CHAPTER 31

ALICIA

“I love this place,” Kelly said as we walked into the crowded fifties-style diner, with its low ceilings and old-school rock-and-roll décor. All those expensive restaurants and cafes and bistros scattered around this city didn’t stand a chance against this place in my eyes.

They served the best burger in town, and they had a plethora of wacky, yet amazing, milkshakes to choose from. I couldn’t ask for anything more. Their shakes were so extravagant, they were almost vulgar. They stole the show, and it was awesome.

“Me too,” I replied, searching for an empty booth. There was only one left, right in the middle of the action. We spotted it at the same time as a young couple walking through the door, and we made a dash for it, reaching it just in time to slide into the red, plastic-covered seat before the couple reached it.

I gave them an apologetic smile, which was returned by a death glare from them both as they sulked their way back to the waiting area. Kelly smiled triumphantly as she slid her bag off her shoulder and got comfortable.

A bubblegum-popping waitress approached us and welcomed us back like old friends. “What can I get you ladies today?”

“Death by chocolate shake and a sparkling water for me, please,” Kelly said, and I nodded my agreement.

“Same.”

“Comin’ right up.” The waitress smiled, tapped her pencil on the outside of her notebook, and rushed off.

“So, I’ve been keeping an eye out for your boys on the reporting side of things, and I have to tell you that whatever it is you’re doing, keep doing it. People are buzzing over this upcoming album release.” Kelly’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

“Thanks, but they’re not my boys. I’m glad you’re getting the same feeling from people about the album release as I am, though. I think it’s going to be huge.”

“Trust me. It’s more than a feeling.” A burst of laughter shot from her. “Hey, look at what I did there. Anyway, it’s not just a feeling. I know what’s happening on the ground with the reporters, and it’s true. You guys have managed to build this up to something massive.”

“Fingers crossed that it holds,” I told her. “New York has the power to do some real damage if they’re not careful.”

People were chattering all around us. Mustang Sally’s, where we were having dinner, was always packed at this time of night. Filled to the brim as it was, Kelly and I managed to find our privacy in the absorbed dinnertime conversations going on around us and the high walls of the booth.

“That’s why I said, keep doing whatever it is you’re doing with the hype. Coach those guys for the interview, and it’ll hold. My editor keeps bugging me to try to get details from you. I know you’re ethically and contractually bound to keep things quiet, but are you sure you can’t tell me just one tiny little thing?”

She didn’t even look at me as she asked, her eyes on the menu as she studied her options. I knew she was only asking me because her editor told her to and she wanted to be able to say she had, but she wasn’t actually expecting any insider information.

“Not a one, sorry. You know I would have given you something if I could, but there’s nothing. We’ve built this campaign around anticipation, and since you’ve said so twice yourself tonight, I’ve got to keep doing what I’ve been doing.”

The waitress delivered our drinks, and I all but swooned as I took my first sip of the chocolatey paradise that was this shake.

“I’ll be back in a few to take your order,” she said and then flitted to the next table.

Kelly laughed and raised her water glass to me. “Touché, big sister. Nicely played. I’ll just be waiting on the edge of my seat like everyone else, then. Tell me what’s going on with you. You look happier than you have in a while.”

“I am,” I admitted, smiling contentedly. “I thought I wouldn’t be able to love my job any more than I did before, but I really do. Working for Destitute has been great. They haven’t gotten into anything horrendous so far. The band members are cocky, and they live their lives at a thousand miles an hour, but they don’t have any weird requests or hang-ups, not that I’ve picked up on anyway. All things considered, it’s a pretty awesome gig. I’m lucky to have landed it.”

“That you are.” Her eyes were bright with amusement and curiosity, and she leaned forward with her elbows on the table. “A certain one of those band members wouldn’t just so happen to be contributing to your happiness, would he?”

Jared knew that my sister knew about us, and he didn’t seem to mind, so I didn’t feel bad about opening up to her about him. I hadn’t spoken to her much during the time we’d been apart since we’d both been buried in work, and I didn’t feel like delving into it now. It would ruin my great mood.

“He definitely is. At the risk of sounding like a walking, talking cliché, Jared is beyond compare. He’s phenomenal.”

Kelly sighed dreamily and formed a bridge with her fingers to rest her chin on with the straw of her milkshake scraping at her lips. “Don’t stop now. Tell me more.”

“I don’t even know where to start.” The thought of him made my heart jump and race, and as I searched through my memories of him to accurately describe him to my sister, my pulse quickened to a thrum, and I couldn’t hold back the singular smile that he brought to my lips.

“It’s that good, huh?” she asked, sweeping her eyes across my face. I nodded as enthusiastically as a bobble-head doll on a bad road.

“It really is,” I said and then blurted out, “I think I’m falling for him.”

My admission hung in the air between us. I hadn’t been planning on saying those words out loud, but now that I had, it was really hard to deny they were true. Saying them also cemented the feeling in me, and I knew without a shadow of doubt that I was falling for Jared, as stupid as that might have been.

Shit.

I was in a freefall, and there was no more stopping it, despite what I’d told him in the limo just last night. I knew he wasn’t feeling it too and I didn’t expect him to, but if our time apart had taught me anything it was that he was more to me than a fling or a fuck.

The panic of that realization settled heavily in the pit of my stomach. What was I going to do? For a man who refused to call spending time together, having meals together, and sleeping together “dating,” Jared would be horrified if I were to tell him how I felt.

He would put a stop to this whole friends with benefits thing again faster than I would probably be able to get the words out. Putting a stop to it was also the best way of protecting myself from getting in any deeper. From falling deeper.

But there wasn’t one single part of me that wanted to put a stop to it. Not again.

