“I love Santa Barbara! Julia Child’s favorite Mexican restaurant is there.”
“Yeah, La Super Rica,” he confirms.
“Their chorizo quesadilla is my favorite.” I shift on the rock wall so I’m facing Owen a little more directly.
“That lady, hand-making tortillas in the back? Can’t beat them.”
I let out a little sigh. The sun, the coffee, the delightful conversation: This fact-finding mission for our fake date is more enjoyable than most real first dates I’ve been on—not that there have been many lately. “And what do you do in Santa Barbara?”
“I’m a literary agent.”
“Ahh,” I laugh. “So when you said you could sell a story, you were being literal?”
“It’s a bad industry joke,” he scrunches his nose, and there’s something about him that’s so endearing, it’s disarming.
“I work for an agency based in LA,” he goes on. “But I work from home.”
“Me too, most of the time anyway. I’m a UX director for a wellness start-up.”
His lip quirks up a little, and my hackles go up.
“What?”
“Nothing. You said your mom wasn’t impressed with your job. Being a UX director for a start-up sounds pretty impressive to me.”
“You’re not Marlowe Arden; nothing impresses her, least of all me.”
Owen studies me for a moment, but doesn’t press at my last comment. “So your mom is Marlowe, and your dad?”
“Salvator, but everyone calls him Big Sal.”
“Big Sal? Should I be nervous?”
“Maybe a little?” I shrug, but Owen looks more than a little nervous. “He’s harmless. He’ll hardly talk to us, anyway.”
“Do you have any siblings?” Owen asks. He shifts his body to face me, bringing our knees only inches apart.
“An older brother, Spenser. But he wants nothing to do with my dad’s restaurant chains or, honestly, my parents at all, so that’s why they are so hell-bent on marrying me off to Peter. Spenser lives in Puerto Escondido and teaches surfing to tourists.”
“But your parents don’t find your job impressive?”
I press my lips together, unsure how to explain my family’s complicated dynamic. “Okay, but how did we go from meeting in a bar to being engaged, especially if you don’t live here?”
“Well,” he scrunches his nose in concentration. “I’m in San Francisco a lot for work. Maybe I started coming more often to see you.” The faint flush that appears on his cheeks is so…sweet that I find myself leaning slightly closer before I catch myself.
“Let’s just keep it simple,” I say, clearing my throat and easing back. “You were in town on an extended work trip, and we met at a bar. We ended up seeing a lot of each other after that. It just felt easy. A few weeks later, you took me on a picnic at Ocean Beach, my favorite beach, and…you asked. And I said yes.”
“That’s it? That’s all I did to woo you?”
“It will be fine. Marlowe and Sal won’t talk to us long enough to get any more backstory.”
Just then, Andy comes through the gate with three enormous dogs, all pulling and lunging in different directions. Andy looks completely unbothered by her charges’ energy, but her eyes go wide when she sees Owen and me with our coffee cups.
“Um, Ladybug?” she says, shifting the leashes to her other hand. “I forgot my phone inside. Can you help me find it?”She thrusts the trio of leashes towards Owen. “Can you hold the boys for me?”
“Um…sure?” Owen sounds unsure but takes the massive dogs’ leather leads.
“Andy?” I ask, but she grabs my elbow and steers me toward the building.
