“Thanks. I know it’s not spectacular. But I’m proud of it. Hey, look at this.”
She walked to the sliding patio door and jerked her head toward the backyard.
The sunlight was shimmering off the in-ground pool, and the water looked inviting.
“I didn’t want to buy a huge mansion. Can’t afford one anyway. But the one thing I dreamed about as a kid was having a pool at my own house. My grandpa would scrape up money to buy me a pool pass to the town aquatic center. It was my favorite place in the world, and I dreamed about having my own one day with a diving board and everything.” She smiled proudly. “Here I am.”
“That’s awesome!” Harrison said. “I’m happy for you. Your career is really taking off.”
She got in the cabinet, retrieved her blender, then placed the various ingredients on the granite island.
“Have a seat,” she said.
The actor eased his giant frame onto one of the stools opposite her and watched for a moment as she started combining everything.
“Thanks for having me over.”
“Is everything okay?”
“I was going to ask you that.”
She exhaled sharply, nodded, and said, “The incident with Rowan.” She threw a few strawberries into the blender, their fall softened by the Greek yogurt she’d already added. “How bad is it?”
“You really want to know?”
Riley nodded. “I’ve been staying away from it. Haven’t checked headlines. But I guess I need to know.”
Harrison pulled out his phone from the pocket of his jeans and tapped and swiped for a moment. “The big gossip sites are running with it. Some influencers with big followings have made some videos about it, breaking down all that happened. Or at least, all they think happened. On legit news sources, if it’s mentioned at all, it’s way down the list.”
She peeled a banana and started breaking chunks off, adding them to the blender. “And what so-called details are they giving?”
“Oh, lots of theories. They’re careful in how they word everything, of course.”
“Sure,” she said. “They don’t want a lawsuit. Or two.”
“Right. But the gist of it is that Rowan was definitely drunk. You might have been. Y’all got into a fight and he ran, while you, and this is a quote from one of the influencers,desperately tried to catch up to him, worried your relationship was over and demanding to know who the other woman is.” Harrison shook his head. “I’ve been around this town long enough to know better than to believe half of what I hear. But they are tying it back to your past?—”
“My DUI,” she said before firing up the blender.
Neither one of them spoke while the loud machine mixed the smoothie to the right consistency.
“Want any?” she asked as the blades were coming to a standstill.
“I’m good, but thanks.”
She poured her breakfast into a glass, took a drink, then said, “That crap is behind me.”
Harrison bobbed his head and leaned back a little, leveling a thoughtful gaze across the island at her. “There’s no judgement. I had something similar back when I was just getting started. Man, it’s embarrassing to think about now. But I wasn’t in a good space. Didn’t know how to handle my rising fame. And on top of that, I was living with the shame that I was a Little.”
Riley arched her brows. “You?”
Harrison chortled. “I wasn’t always so comfortable with myself. Now, if I had to choose between my Little life and my career? Well, there’s no question which one I’d pick. This was all before I met my wife and Mommy, Diana, and before I found Stryker and my other friends in Mountainville. I was drinking too much. Driving too fast. Sort of had alive fast and die youngmentality. Know what I mean?”
Riley took a few more sips of her smoothie as she thought about it. Finally, she nodded. “I do know what you mean. When I came to town, I still hadn’t dealt with my grandpa’s death. And I was a dirt-poor girl from small-town Arkansas who’d never had a taste of fame or a big city. When I had both, I went a little crazy. But those days are long behind me. That DUI might have been the best thing to ever happen to me. I got into therapy. Worked on myself. I haven’t touched a drop in over two years.” She held up her smoothie. “I much prefer this these days.”
Harrison grinned. “Respect.”
“Why, thank you.”
