album—was a thing. And I could not share with anyone how somehow their songs had gone from feeling like harmless pop ditties to inspired, earnest compositions. His words, his voice, affecting me in ways I could not have foreseen, profound. None of this was supposed to happen.

They were performing at the American Music Awards. They were scheduled for several days of press leading up to the show, and Hayes arranged to arrive earlier than the rest of the group and rent a house in Malibu for a few days before heading down to the Chateau Marmont to stay with the others.

I’d had every intention of breaking the news to Isabelle before then, but at each turn my attempts were thwarted.

*   *   *

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” I said. We were hiking in Temescal Canyon the Sunday before Hayes’s arrival. She was leading.

“Me, too.” She smiled back at me, eyes alight.

“You wanna go first?”

“I kind of like this guy, but he barely knows I exist.” The words spilled out of her mouth so quickly, it took me a second to register.

And then I panicked. She’d been raving about him since the Sea Change opening. “Who?”

“Avi Goldman. He’s a senior. He’s on the soccer team. He’s like perfect.”

Oh, sweet relief. “That’s great, Izz.”

“It’s not great, Mom. He sees me, but he looks right through me.” She was walking faster now, the narrow path winding. “It’s like I don’t even register.”

“That’s likely in your head, peanut. You can always introduce yourself, say hi.”

“It won’t matter. He only dates cool, pretty, popular girls. And I’m like…” She shook her head, trailing off.

“You’re what?”

“I’m an eighth-grade fencer with braces.”

“Are you trying to tell me that’s not cool?” I smiled up at her.

She stopped walking suddenly, her eyes welling with tears.

“Oh, Izz, I’m sorry … It’s not going to always be this way. I promise you. You will not always feel this way.”

“You can say that, because look at you.”

I hesitated then. I did not want her making comparisons. “What is he, Avi? Seventeen? Eighteen? Boys that age don’t always have the best judgment. They don’t necessarily know what they want or what’s best for them. And even if he did, Izz, he’s not exactly age appropriate. Your father and I would never agree to that.” The irony of this was not lost on me.

“I know. I just hate feeling invisible.”

I hugged her then, close. “You will not always feel invisible, peanut. I promise.”

She calmed down, and after sometime we began walking again. “So what’s your news?”

“You know what? It can wait.”

*   *   *

And so it was that Hayes was coming to Los Angeles and I had failed him in the first thing he’d asked me to do. And then I failed in the second.

He was flying in on Sunday and picking me up en route to the house in Malibu, and we were going to shack up there for the next three days, cut off from the rest of the world.

And so I’d planned for Isabelle to stay with Daniel. “I need a couple of days to decompress,” I’d said to him, vague. But on Sunday morning he called to tell me he was flying to Chicago last minute for a deal and that he could not take Isabelle after all.

I was irate.

“Are you kidding me? We made arrangements.”

“What do you want me to do, Sol? I didn’t choose this. Have Maria come.” His voice on the line sounded distant, removed. The idea that he would suggest our housekeeper move in for three days, as if she did not have other responsibilities, boggled the mind. But Daniel had grown up with live-in help. Daniel wrote the book on privilege.

“Maria has kids of her own, Daniel. I can’t ask her to sit on a school night.”

“What about Greta?”

“I checked with Greta. She’s working.”

“What is it you’re doing? Where are you going?”

I hesitated. I was not ready.

“Fuck. Is this the kid? Are you planning something with that kid? Solène…”

I did not answer.

“Look,” he said after a moment, “I’m sorry. I would tell you to just drop her here, but … Eva’s sick. And I don’t think you’d be comfortable with that arrangement anyway. I’ll be back on Tuesday—”

“Forget it,” I said. “Forget it.”

Hayes, as I expected, was not so understanding.

Landed.

He’d texted shortly before three-thirty.

Need to talk. Change of plans. Call me.

Will do.

And then, much later:

Fucking paps. Sorry. Ringing you soon.

“Hi.” He called after what seemed an eternity.

“Hi, yourself. How was your flight?”

“Long.” His voice was hoarse, raspy.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes. Why? Are we doing phone sex stuff again?”

I laughed. “No. Just wanted to know where you were.”

