Jewel provided a good bit of the soundtrack for the LA Love Lesson series. Her albums 0304 (2003) and Goodbye Alice in Wonderland (2006) were both so evocative of Los Angeles to me. And of the LA Love Lesson heroines. The songs spoke to Gabby's youthful zest for life, April's amnesia-driven naïveté and Claire's wistful longing--both for the fame she'd achieved (now mostly in the past) and the dreams she had to sacrifice in order to get it.
She even looks like Gabby in this video. OR like a very young Claire. Huh. I wonder why I never saw that before? No wonder Derek fell for both of them!
Waiting For The Big One
LA Love Lessons 1.0
One girl, two guys and a quest for ultimate satisfaction.
Aspiring actress Gabby Browne refuses to consider her best friend, and personal trainer, Derek Novello for the role of soul mate fearing sex will ruin their beautiful friendship. When she meets Zach, she's convinced that he could be The One. Too bad Derek isn't willing to share-leaving Gabby forced to choose between two sexy co-stars.
An early morning earthquake provides Gabby with the impetus she needs to stop waiting for the stars to align and finally cast her leading man.
Excerpt:
It was just before midnight when Zach left my apartment. It was still technically his birthday, so he was going to meet some friends for drinks. Musicians don’t do anything early and they rarely do anything alone. He invited me to join them, but I had dogs to walk in the morning, so I turned him down. He kissed me good-bye, thanked me once more, and turned off the lights on his way to the door, so I wouldn’t have to get up again. Pisces are thoughtful like that.
I wrapped my quilt around me but, tired as I was, I couldn’t fall asleep. Lazy thoughts kept circling in my brain, like leaves in a fountain, bobbing and spinning ‘til I sat up again and reached for my phone.
“What’s wrong?” Derek asked.
I felt myself frown. “Why do you always ask that? You make it sound like I only call you when there’s a crisis.”
“Well, don’t you?”
Tears pricked at my eyes as I slid open the drawer of my night table and dug out some emergency chocolate. I’ve told you how Pisces tends to mimic all the other signs. Well, at the moment, I was feeling as moody as a crab. “No. Stop being mean.”
“Has something happened that I don’t know about?” Derek asked cautiously.
I chomped on my chocolate macadamia bar for a moment. “Mmm. I took your advice.”
“What advice?”
“The strip tease. Did you get that idea from Claire, by the way?”
“Did I— What?”
“It seemed like such a… such a Claire thing when I was doing it.”
“Oh, Jesus. Are you fucking kidding me?”
I could hear Derek moving around in his apartment and I closed my eyes to better imagine what the noises filtering through the phone might mean. Kitchen, I thought. Glass. Bottle. Pouring. I could imagine him standing at his counter, with the light from his faux Tiffany fixture spilling down on his dark hair, gilding it with a faint green-gold tinge. I could imagine him lifting one of his square glass tumblers to his lips, tossing his head back with a quick motion that would leave his hair in disarray.
“What are you drinking?” I asked, feeling thirsty, feeling like I was right there in his apartment with him, running my hand through his hair to comb it back into place, trailing my fingers down his cheek. He had a nice place, right above the studio. When the windows were open, you could hear the water and the wind chimes in the courtyard below. It was dark and mysterious—just like Derek. It was cozy, crammed with things he’d picked up on his travels. It was warm...
“Never mind what I’m drinking,” Derek snapped, sounding not warm. “What happened?”
I sighed, breaking off another square of chocolate and popping it in my mouth. “Pretty much what you’d expect to happen, I guess. It worked. He got the message. He came over.”
“You slept with him? Already?”
Well, I certainly wouldn’t put it like that. Sleep? No. Not even. Silence hummed over the line. I listened as Derek poured himself another drink.
“How was it?”
“It was great,” I replied, sliding back down between the sheets. “But, you know, probably even soul mates don’t start out at the peak. Right?”
This time the silence stretched even longer. “I think you’re rushing this,” Derek said at last. “What do you even know about this guy? Nothing.”
“That’s not true.”
“Prove it. You said he’s a musician, right? So, tell me what his favorite groups are. What kind of music does he like? What’s the name of the band he plays in? Give me three local artists he’d be likely to follow.”
I sighed. “We did talk, you know.” Not much, but enough. Music was definitely one of the topics we’d covered. I had no problem reeling off the names of a half dozen bands I felt confident would be at the top of Zach’s list.
“But I don’t see what good knowing all that is supposed to do for me,” I said. “How is that gonna get me what I want?”
“You need to slow things down with this guy,” Derek replied, ignoring my questions. “Stop pushing so hard. You haven’t made any plans to see him again, have you?”
“Well, sure. He’s coming over for dinner tonight,” I said, feeling exhausted as I thought about it. Maybe Derek was right. Maybe I was pushing too hard for this. Maybe it was one of those Zen things where the only way to find what I was looking for was to stop looking.
“Dinner?” The way Derek said the word; you’d have thought it was a foreign concept. “Where--your place? Tonight?”
I snuggled even further beneath the covers. “Mm-hmm. You’ve heard of it, right? Dinner...it comes after lunch...before bedtime...and speaking of which...”
“Funny,” Derek muttered, although I thought the only thing funny was how un-amused he sounded.
“Nite, Der,” I murmured sleepily. “Sweet dreams.”
“Yeah.” His voice was quiet. Almost too quiet. “Yeah, you, too.”
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