Claim Me: A Novel

gorgeous sight ever.
    “Hi,” I say.
    “Hi, yourself. What have you done so far today?”
    “Very little,” I admit. “It’s been heaven.”
    “Would you object to going out? I have someplace I’d like to take you.”
    “Yeah? Where?”
    “Rollerblading on Venice Beach,” he says, and I burst out laughing—at least until I realize he’s serious.
    “Really?”
    “It’s fun. Have you ever done it?”
    I have to admit that I haven’t, and Damien tells me that it’s high time I tried.
    “In that case, I have the perfect accessories.” I unwrap the shirts and caps, then pull my shirt on over the dress and shove my hair into a cap. “The more we look like tourists, the less anyone will recognize us.”
    “Not to mention the fact that you look pretty damn cute.”
    I look at myself in the full-length mirror and decide it could be worse. It’s not a fashion statement, but I look like a girl having a lazy, touristy Sunday afternoon.
    Damien, of course, looks hot as sin in the gray T-shirt that hugs his body and the black baseball cap that accentuates his chiseled jaw and brilliant smile.
    He has a leather backpack, and he offers to hold my wallet and phone. “Leave everything else,” he says.
    “Don’t we have to check out?”
    “It’s my room,” he says. “Well, the company’s. We keep this suite permanently leased for visiting clients and execs from out of town.”
    Not a bad deal
, I think, as we head down to the valet stand. Soon we’re in the Jaguar and heading west down Santa Monica Boulevard.
    Damien knows the small streets of Venice well and soon he has the car settled in an attended garage and we’re sitting on a bench strapping on rented Rollerblades, kneepads, and helmets.
    Twenty minutes later, we’re back on the bench, taking them off and returning them to the little rental stand.
    “I told you I’d be horrible,” I say.
    “You were pretty bad,” he acknowledges. “I’m not sure how someone so graceful can actually have no balance whatsoever.”
    “I can balance,” I say. “Just not on tiny little lines of wheels. What about bicycles?”
    He eyes me dubiously.
    I cock my head and raise my brows. “Yes. I can ride a bike.”
    We find a rental stand and then I spend the next two hours proving to him that I have in fact retained this childhood skill. Although, to be honest, it’s not a childhood skill at all. My mother was too worried about potential scrapes and bruises. So I didn’t learn to ride a bike until college.
    “Another missing piece of your childhood,” Damien says, when I tell him as much.
    “That’s okay. I’d rather one day biking with you on the beach than an entire summer as a kid.”
    “For that, I’ll buy you an ice cream.”
    We park the bikes by a bright-blue painted ice-cream stand and order single dip cones with sprinkles. Then we put our flip-flops in Damien’s backpack and walk down to the water’s edge. Since it’s the Pacific, the water is freezing even in the summer, and I am amazed that the people actually playing in the water haven’t turned blue.
    We walk in the breaking waves, letting the sand slide outunder our feet, holding hands and eating ice cream. A teenage girl is tossing a stick for a big yellow dog, and I tell Damien how I always wanted a puppy and how, surprise surprise, my mother repeatedly refused. He tells me how he brought a stray Lab home one night, but his father wouldn’t let him keep it.
    “Considering how often I traveled, it was for the best,” Damien says. “The poor dog would have been kenneled all the time.”
    “But wasn’t that the point? You were telling your dad you wanted the dog because you wanted off the circuit. You wanted home. You wanted the dog. And you didn’t want the traveling.”
    Damien looks at me with a curious expression. “Yes,” he finally says. “That was it exactly.”
    “Did you ever get a dog? Once you quit tennis and became Mr. Business Dude, I mean.”
    “No,” he says, and his brow furrows. “No, I never have.” He nods playfully toward the girl. “Think she’ll sell me hers?”
    “I’m gonna say no.”
    We return to the bikes and head in the opposite direction, toward Santa Monica. We take it slow, watching the tourists and locals, talking, enjoying the day. When we reach the mall, we lock up the bikes and walk down the Promenade toward the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Armed with frozen mochas, we continue to stroll the shopping street until Damien says he’s