The Duet(43)
There was a tap on the dressing room door and then a soft voice called out, “Brooklyn, we’re ready for you!”
…
After the photo shoot I had meeting after meeting until eventually, I didn’t care what things I was signing up for: you want me to host baby pageants? Great. You want me to hula dance while performing on The Voice? Awesome. It all became a blur and I relied on Summer to ensure that I wasn’t signing myself up for anything too ridiculous.
When our last meeting concluded, it was a little after 6:00 P.M. and I was about to take a bite out of the car console I was so hungry.
“How about we freshen up at the hotel and then go out to dinner?” Summer asked from across the backseat of the town car.
The idea of food had me instantly agreeing, and then for the one-hundredth time that day, I checked my phone for missed calls or texts. I had plenty, don’t get me wrong. My agent, my manager, and Cammie usually kept my phone’s voicemail perpetually full, but I was looking for something from a particular person. A person who had kissed me the night before and who had stood in the kitchen doorway that morning looking sexy as sin. I told myself that if I didn’t actually think his name then I wasn’t really obsessing about him.
Jason.
No!
Jason-Jason-JASON! Jason-Jason-JASON! My traitorous brain had paired his name with a Cha-cha-cha rhythm.
“So how has it been living with Jason Monroe?” Summer asked, turning her sharp eyes on me.
Had I just said his name out loud?
“Are you psychic?” I asked with an arched brow.
She laughed, “Not that I know of. Why?”
“I was just thinking about him,” I answered, purposely staring at Summer’s black nail polish. Her nails couldn’t judge me like her eyes could.
Summer dropped her phone and gave me her full attention. “Yeah, you and half of the women in the western hemisphere. Go on.”
I laughed. “There’s nothing to add. I was just thinking about him.”
“What part of his body, specifically, were you thinking about? His abs, his butt, his big ol’ di—“
“Summer!”
The driver fidgeted in his seat, probably doing his best to ignore our conversation. Good grief. Summer was going to give the man a heart attack and then we’d all be dead on the side of the road.
“I wasn’t thinking about any of his body parts. I was just thinking that he’s become a nice friend.”
Summer groaned and rolled her head back against the seat. “Oh, please, you are so full of shit.”
“Am not!”
“Does he have that sexy V in his abs or do they Photoshop it on him for the billboards?”
“Oh, it’s there.”
“Case closed. You little sleaze,” Summer said just as our town car pulled up outside of our hotel. The paparazzi were there as usual, but thanks to hotel policy they’d been exiled to the other side of the street. The boutique hotel’s front entrance was set up with privacy in mind. There were hedges along the front of the street and a wide awning that gave the hotel a French look.
Summer and I rushed inside and I instantly relaxed once we were behind the hotel doors. We didn’t talk about Jason anymore as we rode the elevator to the top floor, but that was probably because I pretended to be on a phone call the whole time. I’m not proud, but Summer is the snoopiest snoop I’ve ever met and she’d see right through my defense system.
Nope, this shit was going on lockdown. Jason Monroe was getting buried where I kept all my other cravings: deep, deep, deep down below. Right next to mint chocolate chip ice cream.
I smiled, confident in my newfound resolve as the elevators chimed on our floor. I clapped my hands together and stepped forward as the doors swung open.
“Let’s get ready quick. I’m hungry!”
…
Two rounds of sushi and a bottle of sake later, I was sitting in the backseat of the town car headed toward a club with Summer. She insisted that we were going to the “top club” in Montana, which really didn’t do much for me. However, when I started to protest, she turned her big eyes toward me and yammered on about how much she’d missed me the last few days.
“Fine, whatever,” I told her. “Let’s go.”
If she wanted to drag me to Montana’s premier nightlife destination, I’d let her. Plus, if I went home, I’d just think about J-A-S-O-N. (I decided that if I spelled his name out then it didn’t actually count as thinking about him. Sometimes, I’m a bona fide genius.)
“How much sake did we have back there?” I asked as Summer dragged me past the club’s doors and into the dim lighting. I blinked quickly, trying to process my new surroundings. Denim. So much denim everywhere. And wood. Everything in Montana was made of wood and denim.