CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
JORDAN
He was late.
I promised Ren that we’d have the video up by six that night, and still no Reid. I tapped my phone, willing it to notify me with a text, a call—anything! It was nearing five thirty and I knew it would take a miracle to get everything done in under half an hour.
Finally, the door to the apartment burst open and a very crazed-looking Reid made his way over the threshold.
At least five books were stacked in his hands and his normally bright blue eyes looked tired.
“Study date go late?” I asked sweetly.
“Bite me. I was at the library.”
I blinked in confusion.
“Where there are books,” he said slowly.
“Right, but why were you there?”
He shoved the books onto the counter. One fell to the ground. I tilted my head to read the upside-down title—Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.
“Shh!” Reid launched himself across the living room and covered my mouth with his hand. “He’ll hear you!”
“God?” I spoke against his fingers.
“Max,” he hissed. “The last thing he needs to know is that I went to the library and borrowed books, books on dating, books on dating advice, books that are supposed to help me get smarter.”
“Word of advice.” I pushed his hand away from my face. “You gotta open them and read.”
“Oh, really?” Reid’s expression was one of complete dumbfounded awe. “Open book, then read book? Man don’t know how to do such things.” He pounded his chest and then winked one of his flashy eyes at me. Down, girl. Down. “You know, this is all your fault.”
“You keep saying that, but I’m not the one with Max as a brother.”
“Like I can control those things!”
I shrugged and opened my laptop. “Okay, let’s get down to business. We’ll record for around ten minutes. I’ll give three dating and relationship tips, you give three. We’ll discuss them as we go, and yeah, should be a piece of cake!”
“Great!” Reid jumped onto the couch and rubbed his hands together. “Oh, and by the way, I got all my dating advice from Max and library books, so . . .”
“So it should be good.” I patted his hand. “Great. Ready?”
“No.” Reid jogged over to the freezer, pulled out a bottle of vodka, grabbed two shot glasses, then returned, setting them on the table. “First we take a good luck shot.”
“Why?” I eyed the shots warily. Mixing alcohol and a video for the masses wasn’t smart—at all.
He didn’t answer, just filled both shot glasses to the rim and handed me one. “Don’t be a shrew, Sebastian, drink up!”
“Call me Sebastian one more time . . .”
“Someone’s a crab.”
“Ooh, funny.” I narrowed my eyes and took the shot. It went down hot. You know that feeling where the alcohol burns an actual hole through your esophagus because the last thing you ate just so happened to be a spicy taco at noon? Yeah, it felt like that.
Reid poured two more shots.
“What are you doing? We’re supposed to be working.”
“And you”—he handed me the shot—“are supposed to be letting me tame you. Let me do my job.”
“I’m not a job.”
“So drink.”
“Fine.” I threw it back, my tongue going completely numb, and then slammed the shot glass onto the table. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were nervous about this whole thing.”
“Me?” Reid snorted. “I don’t get nervous. Ever.” He licked his lips and poured another shot. “For luck,” he said, then tossed it back. Three shots? Maybe we should have done a list of don’ts for our video, starting with: don’t take three shots before your first date—chances are you’ll puke down her dress before you actually make it to the bar.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Yup.” Reid tilted his head, then licked his palm and patted the top of my hair. I let out a little growl.
“What? I’m trying to tame it, and we both know that the best kind of discipline is habitual. If I continually tell your hair to calm down, eventually it will.”
“Or it could just reject said discipline and take over the world.”
“That too.”
“Reid—”
“Fine.” He rubbed his hands together. “No stalling. Go.”
I forced a smile and hit the “Record” button on my MacBook Pro. My voice was all business. “Dating advice from one of Hollywood’s hottest stars—you girls ready? You guys have pens?”
“Jordan.” Reid shook his head. “Don’t use the fake voice. The fake voice sounds fake.”
“Fine.” I deleted and tried again, clearing my throat. “Hey, guys and gals, welcome to—”
Reid hit “Stop.” “What the hell was that?”
“What?” I pushed his hand away from the mouse pad. “I’m a business professional, not a cruise director! What do you want from me?”
“Smile!” He pointed at his own smile. “And don’t look so upset to be sitting next to me.”
I tucked my hair behind my ears and straightened in my seat.