“I’m in the car. I’m coming to get you.”

“About that…” I said, and then I told him. That Daniel had flaked, that Daniel knew, that I could join him in Malibu for the evening, but that I could not stay because Isabelle would be home alone. And that I could come up during the day on Monday, but in the evening I would have to return again.

He was not happy. “What? What kind of rubbish is that?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ve been on a bloody plane for eleven hours and you’re telling me you’re not coming?”

“I’m coming. I’m just not staying.”

“Can’t she sleep at a girlfriend’s or something?”

“It’s a school night.”

He paused; I could picture him at the end of the line. Fingers pulling at his hair. “Fuck Daniel.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry … And Hayes, you can’t pick me up here. Isabelle is here and I don’t want her to see you.” This last bit I whispered, from my hiding space, tucked away in the confines of my bedroom closet. This is what it had come to. “I’ll just meet you in Malibu. Okay?”

He took a moment to respond, and even in his breathing I could hear the frustration. “You still haven’t told her? Solène, what are you waiting for?”

“I tried. I couldn’t—”

“You promised—”

“I know. I will.”

“The longer you wait, the more it’s going to hurt her.”

It landed.

The line went quiet for a second, and then: “Fine. I won’t come in the house. But I’m picking you up. Meet me out front. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

*   *   *

Isabelle unwittingly watched me dress for my date with Hayes. I had told her I was going to cocktails and dinner with a couple of clients. That I would not be home too late, but that she should probably not wait up for me. And I had left it at that.

“You look beautiful,” she said, her blue eyes wide, drinking in every detail.

I’d chosen a long black silk shirtdress with a deep neckline, equal parts alluring and demure. This I had learned from my unfailingly French mother: to be both a lady and a woman.

“You don’t look like a mom,” Isabelle observed.

“What does a mom look like to you?”

“I don’t know.” She smiled. “Cartier Love bracelet? Lululemon?”

I laughed at that, her referencing the staples of private-school carpool lanes.

There were so many things I wanted to teach her. That being a mother did not have to mean no longer being a woman. That she could continue to live outside the lines. That forty was not the end. That there was more joy to be had. That there was an Act II, an Act III, an Act IV if she wanted it … But at thirteen, I imagined, she did not care. I imagined she just wanted to feel safe. I could not blame her. We had already shaken her ground.

“Am I a mom?” I asked her then, kissing her forehead.

She nodded.

“Well, then, this is what a mom looks like.”

*   *   *

For someone who’d just gotten off an eleven-hour flight, Hayes was remarkably dewy. Poreless skin, the faintest hint of stubble lining his jaw. And yet I would not let him kiss me until we’d cleared the driveway. Just in case.

“You are incorrigible,” he said. He’d pulled over the car near the bottom of the hill, in the shade of an avocado tree.

“I am?”

“You are.”

“Really?”

“You’ve fucked up everything.” He was kissing me then, one hand at the back of my head, the other between my knees.

“Do you want to just take me back home then?”

“I should…” His hand had found its way beneath my “you don’t look like a mom” dress, no time wasted.

“Is this your hello?”

“This is my hello.”

“Hello, Hayes.” I trembled. His fingers, pulling aside my underwear.

“Hello, Solène.”

There was a song playing that I did not recognize, the smell of new leather, sleek lines on the dash. Where did he get this car? Did someone like Hayes Campbell just walk into Budget or Enterprise and ask for an Audi R8 Spyder? Was he even old enough to rent a car? So many questions. His rings, cool against my skin. His fingers.

“Did you miss me?” I spoke after several minutes, my breathing erratic.

“Not at all,” he slurred, his breath hot in my ear. “I quite enjoy being six thousand miles away from you. Especially when I come to town and you can’t manage to get a fucking sitter.” He withdrew his hand then suddenly and turned back toward the steering wheel. “Where am I going?”

It took me a moment. “Whoa. Oh-kay … Make a right on Sunset and then take it all the way down to the PCH.”

He didn’t say anything after that, but he reached out to hold my hand while he drove. And we remained that way, all the way up the coast.

