We say a lot on our way to the hotel bar, but really, after you’ve known someone as long as you’ve known Cassie Blake, idle chatter and silence are really two sides of the same coin.

“I thought you were on tour,” she says as she slips into a high stool at the center of the big, circular bar in the middle of the cocktail lounge off the hotel lobby.

“You thought right,” I say, getting the bartender’s attention. I order a local beer because I don’t know what else to get, and Cassie orders a dry gin martini with extra olives. “I was on tour. Turns out the band was a little too amateur to be on the road for such a long stint. Burned out.”

“Ah,” Cassie says knowingly, shaking her head, “sex, drugs and rock and roll, huh?”

She’s making fun of me, but of course she happens to be right.

“Something like that,” I say, “doesn’t matter, though. They’ll disband and assemble a new lineup. I’m not too worried about it.”

“So how did you end up here?” Cassie asks as the bartender delivers our drinks to us, shooting me a smile with her eyes, wide and sparkling.

“I’m doing security for the pageant, actually,” I say, taking a sip of my beer. “Last minute thing. I didn’t have anything else lined up, so when the tour got canned early, I made a few calls. I knew you’d be here, Cas. I just didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to see you tonight.”

Cassie Blake is like a diamond unearthed from a million-year-old block of stone, already cut and polished, like she was born nearly damn perfect, with long blonde hair and cherry red lips and a ripe peach-shaped ass that I’ve never been able to get a good enough look at.

I almost had her once, a long time ago.

Almost. And that makes it like I never had her, and like she was all mine and I’ll never get over her, all at the same damn time.

“I’m glad I happened to get thirsty at the exact moment you happened to walk past my door,” she says, taking a sip of her drink, her long black eyelashes resting on her cheeks as her eyes peer down.

“You look good,” I say, “you look really good, Cassie.”

She crosses her leg toward me under the bar, her smooth, long, shapely legs contorting in the small space between us. She was in her bathrobe just a few minutes ago, and now she’s wearing a tight little black dress with a square neckline, showing off her damn perfect neck, teasing me with the slightest hint of cleavage.

“Please,” she says, smirking up at me as she plays with the edge of her cocktail napkin, “you have to say that. It’s my job to look good. If you didn’t think I looked good, I wouldn’t be a very good beauty queen, now would I?”

“So it’s all for the audience?” I ask, taking a sip of my beer. I feel giddy being near her, and I allow the alcohol to calm my nerves a bit. It’s not doing much in the way of making me calm down, but it helps a little. She rolls her eyes and takes another sip of her martini, tugging at the end of her dress, her fingers slipping under the hem, making me wish it was my fingers on her thighs instead. “No, I’m serious. Is it all for the audience, or is it for your own personal inner growth, or some shit?”

“Well,” she replies, raising an eyebrow and her glass to match it, “you don’t have to have a camera on you to achieve inner growth, so you tell me.”

“Is that going to fly when it comes to your interview?” I ask with a chuckle, referring of course to the mini Q&A the girls will undergo when they’re up on stage.

“Um, no, definitely not.”

I hold my fist in front of me like I’m gripping an imaginary microphone.

“Tell the world, Cassandra Blake, what makes you deserving of the crown?”

Cassie draws her lips up into a little smirk and sits up straight in her seat, shoulders back, chest up, and speaks into the imaginary microphone between us.

“Well,” she says, the smirk dissolving into a brilliant smile, “that is a great question. There are so many wonderful girls here. Young women, strong, smart ladies with ambitions and good heads on their shoulders. Each one is deserving in her own way. I’m just happy to be here.”

I shake my head and bring the fake mic back to my lips.

“Very diplomatic, but you didn’t answer the question,” I say, “the question was why you deserve the crown. Not why any of these other women deserves it. You.”

I don’t know what answer I’m looking for. I don’t really have one in mind for her. I personally couldn’t give two shits whether she wins the contest or not. The only thing I care about is her happiness. So if winning will make her happy, then I want it for her for that reason alone. What’s the intrinsic value of her being here? Damned if I know. Damned if I care.

“Off the record?” she whispers between us, her eyes trailing up from my lips to my eyes, “I’m no more deserving than anyone else here. We’ve all paid our dues, made our appearances. We’ve all shown up. That’s all this is. Showing up.”