Reid looked down. “Why the hell are you still wearing work clothes?”
“Because this”—I pointed to the computer—“this is work. This is my job. You’re my job.”
“Funny.” He leaned in, his lips inches from mine. “I thought I was the tamer . . .” His lips hovered as he reached around me and hit the “Record” button. Chest heaving, I waited for him to move away; instead he pressed his body against mine. “Boys, pay attention.” He didn’t look at the camera. “This, this right here is what you want. You want to be in a position where you’re stalking your prey.”
“Ha.” I snorted. “Girls, write this down—if a man calls you prey, run, very fast.”
“Do it.” Reid laughed, his lips tickling my neck. “Isn’t that right, men? What’s the fun in chasing if the antelope doesn’t even run?”
“So now we’re antelope?”
“I could have said you were a warthog.”
“Aw, so sweet.” I ignored the way Reid pinned himself over my body and glanced at the computer screen. “So apparently we’re doing a segment on what not to do on a date. Name calling? Probably a bad idea unless you want to get punched in the face.”
“You mean you don’t like it when I call you Muffin Butt?” Reid feigned a hurt expression. “You know the only reason I call you that is because you fed me muffins in bed after the first time we had sex.”
WHAT? I let out a self-conscious laugh. “We’ve never had sex.” I shook my head vigorously at the computer.
“You were there.” Reid nodded innocently. “I mean, I know I take you to places you’ve never been before, but like, not literally.” He winked.
“I’m going to kill you!” I shoved at his chest. “Take this seriously! I knew we shouldn’t have done shots!”
He quickly grabbed my hands and pinned me onto the couch. “Men, pay attention. This is my favorite part. Foreplay.”
“Touch me with any part of your body and I’m cutting it off!”
He ignored me. “Women are timid, like birds, and a lot of times they don’t mean what they say. Take, for example, the heavy breathing coming from my lady friend.”
“Not breathing heavy!” I lied and tried to hold my breath.
“Witty banter.” He shrugged. “A bit of violence.” He dipped his mouth to my neck. “And, oh, look, there it is.”
“What? Where’s what?”
“Your tell.”
“I have no tell. Get. Off!”
Reid’s cursed aqua eyes were like homing beacons. When this was over with, I was going to make him wear sunglasses over those laser beams. “You do.”
“Do not.” I bucked beneath him.
He cupped my chin, and my very treacherous body moved.
“There it is again.”
“I’m not doing anything!” I squeezed my eyes shut.
“The arch,” he said, then ran his hand down my side, his fingers moving to my back. “She arches . . . because no matter what insanity may be coming from that sexy little mouth of hers—her body still responds.”
He kissed my cheek.
I told my body not to react.
Arch.
“Stop it!”
He kissed me again.
And another arch. Freaking men! “Reid . . . this is . . . assault.”
He jumped off me and hit “Stop” on the camera. “So, I think that went well.”
“No,” I huffed. “Not well. We’re doing it again and sticking to the script I wrote out for both of us!”
“Script? That’s for movies—this is life.”
“The hell it is! This is my job!”
“Mine too!” His voice rose an octave. “And people will like this a hell of a lot better than the shit you write out.” He grabbed my notepad. “Tell him he looks nice.”
“Give me that!”
He held it high above his head. “Compliment his shoes?”
“It works!” I argued, still trying to grab the notepad away.
“If you’re gay!”
“Lots of straight men respond to that compliment!”
“Because they think if they say thank you they can get in your pants! Damn, are you really this dense?”
I finally wrenched my notepad free and slapped him with it. “Are you really this childish?”
“I’m not the one doing the hitting.”
I hit him again. Because I could. “My relationship advice was to compliment the person you want to go out with. Not lick their hand, pat their hair down, call them names, then crush them with two hundred and twenty-five pounds of muscle until they nearly break in half!”
“Two ten,” he corrected.
I opened my mouth, then snapped it shut, slamming my notepad onto the table. “We’re doing it again. My way.”
Reid yawned.
“Oh, please.” I snorted, jerking my computer from the table. “You just don’t want to do it my way because you don’t know how to get a girl. Admit it!”
“Oh, yeah?”
“YES!”
“Want to know what my research taught me today?”
“How to read?”
