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“I’m fine. I’m not locked in. I’m just bored and pissed.”

  “What else is new?” he mumbles.

  “Don’t get bitchy.”

  “Don’t scare me.”

  “Sorry,” I repent, skipping ahead ten minutes in the video. Nothing. Pure friggin’ nothing. “How’s the schedule coming? Did you get the guys lined up?”

  Travis sighs. “No, not all of them. You can talk to Domata tonight when you get back. He’s pretty easy going. Tyus told me to talk to his agent but his agent isn’t answering, so that’s fun. Matthews is a no-go too. You wanted him tomorrow but his agent says he has a photo shoot.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

  “Call the agent back. Find out if we can film it.”

  Travis chuckles. “Not likely.”

  “Call him anyway.”

  “You got it.”

  “What about Avery?”

  “He said his fiancé is off limits. She doesn’t like publicity any more than Matthews does, but Avery is good to go. Whenever you need him he’s all yours. Those were literally his words. I’d say them in the same tone he used but I’m pretty sure it’d be sexual harassment. Speaking of which, record everything that’s said between you and Derrick. We may need it in court.”

  “Calm down.”

  “I can’t calm down. Not when you’re there with him.” He pauses in whatever he’s doing, giving me his full attention. His tone is thick with it. “You shouldn’t be there alone. I’ll kill him if he tries anything crazy.”

  “And that’s why I came out here and you didn’t. I can’t have you going away to jail again.”

  He snorts, the sound cutting the tension in the air between us. I feel myself relax. “I was only held overnight and it was your fault. I’m never carrying your bags again.”

  “How was I supposed to know the TSA would think my back massager was a bomb?”

  “Back massager. Yeah,” he chuckles darkly. “Stick to that story. We all believe it.”

  “It was years ago,” I laugh. “Get over it.”

  “I went to jail for your vibrator!”

  The door to the room opens suddenly, light spilling in. Shadow swirling with it.

  I sit up straight, my smile fading. “I have to go, Travis. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Is he there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Call me the second the meeting is over. And I’m serious, record everything.”

  “Travis, it’s fine.”

  “That’s the problem, Harper,” he tells me irritably. “You don’t get that it’s not.”

  I hang up the phone, sliding it impatiently onto the table. “Busy day?” I ask Derrick.

  “A little. How are you?” he asks, closing the door behind himself.

  “Don’t,” I warn him, my heart leaping into my throat.

  Derrick hesitates, his green eyes almost glowing in the low light. “Come on, Harper. Really?”

  “I have a flight to catch in three hours. I don’t have time to argue about a door. Leave it open and sit down. Let’s get your team sorted so I can get out of here and back to work.”

  “Fine.” He flicks the light on, bathing the room in a bright, yellow glow.

  I wince against the sudden brightness, and I know that’s not an accident. It’s another power play. He’s full of them.

  I pause the video. “Is this it? Did you get anything workable from the Draft?”

  “No,” he replies, taking the seat across from me. He gestures to the washed out image on the board. “What you see is what we got. You?”

  “Same,” I grumble unhappily. “There was a little drama from one of their players when they selected a guy who plays the same position, but it died out quickly and the cameras didn’t catch it.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Yeah.” I hold out my hand, asking for the folder in his. “So when is the first interview? How many sound men are we seeing today?”

  Derrick grins. “Straight to work, huh?”

  “It’s why I’m here,” I remind him dispassionately. “To work.”

  “You could ask how I’m doing. You could be a little friendly.”

  I sigh, folding my arms on the table in front of me. “How are you, Derrick?”

  “I’m great, Harper. How are you?”

  “I’m good.”

  “How’s your mom?”

  “Busy. Always busy.”

  “I caught a rerun of Broken Badges on TV last night. It was the one where she busted the high school teacher selling drugs to students.” He smiles that wide smile of his, the one that can make a grown woman giddy. I’ve gotten so careful about not looking at him, not encouraging him, that I forgot how handsome he is. How charming. “What was the name of it?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know.”

  “Come on. Yes, you do. You know the name of every episode of every show your mom has been in. I’ll give you a hint if you need help.”

  “‘Higher Learning’,” I relent, my pride getting in the way.

  “I knew you knew,” he laughs. “You can’t lie to me.”

  “Not for lack of trying.”

  “What was the one Dan Aykroyd guest starred in? He was a carnie, wasn’t he?”

  “A magician. I got to meet him. He was nice.”

  “Who wouldn’t be nice to you?”

  “You’d be surprised.” I hold out my hand again. “How many interviews?”

  Derrick smiles to himself before sliding the folder across the table to me. “Three. Dimitri picked them out himself. He recommends all of them. He also told me to tell you he’s sorry to bail.”

  “He doesn’t have to be sorry,” I mutter, scanning the resumes in the folder. “His wife went into labor. Of course he had to go.”

  “He’ll be back after her three-month maternity leave is up.”

  “Good. We’ll get by with someone else until then.”

  “We always do. How’s California?”

  “Sunny. How’s Massachusetts?”

  “Lonely.”

  I pull the second resume out of the folder. “This one.” I push it toward him. “I like this one.”

