“Goofy?” he repeated, still reeling from the public sex comment. If only I didn’t picture it quite so vividly . . .
“Yeah. You’re funny. They don’t take advantage of that enough, in my opinion,” she said, and he felt unaccountably warm. Not sexy-warm, this time, though. More like hug-warm.
“You think I’m funny?” He knew he was fishing here, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“Yeah. I’ve seen some interviews, and when you’re a little more tired, or you’re with the other guys, you loosen up. And you’re funny as hell.”
He smiled.
“That. That smile,” she said. “Keep doing that, and you’ll be on every magazine on the planet.”
“So, just pretend I’m dating you and smile,” he said, shaking his head. “Just that easy, huh?”
“Again: what do you have to lose?”
He sighed. “When you put it that way, not much, I guess. But if they find out it’s a hoax, they’ll crucify me. Us.”
“I’m not a public figure. That’s not going to be a problem,” she said, shrugging. “But you’ve got a point. We’d probably need to spend a lot more time together to really sell it.”
His eyes narrowed. “Like, how much more time?”
“I don’t know. You’re only going to be here for what, a week? That’s not a lot of time,” she said. “When is the contract deadline?”
“By the end of the week.”
“One week. Not a big deal.” He wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him, or herself. “We fake a grand romance, the fangirls get to dig into the idea that Jake Reese connected with an ordinary woman . . . you get your contract, our bookstore gets a nice boost of publicity. Win-win.”
He was about to protest that nothing about Hailey could be considered “ordinary” when her words sunk in. They were faking this. It was a transaction—just like Susie wanted, an orchestrated ruse. He gets something, she gets something. It’s just business.
The thought of having sex with her—with anyone—as a business transaction made his stomach turn. He knew women who felt they didn’t have any choice but to have sex with a director in order to score a role. Men, too, now that he thought about it. He knew his father had abused his position as an A-lister to get women in the sack. They probably thought they were getting a good deal out of it, or it was “just business.”
Suddenly, the idea of striking a “bargain” with Hailey made his stomach queasy.
“One condition,” he said. “If we’re going to do this—I don’t think we should sleep together.”
She blinked. “Sorry, what?”
“We can pretend to,” he said. “If the—con—requires it. But I don’t think we should, um, muddy the waters.”
She stared at him for a long, silent moment, and for the briefest second, he thought he saw hurt shining in her eyes.
“Because you don’t trust me,” she clarified, her voice even and steady as a rock.
“No! It’s not that,” he said quickly, then frowned. “I mean, it’s true, I’ve only known you for a day. But I don’t mean to be hurtful, I just . . .”
“Don’t ever apologize for protecting yourself.” She cut him off. “Not ever. That’s just being smart.”
He stared at her. Her voice, her expression, was fierce. And not in anger—or at least, not anger at what he’d said. It seemed she was angrier that he was apologizing.
“This is business,” she continued. “Good fences make good neighbors, that sort of thing. So it’s a smart idea. We’ll run the con, you’ll do the appearance, and that’s that. No sex.”
“That’s that,” he echoed.
He could still feel the jolt of electricity. He could smell her—that fantastic smell, like night-blooming jasmine and hard candy. Her skin was soft, her eyes hot.
Absolutely no sex, he reminded himself.
“Deal?” she said.
She held out her hand. He took it. For a second, their gazes locked, and it felt like his heart skipped a beat, then picked it up again, pounding double-time. That furnace blast of awareness tore through him, making his body tingle.
“Deal,” he answered, forcing his voice to remain steady, and shook her hand.
* * *
Hailey was still thinking about their deal later that night. Jake had wanted to start brainstorming, but she’d needed space and time to think out their game plan.
Besides, tonight was girls’ night.
Their friend Kyla was curled up in a wingback chair, her feet tucked under her, an art pad and pencil in her hands. Their friend Tessa and her boyfriend, Adam, were cuddled on one couch, while their other friend Stacy sat on the floor, using the coffee table as a desk, leaning back against her boyfriend Rodney’s knees as he perched in a chair behind her, glancing over her shoulder. “Girls’ night” would need another name if the boyfriends kept coming over, Hailey mused.
