Waking Up in Vegas(16)

“I’m fine,” I said as I unfolded. That knee hurt like a sonofabitch. “Let me get up and walk it off.”

Tessa was suddenly under my left arm, leveraging me up. Jen tried to help on the right, but I shook her off. Being helped to my feet by one woman was bad enough. Two would be irrecoverable. Especially if one of them was Jen. I had the feeling she’d never let me live it down.

A couple excruciating steps later and I all but fell onto the nearest weight bench.

“I know what it is,” Jensen said from behind me. She’d shadowed Tessa and I all two steps. “I’ve seen this before, in my squad in college. You’ve hyperextended the tendon.”

Thank you, Dr. Chastity Rah-Rah. “I’ve seen performers at my mother’s club do the same thing. I just need ice, an Ace bandage, and a couple days of not using it.”

Hear that? The sound of my weekend swirling down the toilet? Yeah, me, too.



Friday morning found me hobbling and stiff. Not that way, thank God. I was in pain and too distracted for once.

Jensen hovered, fetching me coffee and acting strange. She hardly talked to me when we weren’t broadcasting and, much as I appreciated the quiet so I could escape inside my head and numb the pain, she was beginning to freak me out. I’d only known the woman five days. Why was I thinking she was acting out of character?

For all I knew, she was quiet and solicitous every Friday for religious reasons.

At the end of our shift, Jen was holding the door for me to leave the studio this time. That felt weird enough, but then she said my name in the meekest voice I’ve ever heard from her.

Good old instincts. I could always trust them where women were concerned.

I said yeah on a gruff sigh, expecting her to apologize since it was because of her that I’d taken a header yesterday. Truly, though, my knee was my own damn fault and not hers. I didn’t want her feeling responsible for anything but me missing out on a date with Miss Pilates this weekend. And the lack of ensuing poontang.

“I owe you an apology.” Yup, here we go. I shook my head to shush her, but she pressed on. “The day I found my memo in your desk? You had a new memo on yours, and I hid it. I meant it as a practical joke, but now…”

“Now… what? Please do not tell me that I have to go to some club tonight for the station.” I bit back a flare of temper that I wasn’t sure she deserved to get burned by. Then again, maybe she did.

“No. But we–” she flapped her hand around to indicate the two of us, “have an appointment tomorrow afternoon to get new promo photos taken.”

Was that all? “So we reschedule. No biggie.”

“The memo said they’re for autographing at next weekend’s club appearance, so we can’t.”

Hell.



It didn’t matter how much I’d iced and rested my damn knee; I was not going to be able to contort into the positions the photographer wanted us to in order for the both of us to fit into the shot. We settled for Jen sitting on my lap. Under his direction, she kept goofing, kicking her feet up, leaning one way or the other—every time she moved, my leg shifted and it was agony. I was actually grateful for the pain, though. Under normal circumstances, having a sweet little ass rubbing all over my zipper would have me hard as stone. Not the kind of photos management was looking for, I think, and I definitely didn’t want Jensen getting the impression that she had that kind of effect on me.

Because she didn’t.

Any guy would have that response to physical contact.

Instead, I had almost no reaction (stress the almost) and I think my smile was actually a grimace of pain in half the pictures.

We got to see the digital proofs when we were done. To my amazement, Jen and I both liked the same photo. The guy behind the lens apparently never stopped snapping, and there was this one where Jen was backing up to sit on my lap and she’d stumbled. She was landing on me, arms and legs all akimbo, and we were both laughing. That was right before I’d howled when she ultimately slammed into my knee and I’d shoved her off onto the floor.

She laughed so hard she actually snorted.

He’d opted to do our individual shots right after that, and had insisted we change shirts—Jen into black, me into white. It’s a damn good thing my smile is so practiced, ‘cause the last thing I felt like doing by then was showing my teeth unless it was in a snarl. The least awful of the bunch had me looking fake and stiff and I checked the box to select that one for the promo run.

Jen did not let me see which one she picked, and I didn’t ask.



We had yet to cover the new segment. It didn’t even have a name yet. We decided to talk over dinner at Jen’s condo. I hobbled through Vons for a bottle of wine, she nuked a Stouffer’s lasagna.