by Cassie Mae
“You don’t think you’ll ever worry about this?” he asks, and I blink my eyes open, just now realizing I’m drifting.
“Huh?”
“Proposing.” His eyes flick to Shay so quick I’m not sure if I imagined it or not.
“No,” I answer with a small chuckle. “I won’t have to worry about it.”
“What if you meet the right person?” Yeah, he’s definitely looking at Shay.
“I won’t.”
“What makes you sure?”
“Because I’m not going to mess with anyone who’s not looking for just what I’m looking for.”
“Which is one night.”
“Not necessarily.” I shift again so I don’t drift away. “Just no commitment.” Like Carletta. Then after her, who knows? If I hit it big, I could get a reputation like hers too. Then the women will know what to expect with Jason Sterne.
“Have you found any takers?”
I cover up my yawn, eyes refusing to stay open any longer. “Not recently. But I have before.” Okay, only twice before. And both times it wasn’t my idea. When Chantal told me we were just gonna hit it during shooting, I was all in for that plan. But when Theresa asked…well, it didn’t work out.
After I ended it with Penny, I made a promise in my drunken state on Liz’s lap to let future women know my intentions. Seemed like a good idea, especially since I was hit up for an offer. But it came from the most unlikely of places.
Landon had just proposed to Liz, and Liz’s maid of honor, Theresa, put together a big engagement party for them. As one of Landon’s best friends and groomsmen, I was obligated to go even though I knew Penny would be there. I wasn’t too thrilled about it, but after taking one look around the club at all the buzzed women covered in neon paint, I thought maybe it would be a good idea.
I was there for hours, getting hosed and dancing with random girls who felt good—even made out with a few. I was planning on heading home with a green-painted, sexy-as-hell brunette, preparing my it’s-only-for-tonight speech, when Liz came up to me, her hands wrapped around Theresa’s forearms. She shoved her into the seat across from me at the table I was occupying.
“Promise me you’ll make sure she gets home okay?”
“Beth Ann…” I groaned, calling Liz by the nickname I’d given her. She was cock-blocking me with responsibility.
“Please?” She batted her eyes and I took a quick glance at Landon waiting for her by the door. He looked pretty damn happy, and I knew pissing off his fiancée would be against bro code, so I nodded at Liz and then shook my head at Theresa, who hiccupped.
“Thank you!” Liz hugged me and scurried out to celebrate with Landon. At the time, I thought they were going to really celebrate, but I found out much later that they weren’t having sex at all during their engagement. Lunatics.
“You look hot tonight,” Theresa said, leaning forward on the table. “How do you look hot with paint in your hair?”
“I pull off anything,” I responded, then found my brunette stalking off with another guy. Damn it.
“Marriage is stupid, you know,” Theresa said. She was twirling her straw around in her empty glass, blinking and trying to focus on…well, anything.
“Aren’t you throwing this party?” I asked with a laugh.
“Well, marriage isn’t stupid for them.” She pointed to the exit where Liz and Landon had disappeared. “But for people like us? Marriage isn’t going to give us happiness.”
“And what will?”
“Sex.”
“Agreed.”
“Even if it’s only temporary happiness.”
“Who says it has to be temporary?” A good round could last me a few weeks. Nothing beat the high of noncommittal sex.
“We could do it, you know.” She stopped messing with her straw. “Help each other out with temporary happiness.”
She was drunk.
But so was I.
Theresa was the noncommitment type. I’d known her for a few years, and she was not like Liz. Liz wanted the long term, the living together, dating, marriage, the whole shebang Same with Landon. So I agreed with Theresa on that front—marriage was not stupid for them. But for people like us? The people who didn’t want to find love? The people who were okay with the one-nights, the casual hookups? Marriage wouldn’t work. We’d feel caged, stuck, never fully committed, and it would make it worse for whoever we ended up with.
So I could’ve gone for it. On my buzz, I almost did. But there was one thing stopping me. And he was on the dance floor, keeping a polite distance from his partner.