  He glances at it without touching it. “Me too. He’ll be here soon. Do you want anything while we wait? Maybe some lunch?”

  “No, thanks, I’m not hungry. It’s nine in the morning back home.”

  “You know where I’d be if I was back home?”

  “No.”

  “Yes, you do,” he insists playfully.

  I bite my lips together hard. “Bagels out Back.”

  “You know it.”

  I sneer in disgust. “That place is a dive.”

  “That place is delicious!”

  “It’s a glorified convenience store.”

  “But their bagels are on point.” He leans on the table, a loose smile on his lips. “And it’s nice when the atmosphere is right. Don’t you think?”

  I glare at him, my throat constricting. “Don’t talk about that day, Derrick. We agreed.”

  He pauses, his eyes looking me over slowly. “I was just remembering the way the hair on your arms stood up straight like goosebumps. Like fear and feeling alive. How the walls shook around us while we watched fire cut across the sky.”

  I feel that way now; afraid and alive. I somehow forgot that feeling. I always do when I’m away from him long enough, a strange amnesia of rudimentary life that’s as simple as it is dangerous. Like forgetting the tick of a clock or the taste of an apple. That owls are wise and tigers get hungry.

  I push aside the rest of the memory that he’s conjuring, and I think that maybe that’s how I forget this uneasy feeling; I force myself to. I try to pick and choose between what I can live with and what I can’t, and I lose everything in the process. I abandon the thought of his apartment and his bed, his lips and his hands, my body soaked in warm rain water, stripped bare and tangled in gray sheets. It was only a matter of minutes before ‘tangled’ turned to
‘tied’ and I lost all sense of right and wrong. Up and down. When he had me so turned around I couldn’t see how fucked I was, in every possible way.

  “Stop romanticizing it,” I warn him.

  “Anywhere is romantic during a thunderstorm.”

  “I can think of three places right now that aggressively prove you wrong.”

  “I would love the chance to aggressively prove to you that I’m right.”

  My heart goes cold. I’m very aware of him, of how close he is. Of how close I’ve let him get. Of his tiger’s tail swishing happily. All because I’m too proud to ask for help, to admit that maybe, just maybe, I can’t handle this on my own. It’s what got us in trouble in the first place. It’s what Travis was worried about when I left this morning, and I know he’d be furious with me if he were here. I suddenly wish he was.

  I suddenly wish Derrick and I weren’t alone.

  I stand from the table, heading around the farthest side of it toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Derrick asks, surprised.

  I run my hand through my hair, avoiding his mesmerizing eyes. “Bathroom. Too much water on the plane. It just hit me. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “The sound guy is going to be here soon.”

  “Start without me.”

  “Harper, what’s the—“

  I don’t hear what he asks. I pull the door closed behind me, shutting him down on the other side of it. I wish I could leave him there forever. I wish I had thought to grab my bag so I could bypass the bathroom and head back to the airport. I wish I was already back in California.

  I wish I had never come here.

  CHAPTER NINE

  KURTIS

  May 2nd

  Digital Dye Studios

  Los Angeles, CA

  There are days when I’m glad my grandma is dead.

  Today is one of those days.

  She was the only parent I ever knew, picking up the slack for a father that never saw me and a mother that ran away when I was six months old. I called my grandma ‘mom’ until I was ten. That’s when she told me the truth. It didn’t matter at that point. She was a mom to me and that was all I needed to know.

  She was a hard-ass and a devout Catholic. We went to Mass without fail and if I cursed in the house I had better be cursing the Devil or I was grounded with extra chores. She’s the reason I cut loose in college like I did. Why I raced cars. Why I gambled. Why I drank like a fish and fucked like there was no tomorrow.

  She’s also the reason I’m still alive. Even when I was breaking every rule she put down in front of me, she was that voice in my mind that warned me when I was going too far.

  I can still hear her, even today. Especially today.

  They want to take pictures of you in your underwear? What for?

  Is this pornography, Kurtis James?

  I always knew that pretty face would get you into trouble.

  She had no idea how right she was. Then again, she knew both my parents. She knew what stock I came from. Maybe she knew more than I gave her credit for.

  “These things are riding up my ass,” I murmur to Hollis.

  He snickers, his eyes focused straight ahead to where they’re prepping the photo shoot. It’s a black iron bed frame on a white backdrop. White sheets. White pillows. All of it made to contrast with the black underwear making a journey between my mountains into Mordor.

  “Don’t pull at them,” Hollis warns me. “These people will flip.”

  “I can’t pull at them. They glued them to my body.”

  “Then how are they riding up?”

  I snort. “Isn’t that the fucking mystery?”

  “Maybe they’re supposed to be that way.”

  “God, I hope not. They’re giving me crates of these as part of the deal. People think I’m an asshole now, wait until they see what happens when I’m wearing uncomfortable underwear for the rest of my life.”

  “People think you’re mysterious, not an asshole.”

  “Yeah, well, people are idiots,” I mutter.

  “Now that sounds like an asshole.”

  “Tweet it for me, would you?”

  Hollis’ face is stern. “Not a chance. I’m never logging into your social media again.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “The number of naked photos you get is staggering. A proctologist at a free clinic doesn’t see that much ass in a day.”