Kelly’s eyes narrowed on mine, watching as all these thoughts crashed into me. Finally, she leaned back in the red vinyl booth, pursed her lips, and gave me a pointed look. “Lust or love? Falling in lust with him, I could understand. Hell, I’ve never even met him, and I’m halfway there, but falling in love with him …” She trailed off, but she didn’t need to say the words for me to know what they were.

Falling in love with him is a bad idea. With a capital B.

“I know, but it’s not like I can just turn off my feelings. If I’d stopped when it was nothing more than lust, sure. But I didn’t. What I feel for him now surpasses that by a mile.”

“And what about Jared’s feelings?”

Jared’s feelings toward knowing the way I felt about him would be absolutely, undoubtedly, entirely negative. Which was why he could never find out the depth of my feelings for him. “They’re not in play. He’s always been very clear about what he wanted. This is fun for him. He doesn’t feel a thing like that for me.”

“Let’s imagine for a second that isn’t true. Let’s say he feels as deeply about you as you do about him. What then? Have you considered the realities of a relationship with this guy? He has women throwing themselves at him left, right, and center. Part of his job is to flirt with them and to charm them. You’re not typically a jealous person, but how would you handle that?”

“Not well,” I mumbled. I’d learned that the hard way.

Kelly knew me better than I knew the palm of my own hand, and she could see the answer in me despite the fact she didn’t know what had happened with that Lesley Ann woman and after. “Exactly. You guys might be having fun now, but I doubt you would be having fun then.”

Truer words …

“No, I wouldn’t. We’re not even in a relationship, though, so this isn’t something I have to worry about yet.”

“Yet?” she asked, raising her brows slowly as she assessed the words I wasn’t saying. “Do you mean you’re not breaking it off with him?”

“I’m not, no. I just can’t. Not now. Some stuff happened between us I don’t feel like getting into now, but he’s agreed to be exclusive to me and I only just got him back.”

“What stuff?” she asked, her eyes darkening with worry. “And hold up, Jared Larsen agreed to bang you, and only you, to the exclusion of all other women?”

“Again, nothing I feel like getting into now. Suffice it to say we got into a fight, spent some time apart, and I didn’t like it much. And yes, he did. Twice now.”

“You think he’ll stick to it?”

Nodding, I took another sip of my water, enjoying the fizz of the bubbles popping and burning down my throat as a reprieve to the seriousness of the conversation we were having. Then, I sucked down some of my milkshake for good measure. Only chocolate could fortify me for this.

“I do. He’s many things, but he’s not dishonest. He’s too authentically himself for that. When he’s over this, I’ll know about it.”

“What about you? You’re not going to get over him while you’re still under him on such a regular basis, which means you’ll fall harder while he slowly gets you out of his system. Where does that leave you when he does get over it?” Kelly meant well, but she was holding up a mirror I wasn’t ready to look into yet.

“I’m going to go with the classic, ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it’ approach,” I said, turning my attention to the menu I knew by heart to keep from looking straight into that mirror.

I should have known she wasn’t going to let me off that easily. “I know I encouraged you to give him a chance at the beginning, and I was all for it when you told me about the arrangement you’d made with him to have fun. I only say this because as much as I love Destitute, I love you so much more, and I think this is becoming too risky for you.”

She wasn’t wrong, but she also didn’t know Jared the way I did, and a dangerous, tiny part of me that was buried so deep, even I didn’t know it was there most days was still hoping maybe Jared would come around.

“There’s just something about him. I can’t let him go.” I didn’t fully understand it either, especially not since I knew very well where he stood on the whole dating and relationships thing, but he was like a magnet drawing me in, keeping me there.

“I don’t mean this to be as callous as it sounds, but that’s just it. There’s something about him, something that has built him a global reputation for being a bad boy. Not even just a bad boy, a playboy too. Jared being Jared, eventually, he will go back to that.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong, but there’s so much more to him than just being a bad boy. He doesn’t let many people see it, but he has a heart of gold.”

Kelly picked up her glass but didn’t take a sip of water. She just swished the liquid around, thinking over what I’d told her, evidently. “I’ve seen enough of their shows and interviews to know the man has natural charisma by the truckload. Are you sure that’s not all it is?”

I nodded. “I know he does, too, but it’s not just that. I’m telling you. I can’t let this thing with him go. Not yet.”

I knew it as well as I did because I’d tried. For two weeks I’d tried to get him out of my mind, but it didn’t work. Not even a little.

Resignation pinched her features as she raised her milkshake to her lips, taking a long sip before her concerned green eyes met mine. “Fine. You keep having your fun then, but you need to prepare yourself for the eventual letdown.”

She squeezed the bridge of her nose, and her eyes shut for a moment as she continued.

“You can’t love him. Loving him is like loving waking up to a thunderstorm on a Saturday when you don’t have anything you have to do. Or seeing a brightly shooting star when you really need to make a wish, surfing the crest of a perfect wave.”

“You don’t surf.”

She rolled her eyes and then fixed me with them. “Whatever. My point is that loving him is like loving a force of nature. It’s brilliant, unstoppable, and for that one moment, everything seems right in the world. But that’s all it is. It’s one fleeting moment.”

“Like a moonbeam you can’t hold onto.”

“Exactly.”

“Elegant analogy,” I said flatly, wishing with all my heart that it wasn’t also a correct one. But it was, and I knew it.

Despite the fact that her eyes were darkened by worry and her mouth was set in a grim line, my darling little sister was never one to dwell on drama for very long, and although it was forced, she grinned.

“Thank you,” she said. “If you could hook me up with one of the members of Destitute for some short-term fun, I would be perfectly happy with that. Now, come on. Let’s decide what we’re going to eat. I’m starving.”