*   *   *

Hayes’s people had found him a 5,500-square-foot sleek, contemporary house on the cliffs with heart-stopping views and retractable walls of glass and a chef’s kitchen and designer everything, and the fact that we were just visiting saddened me. Because for a moment I allowed myself to imagine what life could be like if we played house there. And maybe I could sell my half of the gallery and send Isabelle to Malibu High School and spend my days painting watercolors and making love and being happy. And then I attempted to picture Hayes as Isabelle’s stepfather and I started to laugh.

“What?” he said.

We were in the master suite and I was drinking in the view from the oversized window seat while he was riffling through his luggage.

“Nothing. I … It’s perfect here.”

“It is.”

“Is it for sale? Do you know?”

“I don’t,” he said, curt. “I’m jumping in the shower. We have reservations for Nobu at seven-thirty. That leaves about an hour to do the things I want to do to you. Don’t go anywhere.”

*   *   *

At Nobu, we dined under the stars. A luxuriant feast of sushi and sake and Hayes’s fingertips playing over my palm at the table. He filled me in on developments in his schedule. The album being released in December to coincide with the documentary, August Moon: Naked. The film premiere scheduled for New York. The tour that would begin in February, last a little over eight months, and take him to five different continents. I tried not to think about it all because much of it translated to time apart. And the thought of that made me miserable.

No fewer than nine people stopped by our table. Those who knew him, or claimed they knew him; three fans. Hayes was gracious at every turn, but I could see it wearing away at him.

“I probably should have picked someplace more low-profile,” he said. “But it’s Sunday. And it’s November. I assumed it would be quieter.”

“It’s still Nobu.”

He was silent for a moment, staring out toward the water. A splattering of stars, a half-moon, a seamless black horizon.

“What if I quit the band?”

“I thought you said that was impossible.”

“It’s not impossible, it’s just … complicated.”

“What would you do if you quit?”

“I don’t know.” He turned back to me then, and reached out to finger my bracelet. The cuff he’d given me in Paris. I had yet to take it off. “I’m just tired. I want a break.”

For a moment neither of us spoke. I watched his fingers tracing over the filigree. His movements slow, hypnotic.

“Why did you get into this business, Hayes? What were you expecting from it?”

“I liked writing music. And I thought … I had something to say. I’m a solid songwriter, and I have a decent voice. It’s not one of those once-in-a-generation voices like Adele, but it’s decent. And I knew I had a good face and that was only going to last for so long, but if I grouped it together with a handful of other good faces with decent voices it might be more compelling. I’d have a better chance of getting my music heard.” He looked up then, meeting my gaze. “And it worked. But I’ve no desire to write happy pop stuff anymore…”

“A lot of your stuff isn’t happy. It’s ironic or tongue-in-cheek. Smart.”

“It’s still … safe. I don’t want to be so safe.”

He was quiet for a moment. The sound of the ocean lapping the shore beneath us, another party’s laughter.

“But I also have this opportunity now that I didn’t really foresee, of being able to affect people and hold their attention. And to not use that for some good, for something bigger than just performing songs, would be a bit of a waste. The chance to do something noble. I’m still figuring it out.”

“You know you’re only twenty, right?”

He grinned. “So you keep reminding me.”

“You have so much more time to do whatever it is you want to do. Just enjoy this for what it is, because you’re not always going to have it.

“And you have the rest of your life to redefine yourself, if ever you get tired of being ‘Hayes Campbell, pop star.’”

He smiled, slow, leaning in across the table. His eyes a muddy-blue in the candlelight. “If I kiss you here, are you going to be okay with that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t you try it and see?”

*   *   *

We got back to the house close to eleven. All the indoor lights were off, and so I assumed Isabelle was sleeping.

“So what’s the plan?” Hayes asked, pulling into the driveway, killing the engine.

“I’ll drop her off in the morning, and then I’ll come back up to you.”

“This is rubbish, you not spending the night. You know that? I’m going to be very lonely in that big house all by myself.”

“You’ll manage.”

“Barely.”

I laughed. He leaned over to kiss me, and we went at it for a couple of minutes. It felt a little like being eighteen again, there in the car, his hand pressed to my cheek, the faint taste of alcohol. And Hayes, being Hayes, had one hand up my dress in very little time.

“Don’t.” I grabbed his wrist. “My daughter is inside. I need to go.”