Briefly, she imagined what it would be like if Jake were there. Just as quickly, she shook the image off. Not the point here, stupid. She had to stay focused. After Cressida’s little jaunt outside, they were all on edge, and Rachel had called an all-hands-on-deck gathering to discuss how they could turn things around. They’d discussed the re-branding. Kyla, cosplay queen and artist extraordinaire, had whipped up some quick pencil sketches of a revised logo and sign, while Rachel did rougher diagrams of how displays might work.
“Frost Fandoms,” Rachel said, pointing to Kyla’s most recent sketch. “I love it!” Kyla simply winked, heading back to the kitchen.
“So a memorabilia shop?” Tessa asked, looking at the sketches and diagrams pensively. “Would all the books go?”
“Absolutely not,” Cressida said. “At heart, we’re a bookstore. Gram loved books.”
“And books are an essential part of most fandoms, anyway,” Rachel quickly asserted. “Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, Divergent . . . just going through the YA fandoms, we’d be stocked.”
“There are novelizations, too,” Adam added. “I read all my brother’s Robotech novels, back in the day. And I’m totally picking up the Mass Effect novel by K. C. Alexander and Jason M. Hough when it comes out.”
Kyla walked in from the kitchen, bundled up in an oversized fuzzy gray sweater, jeans, and leg warmers, of all things. “Spiked cider,” she said, putting a tray down.
“Oooh. That’ll go well with the cookies I made this afternoon,” Cressida said, getting up and making a beeline for the kitchen. Kyla looked at Cressida’s disappearing figure, then leaned toward Hailey.
“How’s she doing?” Kyla whispered.
“She’s hanging in,” Hailey responded, keeping her voice low. “She’s playing tough, but . . . damn it, Kyla. We’ve got to make this work.”
Cressida came back in, and Kyla simply nodded. “Don’t worry, we got this,” she told Cressida and Hailey both. “I’ve got costumes you guys can display and sell, and I’m going to make smaller cosplay stuff, cheaper stuff, that’ll go more quickly. Mystics-related stuff, too, to capitalize on the convention.”
Cressida gave her a grateful smile, and Hailey hugged Kyla’s shoulders.
“You’re getting paid for those,” Rachel said pointedly. “You work hard on your costumes. You deserve to get paid.”
“You guys are family,” Kyla said easily, with a wave of her hand, her smile bright as sunshine and sweet as lemonade. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I wish I’d gotten my act together around this sooner,” Rachel said sadly. “We could’ve gotten a booth at the Mystics convention, selling stuff.”
“Next year,” Kyla said, patting Rachel’s back.
Everyone else looked awkwardly at each other. Nobody needed to say what they were thinking: If the bookstore was still around next year.
Hailey cleared her throat. “I’m going to be heading to the Mystics con this week—I scored a pass from a guy I met at work.” Which was not technically lying. She’d tell them about Jake when she had the details more clear in her head
. “I’ll hand out flyers. We just need to make sure we have enough cool stuff to stock it, and set up some displays. That’s what you’ve been working on, right, Rachel?”
With that, their attention snapped back to the issue at hand. Rachel handled herself like a pro. She’d already discussed it with Hailey that afternoon, and Hailey was completely on board.
After an hour or so of brainstorming and writing details, while Stacy and Tessa talked social media planning, Hailey took the opportunity to retreat to the kitchen herself, just for a second, to decompress.
Cressida stepped in behind her. “What’s up?”
“Felt more like cocoa than cider,” Hailey hedged. “You okay?”
“I was going to ask you that,” Cressida said, leaning against their heavy, battered pine kitchen table. She stared at Hailey expectantly.
“Just winding down.” Which was true. The bargain she’d just made with Jake had her dialed up to eleven. She felt like her system was still revving, needle in the red.
How the hell am I going to make this work? I know nothing about publicity or acting careers. Or those score things. Or . . . well, anything.
