Premiere: A Love Story by Tracy Ewens

shitless. He had always loved her mind and wanted her body. Her rain-soaked skin was so soft it almost hadn’t seemed real. He could recall it like he was right back there, but he wasn’t prepared for her to completely crawl inside of him. Her warmth took over and he knew he would need her, the fire she gave him, for the rest of his life.
    He couldn’t need, not then, he could barely allow need now after years of therapy, but back then his twenty-three-year-old, screwed-up self definitely didn’t allow need of any kind. He was so focused on making something of himself during those years. He knew the pull of what he felt for her would keep him in Pasadena. Hell, he could spend a whole day just sitting in a coffee shop talking to her in those days. He couldn’t stay. Even though he loved her to desperation, he needed to find himself outside of his family, or one day she would wake up and realize he was nothing more than a shadow of a man she thought she knew. So, he memorized her, her magic, and with a little push he left her behind.
    He did say cruel things; he had to. She knew him too well and would have never let him go. He had hurt her and now she thought he was simply back to pick the wound. Peter turned back toward the theater and accepted that. Messed up childhood or not, he had been a real bastard.

Chapter Ten
    P eter’s sister, Cynthia, was getting married in less than two months on Catalina. April Everoad had agreed to let Bindi Malendar host a wedding shower overflowing with champagne and desserts. Sam was invited and was relieved it would be at Grady’s family home and not Peter’s. Mostly because champagne and Peter’s mother did not mix well, and also because Sam had always found it so difficult to be in Peter’s home after his father died.
    She really had not wanted to attend the shower at all, but her mother would be there, and it would be rude to not make an appearance. Sam, always appropriate, found herself making small talk in the large formal living room with a few women she knew from school as well as a larger group of debutantes and new brides in the community. There was a small buffet of real food, but the highlight was a huge table with thirty-five different desserts. Cynthia Everoad was a self-proclaimed sugar junkie so the shower was themed “Bubbles and Confection.”
    Belinda Malendar, or Bindi to everyone who knew her, was a tall and beautifully put together woman. She was one of those women one doesn’t want to run into on a bad hair day. A collection of thoroughbred features, she was perfect: perfectly beautiful all of the time. Sam was sure being a senator’s wife did that to a woman. Bindi had been married to Senator Patrick Malendar since they graduated from college. Despite his wandering eye and a penchant for hard liquor, Senator Malendar was a sweet man. He and his wife, while a little artificial for Sam’s taste, always seemed to complement one another.
    Bindi had been friends with April Everoad, Peter’s mom, and Susan Cathner, Sam’s mom, since they were Bindi Parker, April Whitmore, and Susan Braxton back in boarding school. All three women were dear friends and anyone who thought otherwise did not witness the round-the-clock care given to Mrs. Everoad when her husband died. Bindi basically took over her friend’s life for the first month after the suicide, and Susan was the one who threw open the curtains when April had spent one too many nights drinking. Both women tried to help her in the beginning, but now they simply accepted it, and ran interference for April’s “problem.”
    Senator Malendar, who was out for the evening, was gearing up to run for re-election again at the end of the year. Grady had already starting complaining that he hated election years. The guests were all sure to give Bindi and the Senator their best wishes, but Sam did notice the Malendars were a little on edge. Perhaps because keeping up appearances could be tough when your son was Grady