“Just give me a minute…”

“You really like doing that, don’t you?”

“I like just knowing that I can.”

“Tomorrow,” I said, opening the door.

He smiled his half smile. “I like you.”

“I like you, too.”

“Come back to me,” he said.

“Tomorrow.”

*   *   *

The house was completely quiet when I entered, which was odd. Typically Isabelle left the television on when she was home alone after dark. Something about the silence put me on edge.

Hayes’s Audi had just peeled away, and I could faintly hear the gears shifting as he descended the hill. Likely driving too fast. Boys and their toys.

I was tiptoeing down the hallway, my shoes in my hands, when Isabelle’s bedroom door flew open without warning.

“Oh God, you scared me,” I started. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“Where were you?”

“What are you still doing up, Izz? It’s late.”

“Where were you, Mom?” she repeated, urgent. She was dressed for bed: a T-shirt, flannel pajama pants, her thick dark hair in a ponytail. But there was something off about her face, her eyes.

“I told you, I had dinner with a client … a couple of clients.” I was trying to remember the story.

“Were you with Hayes?”

Fuck.

“Who?”

“Hayes Campbell. Were you with Hayes Campbell?” She was not asking it gently. She was not being polite. She knew.

And suddenly I could feel the black cod with miso threatening to make a reappearance. “Yes. He’s a client of mine. We had dinner.”

“A client? Don’t lie to me, Mom. I saw you. You were kissing him. I saw you.” Her tears were welling. And I could feel it, her pain, in my knees.

This is not how it was supposed to happen, in the confines of the narrow corridor with the walls closing in and her childhood photos taunting me and me playing defense. Not this way.

“Izz…” I’d begun to sweat.

“Oh my God. Are you dating him?”

“I’m not—”

“You’re dating him? You’re dating Hayes Campbell?!”

“Honey, I’m not dating him. We’re … we’re friends.” God, what a crock! I was standing there with his sperm still swimming inside me, and attempting to convince her otherwise. And my daughter could see right through me.

“Gross. Gross. Gross, Mom.” She was visibly shaking. “That is so gross! How can you be dating Hayes Campbell? You’re old! You’re like twice his age!”

If she’d wanted to hurt me, she’d succeeded.

I reached out for her shoulder, and she pushed me away. Her tears were pouring, and I got the impression that if she could have hit me, she would have.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Were you just not going to tell me?”

“Isabelle … I’m sorry.”

“I love him.”

“You don’t love him, Izz. You love the idea of him.”

She looked at me, her eyes wild with fury. “I. Love. Him.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

She began to ramble, snot running from her nose, her lips catching on her braces. “I heard the car, because the TV wasn’t on, so I heard the car, and I looked and it looked like him, but I was thinking, ‘No way.’ There was no way that was him, because he was supposed to be in London until later this week when they come for the AMAs, and Ellen, but it really looked like him and I searched it, and there are paparazzi shots of him landing at LAX today. And it’s him. It’s him. And he’s in our driveway and he’s kissing you. He’s kissing you. He picked you. And I hate you. I hate you I hate you…”

The way she’d said it, like it was a competition between us, made me numb. “Izz, I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, crazed. “Did you…? Are you…?” She trailed off, unable to articulate.

I did not know what sordid thoughts she was entertaining. But they were probably accurate.

“Oh God. How could you do this to me? How could you? Oh my God, this isn’t really happening!”

“Isabelle.” I reached for her again, and she recoiled.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me. What kind of mother are you?” she spat, stepping back into her pink-and-white bedroom. Ripping my heart.

“Izz, you’re making a much bigger deal out of this than it is—”

“Don’t come in here,” she said, slamming the door. Locking it. “Don’t come in here.”

I sat there. Outside of her closed door, for an hour. Listening to her sob and destroy things. And there was nothing I could do. Keep calm and carry on.

“I’m sorry, Izz. I’m sorry,” I kept repeating. But to her, it meant nothing. I’d waited until it was too late. And as Hayes had predicted, it was ugly.

*   *   *

She did not talk to me for a week.

*   *   *

On Monday, she went to school, looking as if she’d gone twelve rounds in a boxing match, she was that swollen. I insisted she stay home, but she refused: she did not want to be around me. I don’t know what she told her friends.

