I think everyone found it amusing that I had been sent to the bus to wait. They took forever to finish their tour. Cassidy was forced to go sit with me.
“What’s up, Buttercup?” I asked as I pulled her down onto my lap and hugged her.
She made no move to get up.
“What were you and Tami fighting about?”
“She plans to break up with Tim at some point.”
“That’s all?” she asked as if it was public knowledge.
It sounded like the girls had been talking. Maybe I could get the scoop on Wolf and Sarah. While the story about the sex not being great made some sense, I had a feeling there was more to it. I also suspected that Brook just wanted an excuse for Cindy to show up and cause havoc.
Personally, as long I wasn’t involved, I was okay with it. My friends had been politicking for some sexy fun, and I was sure Cindy could instigate that. It would be funny to see either Wolf or Tim trussed-up like a prized turkey if things got seriously kinky.
“What’s really going on with Wolf and Sarah?” I asked.
“She’s thinking about dropping out of school and modeling full time.”
That made a lot more sense. I knew that Wolf liked her a lot, and now it seemed she could be putting the brakes on because she might not be around. It was similar to what Brook had done to me, but the difference was that we’d talked it out.
I guess it was just something you had to experience to learn. Even though having the conversation would be hard, in the end, it was better to talk about it. The way it was going, Wolf was going to be heartbroken.
I chuckled and shook my head.
“What’s so funny?” Cassidy asked.
“It’s not really funny, just ironic that I have to sit back and watch my friends’ relationships implode.”
“I don’t get it,” Cassidy said, confused.
“I don’t know when I switched from being the clueless guy to the one who can actually see relationship problems about to happen,” I explained.
“You have gone through a lot of girls. If you weren’t learning from all your epic fails, I would be concerned.”
“‘Epic fails’?” I asked.
“Do you really need me to go through your list of disasters? Heck, when I first got here, you’d just had Tracy break your heart. What did you learn from that?” she asked to remind me.
“To not date ‘crazy’ people,” I said, doing air quotes.
“That one is probably obvious,” Cassidy admitted. “But you get my point. I bet you’ve dated more girls than most college-age guys ever do. It only makes sense that you can spot when trouble’s around the corner. The only question you have to ask yourself is whether to tell them.”
“It’s been my experience that they really don’t want to know or will ignore my advice. At least, that was what I did when Tami and my mom warned me of troubled waters in my future.”
“See? You are learning,” she assured me.
“So, you don’t want me to gaze into my crystal ball about you and Don?” I asked.
“Nope. He’s the perfect guy until you decide that you’re ready to date me.”
The scary part of what Cassidy just said was that she was dead serious. I put my hand on the back of her head and turned it so I could kiss her. Something about her goofiness was attractive. I knew that if I dated her, it would never be dull. I also knew that she liked me for myself, just the way I was. As weird as that sounded, I found that was starting to be important to me.
Something else I liked about Cassidy was that she merely embraced my fame and the money that came with it. She also let me treat her like a lady. I guess what I was getting at was she never rejected my generosity or forced me to explain it. I might joke about buying her tacos, but that was how I was taught when growing up: the guy paid.
Cassidy also made sure I never went too far, so I didn’t worry that she was just in it for the money. For big things, like flight lessons, she would push back until she could see why I was doing it.
Bottom line, I trusted Cassidy with my life. When I stopped and thought about it, there weren’t very many people in my life I could say that about. Yes, I had people who loved me and had my best interests in mind, but not many that would take a bullet for me.
◊◊◊
The observatory was everything Lexi had told us it would be. Being in the hills overlooking LA at night was breathtaking.
Brook and I strolled inside to see the swaying Foucault pendulum that moves in a constant direction as the earth turns. We skipped the
Instead, we checked out the Tesla coil. The light show of the arcing sparks dancing off the coil to the walls and the sound of electricity crackling was much more impressive in person than on TV.