“What about Alec?” I asked. Theresa’s neck flushed and she swallowed loudly. Alec had told Theresa not two weeks earlier how he felt about her. I’d known for much longer than that. And though Theresa said she didn’t reciprocate those feelings, the way she looked at him from across the room, even drunk, I knew what that look was.
“I can’t do what I want with Alec,” she said after a minute. “He wants way more than I do.”
“You sure about that?”
She nodded. “I fell in love with a friend before. Didn’t work out.”
“Don’t want to risk it again?” I glanced at Penny. She was doing a killer job of ignoring me that night.
“Not with Alec.” She moved her empty glass out of the way, leaning across the table. She wanted to kiss. I could see it. Hell, I was tempted by the way her shirt fell and her scent and the fact that my head was fuzzy and when someone presents their lips to you, you take them. But luckily, my dedication to the bro code was in full force that night, and I gently pushed her back to her seat. I told her I’d be right back, and I went and got Alec instead. He took her home. I lost my brunette, and I didn’t find any other takers.
If I’m completely honest, finding takers for the kind of nonrelationship I want is harder than the movies make it seem. Every other character seems to pop up at the right time, but finding Miss One Night is about as rare as finding a roasted pig at a bar mitzvah.
11:56 A.M.
I fell asleep.
Hard-core fell asleep. The sun is blazing through Shay’s open window, nothing but dirt along the road we’re on. Truffles is sticking his head out, collar jangling and ears flopping. Shay strokes his fur along his back, her long black hair whipping around her face. We’re a Hallmark card right now.
I silently stretch and tilt my head. Well, maybe not all of us are Hallmark. Rise and shine, my horny friend. Jamming my hand into my jeans, I fix him so he’s resting under my waistband. Then I try to think about the YouTube video I saw of a hairy, drunk guy running naked through Central Park.
Milo is still talking nonstop. Takes me a few drowsy minutes to comprehend that he’s talking about basketball.
“Always going to be a Spurs fan. It runs thick through my blood. My heartbeat cheers ‘Let’s go, Spurs, let’s go!’ It’s true. Doctor said so.”
“I think we have the same heartbeat,” Shay says, tapping her chest. Her eyes don’t look as droopy as yesterday, and she grabs a pen from Milo’s floor and jams it into her mess of hair.
“True Texan!” Milo shouts. He sticks his hand out for her to high-five. She hesitates before obliging.
“You’re from Texas?” I ask Shay, then clear my throat to get the sleep out of my voice. Truffles whips his head around and jumps onto my lap.
“Oomph!” I groan, clutching my balls. Guess he solved my morning wood problem.
“What is this?” Milo laughs out his bolting laugh. “Shane’s got some competition, looks like.” He nods to Truffles lapping at my face, and I let go of my very bruised junk and push the pup’s face away.
“I think you should put the ring on Truffles,” Shay says to Milo as she flips the iPod to another country song. Truffles howls and whines. I agree, buddy.
“Knowing that dog, he’d sabotage the whole proposal and eat the ring before it ever got to Shane.”
Shay smiles at Milo’s joke, and she starts scribbling in a notebook she must’v
e gotten from him while I was out. I check over her shoulder to see all the times and dates she’s listed in the margin.
“Making a schedule already, huh?” I ask, wincing as I fix my jeans. Damn, that dog’s got killer aim. I should have a talk with him…I need my equipment intact for Miss Sure Thing.
“You still have your script, right?” She scribbles something down for what I think says “Friday night at 8:00,” but her handwriting is so small and I’m not that great of a reader. I fumble for the zipper on my carry-on and tug out the lines I went over with her the other day.
“You’re gonna make me work, aren’t you?”
She nods, her pen flying across the paper. “We still have a slight chance of getting you to Birmingham tomorrow, and Carletta wants that dinner with you.”
“Wait…hold up,” Milo says, a half grin pulling on his lips. “I think I’ve pieced it together.”