  I grin at him sideways. “Then he needs to up his game.”

  He chuckles distractedly, checking his phone for the third time in five minutes.

  “What’s up with you?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. It’s bad enough that I’m standing in my underwear waiting to get this thing going, but it’s also freezing in here. My nipples could cut glass and my dick has probably shrunken to the size of a breakfast sausage.

  Hollis stows his phone. “I, uh… I did a bad thing.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “You’ll agree with me here in a minute.”

  My eyes narrow at him. “What’d you do?”

  “I have good reasons,” he tells me cryptically, keeping his eyes forward. “But you’re still not going to like it.”

  “Cut the drama, man. What did you do?”

  “I gave the documentary crew the all clear to film this photo shoot. They’re on their way up now.”

  It must be colder in here than I realized because my body is frozen. Every muscle, every nerve; they’re locked down tight. Tighter. Tighter still until I feel physical pain in my core that flows like lava through my veins, burning and thawing me from the inside.

  “Why would you do that?” I ask him quietly.

  “Because you need the publicity,” he answers unapologetically. “You need more endorsements like this, and building your brand is how we get them. It’s the only way we’ll get clear of the debt.”

  I look around the room nervously. No one is listening. Still, I warn him, “Keep your voice down.”

  “Don’t be angry at me,” he fires back. “I’m trying to help you and you know this is how we get it done. You’ve known it since I got you back on the Kodiaks. You can finally stop nickel and diming it and put a real dent in what you owe. You could even start saving something for the future. Isn’t that what we’re doing here? Rebuilding your life?”

  I roll my tongue inside my mouth, relieving the tension that’s growing inside me. He’s right. We planned all of this at the start of last year. The day I landed back in L.A. he started fishing for endorsements, and when this CK campaign came up it was like a dream and a nightmare all rolled into one. It’s something I’m loath to do, but it’s everything I need.

  When you’re staring down the barrel of an eight million dollar deficit, a two point five million dollar paycheck is a pretty convincing reason to let a stranger glue overpriced cotton to your ass cheeks.

  “I’m not angry at you,” I tell Hollis grudgingly. “You’re right. This is what has to happen. You’re just doing your job.”

  “And I’m being your friend, Kurtis. Try to remember that.”

  I shift on my feet, running my hand over my mouth. “Yeah. I will.”

  Hollis’ phone vibrates in his pocket. He clicks his tongue thoughtfully when he sees the name on the screen. “It’s Sloane. I’ve gotta take this. You’re good right? You’re not a flight risk?”

  I open my arms, reminding him what I’m wearing. “Where am I going in this?”

  “A bachelorette party? You’d make bank.”

  “And where are they going to stuff the dollar bills? I’m literally one with my underwear.”

  He chuckles as he answers his phone, crossing the loft to the tall windows on the other side.

  When he’s gone I feel more exposed than ever. More naked without him to talk to. I think about heading back to the screen they set up for me to change behind but the wardrobe crew is there and I don’t want them fussing over me again. I barely got away with my balls still attached the fir
st time. Apparently they don’t ‘sit prettily’ in these briefs. There was talk about taping them before I escaped.

  A door creaks open on the other side of the loft. I glance over my shoulder, and I’m not surprised to find a camera coming in. The man carrying it is tall and stout, dressed in cargo shorts and a worn out gray T-shirt. The guy coming in behind him is shorter and a little leaner. He’s dressed almost identically with a boom mic resting against one shoulder and a big black utility bag hanging heavily from the other. Bringing up the rear with a smaller bag on her shoulder and a notebook under her arm is Harper White.

  I shouldn’t be surprised to see her. I know she’s part of the crew, but my blood floods my chest when her eyes meet mine; impossibly warm and clever. They take my bare body in in an instant, processing my situation, my mood, my musculature all in quick order. And that’s the problem with her. That’s the reason I can’t get too near her, no matter how badly I want to.

  She sees too damn much.

  “Hello again,” she says, her voice light and amused.

  “Hey.”

  “Sorry we’re late. We had another interview that ran long.”

  “Tyus?”

  She pauses, acknowledging my suspicion. “No. Avery. We haven’t had a chance to speak to Anthony yet. He’s hard to pin down.”

  I smirk. “He’s dodging you, isn’t he?”

  “It definitely feels like it,” she says with an easy grin, slowly closing the distance between us. Her team has huddled on the floor to unload equipment from their bags. They don’t look up as she leaves them. “When they told me you weren’t available today I thought for sure you were dodging me too.”

  I watch her as she moves toward me, looking her over the way she examined me. She’s casual today; faded jeans and an open plaid shirt rolled up at the sleeves. The white tank top underneath hugs her body, spanning the flat of her stomach and stretching over the roll of her breasts. She looked beautiful the night of the Draft, but today she’s something else. She’s the girl I met in the office. Sexy in an easy kind of way that makes me painfully aware of the thin material of my underwear. The rising of my blood.

  “I would have,” I confirm without remorse. “If it wasn’t this, I would have been busy with something else.”

  “You’re going to make this hard for me, aren’t you?”