She’d never tried to pull a hustle with this little foundation work before—and she hadn’t been on the grift for years. She’d been too eager, very “let’s make a deal,” and jumped the gun. Hell, when she’d made her spiel, she’d even convinced herself she could pull this off. Now, with the buzz of adrenaline wearing off, and with the gang discussing all the plans they had for the bookstore, she was struck with the very real question of exactly how she was going to do what she’d claimed—and how she was going to get Jake here, to do the appearance and launch the whole pursuit properly.
She quickly added tequila to the cocoa, as well as chili powder, a trick she’d learned from Tessa. It wasn’t as good as Tessa’s—it never was, even though Tessa swore she wasn’t keeping secrets—but desperate times called for desperate measures.
Cressida quietly shuffled around the kitchen, popping milk in the microwave to make herself a nonalcoholic version of what Hailey was drinking. Wearing Pusheen the cat pajamas and slippers that looked like Godzilla feet, she looked like she did when Hailey met her, all those years ago—like she was still about twelve, and a skinny, gangly twelve, at that.
“So what’s really going on, Hales?” Cressida asked quietly.
Hailey winced, glancing quickly out at the living room/store, where the war room was still in full effect. “What makes you think . . .”
Cressida held up a hand, stopping her. “I could tell as soon as you walked in this afternoon that something was going on.”
“How?”
“I could feel your energy.”
Hailey narrowed her eyes. “Really.”
“Okay, I could tell because you kicked your badass boots off and they’re all sloppy and a mess in the hallway,” Cressida admitted, stirring hot milk into the hot cocoa powder in her mug. “You never do that. You baby your footwear. Ergo, you’re obviously worked up about something.”
This was the problem of knowing someone for as many years as they’d known each other. Cressida was her Jiminy Cricket, the angel on her shoulder, the one who knew her better than anyone.
The one who called her on her bullshit. Like she was now.
“Well . . .” Hailey started.
“Oh, shit,” Cress said, stirring the cocoa and plopping down on the opposite chair, staring at her. “You’ve got that look.”
“First the boots, now the look,” Hailey shot back, rolling her eyes. “You caught me. I’m planning to rob Fort Knox.”
“No, but you’re up to something.” A shadow passed across Cressida’s sky-blue eyes. “You’re not doing anything—you know.”
“No, I’m not doing anything illegal.” The words came out clipped, and she felt the quick one-two punch of anger and fear of getting caught, followed up by a hard hit of guilt. She wasn’t doing anything criminal, admittedly, but she was still doing something . . . shifty.
Of course Cressida picked up on that. “Not technically illegal?”
Hailey sighed. She should’ve known that she couldn’t hold anything back from Cress. Best to just come clean.
“I’m working on getting one of the guys from Mystics to do an appearance to help promote the bookstore,” Hailey whispered, then braced herself.
Cressida’s cornflower-blue eyes went wide, and she did a quick check to make sure the others weren’t listening. “What? How?” she hissed.
“That’s the hustle. Nothing technically illegal. Nothing even illegal adjacent,” Hailey clarified. “I’m . . . well, I’m going to help Jake Reese improve his K score, in exchange for helping us.”
“His what?”
“K score. I think,” Hailey said. “The thing that says how popular he is.”
Cressida smirked. “Q Score. You’re thinking Q Score.”
“Whatever,” Hailey said, embarrassed. You can’t even get the name of the score right! How is this going to work? She shook off the thought. “Anyway, if I can help him improve his standing, then he’ll ask his agent to do the appearance.”
She could practically hear the gears shifting in Cressida’s brain. “You don’t know anything about publicity. And you don’t even know what a Q Score is. How, exactly, are you ‘improving his standing,’ Hales? And why haven’t you told Rachel yet?”
Hailey sighed. “I’m, erm . . .” She took a deep breath, and said it quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “Pretendingtobehisgirlfirend.”
If Cressida’s eyes got any wider, they’d pop right out of her head. “You’re . . . pretending . . . to be his . . . girlfriend.” She repeated it slowly, softly, as if convinced she’d misheard something.
“Yeah.”
Cressida went silent. The gears kept whirring away.
Finally, she nodded, with a slow sigh. “You’re running a con. You’re helping him run a con.”
