Jake felt his stomach roil. He gripped the phone tighter. “The woman I’m seeing is a fan,” he pointed out.
“Well, obviously,” his father said. “Although I would’ve guessed pro, too. That chick—damn. Good to see a woman with actual curves, not those sticks the studio keeps pumping out.”
“Watch it,” Jake growled.
“So you hooked up with a groupie. Who hasn’t? But that’s not the stuff you want plastered all over the internet, kid.”
“She’s not a groupie. She’s a fan of the show,” Jake snarled.
“What show? That dinky sci-fi thing you’re on?”
Now Jake had to fight not to throw the phone out the goddamned window. “Mystics, yeah. Anyway, we met here before the convention, sort of a funny story. I asked her to dinner, and we just clicked.” Which was all very true. He smiled at the memory. “We’re getting publicity, I admit, but hopefully that’ll just help boost my profile enough to get the contract renewed.”
His father went silent for a moment, and Jake wondered if he’d finally gotten through to the old man. As soon as Kurt opened his mouth again, though, Jake knew just how stupid he’d been to get his hopes up.
“Wait a minute. You’re telling me you’re actually trying to stay on that third-rate piece of crap? Are you kidding me? Susie, is he kidding me?”
Jake didn’t hear Susie’s reply, because his father was bulldozing forward regardless.
“Listen up, kid. You can do a hell of a lot better than a TV series on basic cable.” His voice was the gravelly rasp that threatened bad guys in multimillion-dollar blockbusters. “Stop fucking around with groupies, and get it together, would you? Susie, see if you can talk some sense into him!”
With that, the phone was duly transferred over as Jake seethed.
“Jake?” Susie said tentatively, even as Jake heard a door slam in the background. “I am so sorry. He was just stopping by to talk about a new film that he’s thinking of producing, and . . . well, you know how he is.”
“Oh, I know,” Jake ground out.
“That said—Jake, sweetie, he’s got a point.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“It just looks like you partied, maybe, and found a groupie to hook up with,” Susie said apologetically. “A distinctive-looking one, very beautiful, and I’m sure she’s, erm, sweet and all that. But the narrative’s just ‘Jake is having sex with strange women’ rather than anything we can work with.”
Jake grimaced. Goddamn it.
“I genuinely like this girl,” Jake said, and he meant it. “I’m not going to hook up with some twenty-year-old blonde whose star is ascending because she’s on some high school drama on the CW. I like this woman.”
“Enough to give up the show for her?” Susie snapped.
It was like a slap with a cold, wet towel.
“I see.” Jake took a slow breath. “Got it.”
“Sorry. That was blunt.” Susie sighed, and he could hear papers rustling. Then she cleared her throat. “Your father means well, you know.”
“Don’t, Susie,” he warned. “Just . . . don’t.”
Another pause, another sigh. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything from the producers,” she said. “In the meantime—you might want to start thinking about plan B. I’m going to get some scripts together, see where I can have you audition, okay?”
Jake clicked off the phone. So much for Hailey’s idea, he thought, then ground his teeth. No, that was unfair. The idea was to get him publicity, and she’d done that in spades. It was hardly her fault that people like his dad were painting her as a groupie. That it just looked like Jake was having sex promiscuously—that the story was becoming Jake partying, rather than falling for a fan.
He frowned.
Maybe that was the answer. Change the narrative.
Emphasis on falling.
He’d show them, he thought, quickly dialing Hailey’s number. He’d show Susie, the producers. He’d shove it right down his father’s throat.
Didn’t think he could act? Thought that he needed some sleazy Hollywood publicist to create a fake story? He had the narrative. He knew just what the fans would eat up.
“Hey, Jake,” Hailey said. He could hear the clattering of customers—she was at the coffee shop, he remembered. “What’s up?”
“I figured out the problem,” Jake said, without preamble.
“Oh? What problem is that?”
“We need to be in love.”
Chapter 6
“We’ve got to what?” Hailey repeated, feeling stunned and almost dropping the muffin she’d just placed on a plate for a customer.
Stan came up next to her. “You okay?”
She looked. There was a huge line of people at the coffee shop. “Jake—listen, can you hold on? I’ll call you right back.” She hung up.
“Everything okay with that boy toy of yours?” Stan teased.
She was in no mood. She had only a few days left. Tomorrow was the last chance they’d have at capturing any of the convention fans, getting them to the bookstore. Which meant she had to help Jake get attention now. She made lattes as fast as she could.
“Hey, this isn’t what I ordered,” a man in a Huskies sweatshirt complained.
“Isn’t it?” she asked apologetically, as she finished up another. “I thought you said double-shot decaf caramel latte, no foam.”
“I wanted half-caf,” he said, although she knew damned well that’s not what he’d asked for. “And there’s still foam.”
That was milk, she thought, but she took it back. “Sorry. I’ll get another one going for you,” she said, her jaw clenching so hard she thought it would pop.
“Yeah you will,” he snapped. “And I think I should get a refund. I’ve been waiting here for twenty minutes, and you can’t even get the order right!”