*   *   *

On Tuesday after school, she packed a bag and waited for Daniel to pick her up. When I pleaded with her again, and apologized again, she turned to me very coldly and asked, “Did you have sex with him?” And when I could not answer her, she started to cry.

*   *   *

She would not return until Sunday, when Daniel insisted on bringing her back. She had up to that point not responded to any of my calls or texts, but had no other option because Daniel was leaving town again. He dropped her off that afternoon, and when I attempted to hug her, she let me, although she did not hug back.

“I missed you,” I said, inhaling her. Her shampoo, her sunscreen.

She nodded, and then made her way into the house.

Daniel was in the driveway, pulling bags out of the trunk of the BMW. I moved to help him.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” he said.

“Thanks for bringing her.”

He shook his head, irritated. “It’s been a very fucked-up week.”

“I know.”

He shut the trunk then and finally looked at me. “I warned you. I fucking warned you. Jesus Christ, Sol, what were you thinking?”

I did not respond.

“Seriously. What the hell were you thinking? He’s a kid. Have you lost your mind?”

My temples throbbed. For days my head had hurt, and my thoughts had been dark and slow and muddled, like being stuck inside a Turner painting.

“You know what, I’m not going to have this conversation with you. Not now. Possibly not ever.”

“No. You are. Because our daughter is a complete and total mess right now, and I fucking warned you this would happen, and this is not just about you…”

It killed me to hear this, to know that he was right.

“She’s been listening to Taylor Swift’s new album on repeat and saying that she finally understands her pain,” he continued. “I don’t even know what that means…”

“She’s hurting, Daniel. Her heart’s broken.”

“Because of this Hayes kid? Or because of you?”

That stung.

For a moment he was quiet, staring out at the street. “My God, Sol,” he said, low, “what are people going to think?”

It struck me: the fact that in the midst of all this he was thinking about appearances and judgment. It was base and unappealing. And I had to wonder if this is how I’d come across to Hayes. Caring about how things looked and what people thought and not what truly mattered.

A couple of hikers were descending the hill, and Daniel paused until they were fully out of earshot.

“How did this even happen?” he asked. “How long has this been going on?”

I didn’t answer. My mind was off in a thousand different places, a dozen different hotel rooms. New York. Cannes. Paris.

“Are you in love with him? My God, what am I asking? He’s like eighteen.”

“He’s not eighteen.”

“You have to end this.”

“Please don’t tell me what I have to do.”

“You have to end this. It’s like my wife is Mary Kay Letourneau.”

“I’m not your wife, Daniel.”

He froze then, realizing his error. It took him a moment to collect himself, and then: “I mentioned it to Noah, and Noah already knew. How the fuck did Noah know? Have you been talking to Noah?”

“No.”

“Then how the fuck did he know?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Soho House…”

“Soho House?”

I watched him processing, as if in slow motion. The sun glaring in his eyes.

“That was him? That was him who came over to our table at lunch? Were you fucking him then? Were you fucking him when he came over and introduced himself?”

“Daniel…”

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“Please, stop.”

“Eva’s pregnant. We’re getting married,” he spat.

If he had punched me in the face, it would not have hurt more.

“I was waiting for the right time to tell you, but it never came. I’m sorry.”

He stood there for a moment, not knowing quite what to do. And then he got into his BMW and drove away. Leaving me, once again, with the baggage.

*   *   *

On Monday, the day after August Moon performed “Sorrowed Talk” on the American Music Awards and walked away with four trophies, Hayes came to visit.

I had spent much of the previous Monday and Tuesday at the house in Malibu, crying. He’d held me and comforted me, and not once did he reprimand me for having waited so long. And then he expressed the desire to talk to her when things calmed down.

“I think it will only make things worse,” I’d said. We were sitting on the balcony, staring out at the waves, the rolling hills behind us.

“I don’t think it will. Part of what’s alienating her is that I don’t quite seem real. Like I’m the bloke in the poster and, to her anyway, I’m not tangible. She’s put me on some pedestal where I can’t possibly live up to whatever it is she has in her head. And she needs to see that I’m just kind of normal and human.”

“You? Normal? Human?”