Hailey relaxed against the chair. There was no judgment in Cressida’s statement, just observation. “This is why I love you. You get me.”
“It’s the star-falls-for-fan trope,” Cressida said slowly, her eyes still misty and unfocused as her brain parsed out the details. “A shomance. Or rather, a promance—PR romance. Do you know how you’re going to set it up?”
Hailey felt like a knot was untying in her chest. Cressida was on board, not naysaying. She could talk it out, talk it through. Just knowing she wasn’t alone helped enormously. She should’ve turned to Cressida sooner, but it felt alien. It was her job to help Cress out, not the other way around.
“Not sure what my approach is yet,” Hailey said, taking a sip of cocoa, and wincing at the tequila’s bite. “I figure I’ll stake out the paparazzi. There ought to be a few hanging around.”
“It’d be better if you got a fangirl to take a picture with her cell phone, or somebody from one of the Mystics blogs,” Cressida mused, spinning the mug slowly on the table, lost in thought. “It’ll seem more organic that way. Less staged.”
“That’s a good one,” Hailey agreed, sipping the chocolate and letting the kick of tequila do its thing. “We’ll work on getting the photos spread. I’ll try to tell someone to not share it.”
“Smart. Get the right fan, they’ll share it even more that way.” Cress sipped her own chocolate, sighing and grinning absentmindedly. “This’d be better with more whipped cream. So, once the story’s out, how will you amp it up? It’s not enough for the fandom to know. If he’s trying to bump up a Q Score, he’ll need more media covering it.”
“That’s where the paparazzi needs to come in,” Hailey said. “It needs to go to those more viral places. TMZ, that crap. Boost the love element.”
“Okay. . . .” Cressida was frowning now, biting her lip. “Still going to need something for them to talk about.”
“I was thinking public sex.”
Cressida laughed, then stopped abruptly. “Man. You’re kidding, right?”
“Do you know me at all?
” Hailey teased, trying to keep a straight face.
“Yes, and if you don’t think I heard about that time you had sex on the Space Needle, you’ve got another think coming,” Cressida said. “I might be house-bound, but I see all and hear all.”
Hailey let out a bark of laughter. “Shit. You do, don’t you? How do you manage that?”
“I have an active online life,” Cressida said primly, then smirked. “So yes, you’d do public sex in a heartbeat. But not for a scam.”
“No, not public sex.” Hailey frowned. “Although he’s not the sort you’d kick out of bed for eating crackers.”
“He is terribly handsome,” Cressida said, then clamped down her mouth.
Hailey sighed. “Just ask.”
“Were you planning on . . . I mean, is it a good idea . . .” Cressida’s pale skin was scarlet with embarrassment. “How did you manage to convince him that this was a good idea, exactly?”
“I didn’t take one for the team, if that’s what you’re asking.” Hailey straightened her shoulders. “I haven’t bounced a guy to get a deal ever, and you know that.”
Now Cressida looked guilty. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t think you would, but when it comes to protecting me . . .”
Hailey sighed. Cressida was right. If it meant screwing the Seventh Fleet to keep her family safe, Hailey would probably whore herself bowlegged. But she didn’t want Cressida feeling more guilty, or worried. “It’s not an issue, Cress. If it makes you feel any better, he already stated that clearly. Absolutely no sex.”
Now Cressida blinked. “So he’s gay?”
Hailey burst out laughing. “Your confidence in me is appreciated. If his previous performance is any indication, though, he’s definitely interested in girls.”
“His previous . . . oh, my God.” Cressida gawped. “He was the guy you were with last night? I interrupted you and Jake Reese?”
Hailey nodded, leaning back in her chair and grinning. “Yup.”
“Oh, my God,” Cressida repeated, her jaw dropping open. “Are you . . . I mean . . .”
It was so funny, to see Cressida so completely blindsided. Hailey chuckled.
“You talked to him about the bookstore. You’re helping him out with his Q Score,” Cressida said finally. “Was it . . . is this the start of . . . something?”
One True Pairing: A Geek Girl Rom Com (Fandom Hearts) Page 9
