Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 107352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
“Pardon me?” Benji asked, looking at the actor. “Fly in for what?”
“Fly in for the wedding,” Ash clarified. “Cooper told me Shaw had to pick you up all the time from the airport, so I assume you don’t live here in Chicago like the rest of us.”
Ashford Lennox had left Malibu, California, earlier this year to live in the Windy City with the man he was going to marry. It had taken him and Cooper a mere eight months of doing the bicoastal thing to realize they both wanted more. The thing was, Cooper had a family, mother, father, sisters, nieces and nephews, who all needed him. Ash had a flourishing career that he could do from anywhere, was highly in demand, and had a boatload of friends who loved to travel. When weighed out, there was only one choice to be made. The person who could move and not suffer was him. Plus, from what Ash had told me at several dinners, he was ready to be out of Southern California. He loved it, truly, but he was excited for the different seasons, and of course, more than anything, to sleep every single night he could beside the man he was madly in love with. There were still times they were apart because of filming, promotional tours, and various appearances, but to have a home base where he and Cooper could be together, alone, was a gift he would not take for granted. He was crazy about my friend, which to me was utterly mind-boggling. Not that Cooper was lacking in any way, but how often did huge Hollywood actors fall for mere mortals? That was nuts.
They resided in Highland Park, which was a very nice—wealthy—area. Ash had immediately fallen in love with the town Cooper lived in, but not at all with his house. It was far too small for Ash’s needs and nowhere near as secure as it had to be. Now Cooper lived in a mansion, with gates and motion detectors that an A-list star required for protection. They also had a lot of houseguests at any given time, so that made sense. You couldn’t have Nick Madison coming in and out of your house and not have a riot on your street.
“But I do live here,” Benji said, squinting at Cooper. “Why did you tell him that?”
“Why do you think?”
“Ohmygod,” Ella Guzman, who was sitting beside Ash, said under her breath. “You all need to stow this conversation until after the wedding.”
“Wait,” said her date, Marc Sanchez, a dancer at the Chicago Ballet Company. He put his hand on Cooper’s shoulder. “I want to know. Did you totally lie to my favorite actor?”
“Yes, I lied,” Cooper snarled at him. Marc had become a fixture lately, he and Ella seemed very serious, so it wasn’t a surprise that Cooper was himself with the man. He was sticking around, after all. “I wanted him to think a bicoastal relationship would be easy.”
“You lied to me?” Ash asked, trying for horrified but not sounding even a bit upset.
“That’s terrible acting,” Locryn muttered. “Not convincing in the least.”
“So what if he lied? It was for a good reason,” Sienna chimed in, defending her friend. Easy to see she adored Cooper from the way she spoke to him and held his hand. They had gotten close when she had attended the wedding where Cooper and Ash had met. “I think it’s very sweet and shows how in love he is.”
“And it worked,” Benji remarked with a shrug. “I mean, really. Here you are.”
Ash smiled at the man he very obviously loved.
“I regret nothing,” Cooper assured him.
“Now that we’ve put that to bed,” Benji began, “please tell me why that man Darius having a vault is so important.”
“No, he is the vault,” Cooper corrected.
“Well, I’m a vault too,” Ella commented. “Anything anyone tells me, I don’t repeat.”
“Same,” Benji agreed. “So why is that such a big deal to be related to us when he was introduced?”
“I was wondering that myself,” Nick said distractedly, tucking a wayward piece of Locryn’s hair behind his ear. “It seemed so odd.”
“No, not a vault,” Cooper repeated. “The vault.”
“All you’re doing is repeating the same words over and over,” Ella pointed out.
“Explain it to those of us who didn’t attend the lecture and only received the CliffsNotes,” Benji insisted.
“I’m going to text you all now,” Ash stated, because apparently, he knew, which was good, because it saved me the trouble. The fact that he had everyone’s numbers in his phone spoke to how important Cooper’s friends were to him. I liked that a lot.
The entire group was quiet as they read, which was probably a relief to the other wedding guests around us. But then we were all suddenly shoving over as people I hadn’t seen in years, fixers who had left us ages ago, joined us, squeezing in, introduced to everyone by me because I was the one who’d been at Torus Intercession the longest and still remembered them.