That did it. She glared at him. “It was more like seven minutes, because we get busy. And I made a mistake, but you’ll get it over. If it’s that much of a problem”—she dug into her pocket, throwing a five-dollar bill on the counter in front of him—“go over to Starbucks or something. I hear they love to suck up to assholes.”
Silence fell on the shop. She winced. Damn it. Damn it!
“Hailey?” The manager, Lizzie, cleared her throat, speaking nervously. “Can I speak with you in the back for a moment? Stan here will be happy to refund your money, and we’ll get whatever drink going you’d like, sir. Thank you all for being patient.”
Hailey felt shame burning through her, as well as anger. “I’m sorry, Liz,” she said in a low voice, as Liz shut the door behind her. “I didn’t . . . I’ve been kind of stressed lately.”
“I know,” Lizzie said. “And it shows.”
That hurt. “I’m coming to shifts on time, and I’m working hard, though. I just . . . today . . .”
“I know you’ve been working hard, and I know you’re working two jobs,” Lizzie said. “You’re burning out. I think you know that.”
Hailey bit her lip. “I’ll pull it together. I promise.”
“I called Trina,” Lizzie said. “You’re off shift now.”
“But we’re backed up,” Hailey protested. I need this job! “I know, I shouldn’t have mouthed off. I’ll apologize to that guy, okay? I’ll make him three lattes. I’ll make those little leaf designs. I’ll . . .”
“Hailey,” Lizzie said, her voice going a bit harder. “I really don’t want any drama here. You’re a hard worker, but it feels like you’ve got a little too much going on right now. Take some time off, until you can get it together, okay?”
Hailey glared. “Don’t do that. Don’t tell me that you want me to take more time off, to get myself together, when you just don’t want to deal with me.”
Lizzie’s eyes were cool. She spread her hands. “You can take it however you want to, Hailey,” she said, her voice irritatingly calm. “But I need you out. Now.”
“Am I fired?”
Lizzie shrugged. “
We’ll call you when things calm down.”
Hailey took off her apron, throwing it down onto the floor with a slap. “Fine. Just . . . fine.”
“We’ll mail your last check,” Lizzie called after her. Hailey stalked out to Charlotte, feeling ready to scream. She put her head down on the steering wheel, feeling like slamming it. But she didn’t.
I needed that job, she thought. Her sisters, the bookstore, they all needed that money. That God. Damned. Paycheck.
Now, she needed Jake’s help more than ever. She had to fulfill that part of the bargain.
If she didn’t get Jake some results, then he wasn’t going to help her out. He could simply say he liked Frost Fandoms, do a shout-out at a panel. She just had to convince him to make an announcement soon, or they’d lose the opportunity to shuffle some of those convention fans to the bookstore. It would be a little clumsy, and it wouldn’t have the same impact as saying, “I will be at Frost Fandoms,” but it would have to do.
Sighing and crossing her fingers, she dialed him as she sat in the parking lot.
“You sounded tense,” she said, after he’d barked out a greeting. “Like, bear trap tense. What’s going on?”
“I talked to my agent.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“Ordinarily, yes,” Jake said. “Not in this case. She saw the photos—they’re all over TMZ and a bunch of gossip sites—but she said it’s not giving me the reputation they’re looking for.”
She frowned. “What are they looking for, then?”
“Something more solid. Less, um, temporary.”
“They’re not looking for, like, an engagement, are they? Because I don’t know that we can pull that off believably in just a few days.” she joked, then faked a Scottish burr. “Damn it, Jake, I’m a blackjack dealer, not a miracle worker!”
She didn’t know if he missed the reference, didn’t find it funny, or was just so stressed he blasted by it. “We need to be in love.”
She blanched for a second—couldn’t help it. “Aha. I thought that’s what you said before.” She sighed. “So, fine. We’ll be in love. No big deal.”
“Yes, big deal,” he retorted. “Right now, you could be anybody I slept with.”
“Excuse you,” she murmured, but he was too into his own head to catch it.
“It looks like you’re just . . . well, a really hot rando. Maybe even an, um . . . professional.” He sounded embarrassed. “That’s not my opinion.”
She shrugged, although the derision and disgust in his voice chafed. “You don’t say.”
He exhaled. “They don’t know you at all. It was just the narrative. The pictures showed we were hot and heavy, but it wasn’t emotional. It wasn’t romantic. It just looked like a booty call.”
He sounded contrite, although she wasn’t sure if it was for the right reasons. Especially when he followed it up with, “I’m sure he meant that you looked like a groupie.”
She gritted her teeth. She’d almost rather be called a hooker. “So your agent thinks I’m a prostitute and/or fangirl that you hooked up with,” she reiterated, “and the problem there is that the story becomes Jake is hanging out with degenerates rather than Jake is dating a fan. Did I get that right?”
“That’s not . . . it’s . . .” Another sigh. “I’m sorry, Hailey.”
“You damned well should be.” She felt tears sting at the corners of her eyes, and blinked them back into submission. “Excuse the hell out of me for looking temporary.”