Shay tucks her loose hair behind her ear with her pen. “Fire away.”
Milo catches my confused-as-hell look through the rearview.
“I’ve been trying to figure out who you are and where you’re going. And I think I’ve got it.” He sticks his finger out and points at nothing in particular, since his eyes are still trained on the road. “Jace is an actor.”
“X gets the square,” I say, and Truffles woofs at a passing car with a dog and scares my head into the side window.
Milo sticks out another finger. “Shay’s your assistant.”
“Close enough,” I say with a grin, while Shay reaches back and beats me with the notebook.
“I’m his agent,” she tells Milo, who sticks a third finger out.
“You’re headed to Alabama…but I’m not sure why yet.”
“For Carletta,” I say, resting my head on my hands. “Carletta and her sweet, sweet assets.”
Shay rolls her eyes at the very pervy expression I’m wearing. “That’s why he’s going. But some people have to actually work for their money.”
I make a face at her because like I give a shit. I’m not sleeping with Carletta to get the job. I want to get the job to sleep with her. I’m about to say something, but I notice Milo’s face going bright red, and my eyes widen because I think I have to give our driver the Heimlich.
“Hey, are you chok—”
Then he sucks in a large breath, and the rest of his laughter is so loud it shakes the truck.
“I’m sorry,” he says wiping his eyes. “It’s not even that funny. But…you just said the exact same thing on your meme.”
Shay’s cheeks go pink, and she hurries and scratches more miniature writing on her paper. A forced smile appears on her lips. “Well, some people do.”
Milo chuckles again, and I drop my hands from behind my head and lean up on the front seat to get a better look at her face. I’m not sure if she’s bothered or annoyed or what, but it bothers me. That look punches me in the chest, making breathing difficult. I feel the sudden urge to make that look disappear, to try to get her to crack a real smile. The one that causes her mouth to twitch. The one I find incredibly adorable scary.
“Those were the first words you ever said to me,” I blurt. Her brown eyes soften as they look at me over her old-lady glasses. I smile, then turn to Milo. “I’m the douche she beat with that shoe.”
“You’re messing with me.”
I shake my head. “I’m normally cropped out, but in some of the memes you can see my arms guarding my face. Shay’s got a hell of a swing.”
Don’t know why, but I give Shay a wink before sitting back in my seat. Like I somehow helped her out there, when really I probably just made fools of us both. Shay’s brow furrows slightly, then she points her pen at my forgotten script by Truffles’s paws, and I huff out a childish groan.
“I’m working on it. Buzzkill.”
I read over the first page silently (takes me about twenty minutes, sadly) and then start whispering the lines to myself. There’s a “love speech” in one of the scenes that is about a page and a half long, so I take a deep breath and say that one out loud to the dog. Shay reaches back with her pen every time I mix up words and taps me lightly on the knee. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t get frustrated, but after the seventeenth tap, I get frustrated.
“Damn…piece of…” I sputter, shaking the script in front of me. Once I get the words in the right order, it’s a breeze to memorize. It’s just doing all that damn work beforehand.
Shay bites back a smile and grabs onto my wrist to stop me from crumpling the pages.
“Here,” she says, handing back a piece of paper. “Cover up the words and read them one at a time.”
Milo’s eyes catch mine briefly, and I ignore them out of sheer embarrassment. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.
Shay’s method works, thank Jesus, and after a good hour I start saying the lines without the script, occasionally turning it over when I blank on the words. I’m halfway through the second scene when Milo turns down the horrible music and says, “Does it bother you?”
I look up, wondering if he’s talking to me. Reading at a third-grade level would bother anyone above third grade, nosy bastard. And I’m about to tell him so, but Milo’s gaze drifts to Shay before he looks back at the road.
“Does what bother me?” she asks, flipping a page in her notebook.
“Being the Elmo Girl.”
“Oh.” She taps her pen against her paper. “No. It’s fine.”
Always fine.