He smiled. “Sometimes…”

And so, Monday afternoon, when I was still reeling about Daniel and Eva’s news, and when Isabelle was still punishing me with monosyllabic exchanges, Hayes showed up at the house. I had not given Isabelle warning. Because I did not want her to prepare or overthink it. I just wanted her to be. She was sitting on one of the lounges in the backyard, doing her homework, a blanket wrapped around her narrow shoulders.

“Izz, someone’s here to see you.”

She glanced up, and her expression when Hayes stepped out revealed what to me seemed the full extent of everything a thirteen-year-old girl could feel. Love and betrayal and heartbreak and expectation and disappointment and fury and lust and hurt. And the fact that it all fell on his shoulders worried me. But if he was daunted by it, it did not show.

“Hi, Isabelle,” he said, sitting beside her on the lounge. His voice raspy, comforting, familiar.

She smiled at him, faint. And then she started to cry.

Hayes, apparently, was used to girls crying around him. Girls crying because of him. I watched as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and tucked her head into his neck, and repeated, over and over, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” while stroking her hair. And it was like magic. Everything she would not allow me to do for her, she accepted willingly from him. And he sat like that, still with her, for a very long time.

“You all right?” he said eventually.

She nodded. “You came all the way here to see me?”

“I heard you were upset.”

Isabelle looked over to where I was standing by the sliding doors. She started to say something and then stopped. “You guys were really good last night,” she mustered instead.

“Thank you. Did you see me almost trip? That was classy.” He was quiet for a moment and then: “So … this is weird, right? I know. It’s kind of weird for me, too.”

“Except you don’t have all my albums, and pictures and stuff. You never stayed up late watching my videos and planning how you were going to marry me and my friends. So no, it’s not weird for you in the same way.”

“All right.” He smiled at her. “Point taken.” And then, after a very long pause: “I really like your mum.”

Isabelle did not speak. She was avoiding eye contact, fingering her friendship bracelet, the lone survivor from summer camp. The others had all unraveled.

“I’m sorry that upsets you, but it kind of just happened. And sometimes you can’t plan these things.”

He allowed her to sit with that for a bit. Not forcing the issue. He was so good at this. And in that moment I recalled our conversation in the bar of the George V. I’m surprisingly well-adjusted, he’d said.

“But look, it’s just me, right? And I’m here. And I’m kind of in your mum’s life. Which means I’m kind of in your life. For the time being, anyway. And I’d really like for us to be friends.”

I could sense my eyes welling.

“I know right now you feel like shit…”

Isabelle smirked.

“Sorry,” Hayes apologized, “like crap. But when you’re feeling better, if you’re up for it, we have a movie coming out next month and they’re premiering it in New York, and I would really love for you to come. And maybe you can bring a friend or two. But you have to promise me you won’t cry. No crying on the red carpet. Can you do that?”

She giggled, hiding her braces with her hand. I hadn’t seen her smile in eight days.

“You also have to promise you’re going to be nice to your mum. Because she never wanted to hurt you, and it’s killing her that you’re so sad. All right? Can you promise me that?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” he said. “What are you working on?”

“Math.”

“Maths? Ech. I sucked at maths.”

She laughed at that.

“I am sorry that you are being subjected to that … torture. I’m very sorry.” He reached into his pocket. “Fancy a stick of gum?” He offered it to her, and while she was opening the wrapper, he glanced over his shoulder at me and stuck out his tongue. Still my Hayes.

Later he joined me in the kitchen, where I was making tea.

“That was amazing. How did you do that?”

He smiled, shrugging. “I’m good with people.”

“Was that on your list?”

“Probably. I’m like … a fixer.”

“A fixer?” I laughed.

He nodded, watching me pour the hot water. “I’m like the one they send in to calm down all the crazed hyperventilating fans.”

“I thought you didn’t do well with women who freak out.”

“I don’t do well with women who freak out. But I can handle girls.” He smiled, easy.

“Thin line…”

“Sometimes.” He moved toward me then, wrapping his arms around my waist. “And, you know, I make all the girls so happy…”

“Apparently,” I said, kissing him.

“And occasionally, I make their mums happy, too.”

“Very…”

“Very.”