Paparazzi Ch. 02 of 02

She couldn't look at me, and the swelling in my throat made it hard for me to speak. All I could do was reach out and take her hand.

She ventured a quick glance at me and then looked down again. "When you went away, I found I couldn't stop thinking about you. I missed you terribly, missed the man I could let down my guard with and trust. When you told me you weren't coming back, it felt like a knife in my chest." She looked up at me again. "Then when you told me how you felt about me, I knew I had to let you know I feel the same way. I love you too, David."

Even as hope began to grow in me, my mother's pessimism seemed to well up in me. "But how can things ever work out for us, Starla? Your home and your job are here, and I'm committed to leave L.A.!"

She looked at me solemnly. "After your call last week, I made a decision. When you came to the office today, I was meeting with the agency head to discuss my resignation. I've always wanted to go back to school and get my college degree, and I decided that if you were brave enough to follow your dream, I could do the same thing."

I was glad for her, but this seemed like it would only make things more complicated. "Where are you going to go?" I asked.

"Well," she said with a little smile, "I haven't made a commitment yet, but I hear the University of the South has a good reputation."

Now hope began to win the battle with pessimism within me, but I still had to ask, "Are you sure, Starla? Do you really want to come back with me to Sewanee? It's a small town and it's up on a mountaintop, far away from the city. Are you sure you can be happy in a place so different from L.A.?"

"What makes you think that L.A. is my home?" Starla demanded with a smile. "Come on, David, nobody is from L.A., everybody here comes from somewhere else. Want to know where I grew up? It was a little town called Boone in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. I'm a small town girl, too."

Then she got that solemn look on her face again. "David, if you want me to come with you, then I'm more sure about this than any decision I've ever made in my life."

I pulled her to her feet and stood facing her. "And I'm sure I want you with me more than anything I've ever wanted in my life," I said huskily. Then I pulled her to me. "Now you'd better brace yourself, because I've wanted to kiss you for a long time."

And in the glow of the lights of L.A. we kissed for the first time.

After a long time she pulled away from me and said very shyly, "Now I want you to take me back to my place and make love to me." A little smile flickered across her face. "Just promise to be a little gentler with me than you were with Bitsy, at least the first time."

"Damn that airhead!" I thought. But all I said was, "I promise I won't hurt you, Starla, now or ever."

As we started to walk back to where we had parked, she reached in her pocket, pulled out a set of keys and handed them to me. "You know, if you're going to be my hero you really should have a white horse," she said with a big grin.

I looked at her in confusion.

"Jinx had another reason she wanted to see you. She wanted to give you a reward for saving her life," Starla said, pointing up the hill.

There, parked next to my beat-up old Toyota, was Jinx's white Ferrari, its rampant horse logo prominently displayed on the hood.