“You keep saying that word,” I quote from The Princess Bride. “I do not think it means what you think it means.”
“Best movie ever.” Milo grins. “Also a meme.”
Shay takes her glasses off and cleans them with the bottom of her baggy shirt. “It’s fine. It’s just hard sometimes to be taken seriously at work.”
I’ve always thought of that meme as a kind of cool thing—something to talk about on dates or share with friends, but making work harder? I’d never thought about it like that. (Probably because I’m so self-absorbed.)
“Does everyone quote it to you?” I ask, my chest doing some tense tightening shit I can’t seem to control. I really shouldn’t feel so worried for a girl I dish out so much shit to.
Her eyes catch mine briefly before she slips her glasses back on her face. I don’t know how I didn’t notice before…but Shay wears red a lot. Red looks good on her. Even in the form of old-lady frames. She tugs on the shirt she’s wearing—not red, because it’s mine—and bundles it up so it’s not hanging so loosely on her. The outline of her curves reminds me of how she felt during the very wet piggyback ride. How warm and fuzzy and shit. Something pushes up into my throat, pounding and making it hard to breathe.
“Not everyone,” she says. Her cheeks blossom red, and damn, even natural red looks amazing on her.
“You talking about me?” I ask, pointing stupidly at myself. My throat is definitely closed off. Like acid reflux…even though I haven’t eaten anything. Must be a different form of hunger pangs.
She bites her bottom lip slightly, then I swear I see her whisper something to herself. Her nervous expression relaxes into one of merciless teasing.
“Yes, dumb-ass,” she says, taking all the scary sentiment out of the situation and making me laugh. Good. I know what sexual tension is, and I don’t need to be feeling it with Miss Unlikely. And I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to feel it with me.
But I can’t help but notice the extra beats in my pulse when I catch the corner of her mouth twitch upward as she turns to look at the road in front of us. Damn, I need to get to Alabama fast.
3:18 P.M.
“We got about ten minutes while I fill the tank,” Milo tells us as he pulls off the highway.
Shay lets out a wheezing breath of relief, bouncing somewhat in the front seat. She’s been crossing her legs so tight I thought for a minute there she’d snap her pelvic bone.
Milo pulls into a run-down rest stop, but it has a toilet, so when the truck comes to an almost s
top, Shay pushes the door open and takes a ninja leap onto the asphalt.
“Watch that ankle!” I shout at her retreating figure. Damn girl is going to hurt herself again. Milo opens his door and whistles for Truffles, then tosses a few bucks at me.
“Get something to eat. I bet people in China can hear your stomach.”
I scoot toward the door without reaching for it. Milo shakes his head and pulls on my sleeve.
“Whoa, what the hell?” I say, flying across the seats. I know the guy is about twice my size, but he handles me like Play-Doh. Glad Shay doesn’t witness it. I’d never hear the end of it.
“Take the money. Get something for you and Shay. And I want a giant Code Red Mountain Dew.”
“All right, all right, handsy,” I joke, and he lets go of my sleeve and smooths it out. Truffles barks and growls at him because little dude has got my back.
Milo tosses his hands in the air and says, “Whose side are you on?”
The cash crackles in my hand, and I stuff it into my pocket before hopping down.
“Oh dear Gooood,” I grumble, clutching at where my thighs meet my ass. Feels like I’ve been on a horse all day.
Milo walks around the semi and takes one look at me bent over and groaning, then bursts out with his booming laugh.
“Take it you didn’t go on long trips growing up.”
I shake my head. Mom and Dad didn’t do much other than work, my brother is seventeen years older than me, and Grandma didn’t really like…
Oh my damn.
Grandma.
“I need to use your phone,” I fire at him.
“Do you need to call one of your random women?” he jokes, pulling it from his pocket.
“My grandmother,” I answer, fingers flying over the cell screen. Call me a “Grandma’s boy” but I have a standing date with Grams every Monday night. Shit, she probably called a million times to my waterlogged phone.