His eyes narrowed as he tugged my computer away from me. “No. It taught me this. Be real. Be honest. And at least if you don’t secure a date you know it wasn’t you—but them.”
“Well.” I licked my lips and looked down. “As far as advice goes, that isn’t horrible.”
He handed me back my computer.
“And you didn’t even hit ‘Stop’ on the screen.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“No.” I tried sliding my finger over the mouse pad. “You didn’t, and somehow I just froze my computer.”
Reid frowned. “Let me see.”
“Fine.” Done arguing, I handed it over while he tapped a few keys, then tried to double-click the mouse.
“Stop clicking all over the screen, you’re just going to make it worse!”
“Stop looking over my shoulder like I’m looking at PORN so I can concentrate!”
I sat back and crossed my arms.
Reid’s eyebrows furrowed. “What the hell—”
“What?”
He paled.
“Reid?”
“Uh . . .”
“Reid. What. Did. You. Do?”
“You know the difference between a live feed and just recording a video, right?”
I clenched my hands into tiny balls, my nails digging into my palms. “Please, I know how to use a computer.”
“I know, but—”
I grabbed the computer and stared at the screen. It was still frozen. And the little line above the video was green.
As in live.
The video was live.
For the world to see.
“No.” I shook my head and pounded the mouse pad with my thumb. “No. No. No. No.”
“Everything okay in there?” Max called.
“YES!” Reid shouted while I went into a catatonic state, my eyes glued to the screen—the screen I no longer had control over.
Reid very slowly peeled the computer from my death grip and set it on the coffee table. “It could be worse.”
“That’s our catchphrase—it could be worse.” I started chewing my nail.
Reid batted my thumb away. “Bad habit.”
“My parents are going to see you seducing the crap out of me. Oh, crap, the arching! I was arching!”
“Now she admits it.”
“And the world is going to think I’m a hussy! Damn it, Reid, let me chew!”
He sighed and ran his hands through his glossy dark hair. “Look, is it really that bad? Jordan, life isn’t scripted. And honestly, if that’s what you’re looking for, then I think I’m out.”
“Out?” I seethed. “You can’t be out! It will ruin you! Think of Max.”
“Woman has a point,” Max yelled.
“NOT NOW!” I shouted back, my voice vibrating off the high ceiling.
“Come on.” Reid grinned. “Don’t you ever just . . . let your hair down?”
A snicker came through the wall.
I gave the wall—and the man behind it—my middle finger.
“Last time I let my hair down, I had people calling me Mufasa.”
Reid choked back a laugh.
“A Rafiki sticker decorated my locker for two weeks.” Sadly, I hadn’t cared, because it was the one time in high school people actually paid attention to me.
“Nants ingonyama!” Reid sang.
My hair chose that inopportune moment to stand erect, Alfalfa style. Always good to know The Lion King did it for my hair—no shame in that sad fact. None at all.
“Sorry.” He licked his lips. “Tell you what . . . I spent the better part of my day learning how to date from my brother, which, as much as I’d like to say was pointless, actually has me questioning my entire childhood, since I discovered my mother used to lie in order for Max to get chicks.”
I perked up. “Seriously?”
“He uses her as a third-party witness.”
“That’s . . . brilliant.”
“Shh.” Reid covered my mouth with his hand. “He’ll hear.”
I nodded.
Reid didn’t move his hand. My lips liked it way too much. “We’re living together. We kind of skipped the dating part, since you rejected me and thought I was gay.” I smiled against his fingertips. “But why don’t we practice what we preach, hmm? I’ll make some popcorn, liquor you up, and we can have a date night in.”
My heart pounded.
“Nod your head if that scary look in your eyes means yes. I’m guessing if it’s a no you’ll just bite my hand.” Or I could do both just to see what he tasted like. I nodded my head.
“Good.” He rubbed his hands together. “First things first, no checking the Internet, phones, Facebook—nothing! We’re on a date. Deal?” He held out his hand.
I stared at it, reached out, then paused. “Fine, but this isn’t a real date.”
“It isn’t?” He winked, then walked off, leaving me confused and breathless, again. My body arched even then. Oh, who was I kidding? Dating Reid Emory in real life was the equivalent of winning the lottery for a girl like me.
A girl who, by all accounts, he shouldn’t even see.
But did.
Possibly more clearly than anyone in my entire life ever had.