“That can’t be true,” I say, “at the very least, you deserve it because you’re the most beautiful of any of them.”

I swallow hard when I realize what I’ve said.

I don’t know if she remembers, but I’m brought right back to the small kitchen table in her parents’ house the afternoon of her senior prom. I am brought right back to that hot, late spring day with little Cassie’s hair all done up in big curlers and that homemade gunk she was soaking her hands in. I’m brought right back to the slamming of the screen door behind me after I told her I knew she’d look beautiful in her dress. And I’m brought right back to the fucking ache in my chest when I allowed myself to walk out the door without looking back to see her face.

“You’re just saying that,” she teases me in a sing-song voice.

“No, Cassie, I’m not just saying that.”

She appears flustered and takes a sip of her martini, averting her eyes from me. I know the effect I have on women, but it’s never been as goddamn infuriating as it is with her. As it’s always been with her. Because I know she looks at me the same damn way they all do, and she’s the only one I want.

But this fucking game she plays - “you’re just saying that” - I don’t know if I can stand for it any longer.

I can’t.

“I wasn’t just saying that,” I say with more force this time.

Her eyes travel slowly up my body until she finally meets my gaze, and she looks at me with this stone-cold-bitch expression, one I know she’s good at, one I’ve witnessed her using on guys at parties when we were younger.

Is it possible that I was reading her wrong all these fucking years? Was I reading her wrong when I saw that hint of desire when I told her she’d look beautiful for some other guy on her prom night?

When I almost made her mine, and then some shit got in the way?

“You weren’t?” she asks. She softens a little under my gaze, her lips parting slightly. I suddenly feel intoxicated by her.

“No,” I say, “and I’m tired of you asking. You want me to prove it?”

“Off the record?” she asks. My cock is steel-hard from the look in her eye, the look that is screaming for me to kiss her, the look that is screaming for me to claim her. I can feel it.

I slip my hand behind her head slowly, getting closer to her, breathing her in.

And as I’m about to crush my lips to hers, finally taste her and take her with a long-overdue kiss, I hear someone clear their throat behind me. I feel my chest tense up as Cassie breaks her eyes away from me and looks over my shoulder, sitting up straight again and smiling at the person behind me.

“Hey!” Cassie says, slipping out of her chair and walking around me quickly. She gives a big, if somewhat distant, hug to the woman standing behind me.

Little black suit, sharp and crisp with clean lines. Big, oversized purse. She looks like she’s got a stick up her ass. She doesn’t even look at me.

“I knew you were in town,” she says, putting her hand on Cassie’s shoulder. “I was hoping I could get a few quotes from you about the pageant.”

This fucking woman is a reporter and she’s interrupting something way more fucking important than any stupid juicy tidbits Cassie could give her about the contest.

“Oh,” Cassie says to her, deflating a little, “can we set something up for tomorrow? Maybe we could meet in the lobby around eleven thirty?”

“Sure,” the woman says, pursing her lips and nodding. She looks over at me furtively. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Cassie says, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I am so rude. Cynthia, this is Jason. He’s an old family friend of mine.”

I turn around in my seat and stick my hand out to shake Cynthia’s. She looks me up and down and gives me what I take as a silent nod of approval.

“Nice to meet you,” I say.

“He’s here working the pageant,” Cassie adds, “he’s a security guard.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Cynthia says, narrowing her eyes at me slightly. She looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place her. She has that stuck-up reporter vibe, and I suck my teeth inadvertently, wishing she would hurry the fuck up and get the hell out of here.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow morning?” Cassie says, taking her hand off my back. She gives Cynthia a quick hug again before the reporter nods and smiles, disappearing around the corner of the bar as she walks away.

“I am so sorry about that,” Cassie says, slipping back into her seat next to me. I grab her hips and guide them, helping her get comfortable.

I know the moment between us has passed, but it’s not gone.

“Would you like to have another drink with me in my room?” I ask, putting my hand on her knee.

She gasps lightly, and her eyes grow wide, a pink flush washing over her face and neck. She chews her bottom lip lightly.

“Another drink?”

“Yeah,” I reply, my heart pounding in my chest, “another drink.”