“This really isn’t about you, I swear. I’m overreacting to this whole thing. It wasn’t just my agent,” he admitted, his voice sounding growly and frustrated. “It was . . . well, shit. It was my dad.”
His voice all but rang with the truth of that statement, pain naked in his tone. So that was the problem. She took a deep breath, pushing her hurt feelings aside. I can’t help Cress if I stomp away pissed off.
Even if they had called her a hooker and a groupie. She gritted her teeth. She’d already lost one job today.
“So that’s why you sound like something crawled up your ass and died,” she said instead.
Jake let out a startled laugh. “Um, yeah. Again, I’m sorry. He sort of makes me nuts.”
She thought of his father. Everybody knew Kurt Windlass. If he was half as much of a hardass as he portrayed on the big screen, the guy was probably a drill sergeant. “That’s too bad,” she said. “Family can do that to you.”
He stayed quiet. Obviously this wasn’t a topic open for discussion.
“Okay, they do have a point,” she reluctantly admitted. “We need the narrative to be that you’ve fallen in love with a fan, not you’ll nail anything sexy that crosses your path.”
“Well, you are sexy,” he said, his voice warming. While she felt a little flattered, she knew he was just trying to shake off the talk of his father. Then he added, “The only reason I think they went the direction they did was because we have insane sexual chemistry. At least, I can say that it’s never been like this for me before. You are a force of nature, woman.”
“I am aware of this,” she agreed, glad he couldn’t see the blush that was contradicting her bravado. “And I’m grateful for your vote of confidence, but now we need to go a little more public, apparently. There aren’t a ton of paparazzi in Seattle, which is a good thing, but it also means that we need to stay somewhere the paparazzi will see us, but not seem obvious about it.”
“It’s got to be about more than sex,” he said. “It’s got to be about intimacy.”
The way he said the word intimacy made her shiver, in a good way. “Right. Subtle, but accessible,” she agreed. “And more romantic.”
“Yeah, that works,” he said. “But how are we supposed to convince anybody that we’re in love?”
She frowned. You got me, pal. I’ve never been in love.
However, with Jake perilously close to freaking out, now was not the time to make that particular admission.
“Well, rather than being the sexy make-out show, we just need to go for something more classic,” she said, with more confidence than she felt. “Romantic dinner or something, maybe?”
“That’s kind of cliché, isn’t it?” he hedged.
She sighed. “We don’t have a ton of options. It’s not like we’ve got a professional photographer that works for us, setting up press-perfect pictures for public consumption. We’re relying on one lame member of the paparazzi who’s just made her first break and will be looking for more.”
“I was thinking more like a public declaration.”
“No!” She rubbed her face. The guy would’ve been a terrible grifter. “What, do you want to look like a couch-jumping Tom Cruise?”
“You have a better idea?”
“I thought you hated faking it. Thought you hated lying,” she snapped. “Now, you want to go all-in with this?”
That sunk home, she could tell from his little hiss of breath.
Jesus, Hailey, are you trying to ruin all of your chances today?
“Sorry. That was below the belt,” she said. “And uncalled for. I . . . It’s just . . . It feels like an overreaction. You want to prove something.” To your father, she thought, but didn’t say anything. “Trust me, I do a lot out of spite. I know what it looks like.”
He let out a long exhale. She could feel the tension running through him, over the phone.
“I’m going to come over. We’ll do something cute, something fun and, erm, couple-ish,” she soothed, even as her own stomach knotted. “I’ll wear something girlfriend-friendly and low key.”
“And not too sexy?”
“Well,” she drawled, “sugar, I just can’t help that. I was born this way.”
He laughed, and she thought she could feel some of the tension melting out of him.
“I must be out of my mind,” he admitted. “This is . . . stupid. Crazy. Do you really think we can pull this off?”
He wasn’t wrong. The knots in her stomach tightened
and multiplied.
Can you pull this off?
She glared at herself in her rearview mirror. “Let me tell you something. You know how I said the bookstore is owned by my family? That we live there?”
“Yeah, you mentioned that.”
“I’ve got a sister—well, sort of a sister—it’s a long story. She runs the bookstore. It’s really for her.” She took a deep breath, then said quietly, “She’s agoraphobic. I don’t think I mentioned that.”
There was a long pause. “No,” he replied. “You didn’t.”
“Her name’s Cressida, and she’s awesome.” She bit her lip, fighting back tears. “I’m going to come to the hotel, and we’ll figure out a game plan. We’re going to show the producers just how valuable you are. We’ll get you that contract renewal. You know why?”
“No, why?”
“Because my sister is counting on me,” she said, and let the full force of that passion, that dedication, come through in her voice. Convincing herself. “Because I don’t let her down, not if it is humanly possible. If that means convincing the world that we’re madly in love, on camera, then that’s what I’ll do. And trust me, the entire world—including you—will believe me. Because I’ve got too much riding on it, and I’m not going to fail. Okay?”
He paused. “This really means a lot to you.”
“Well, duh,” she spat, before she could stop herself.
Thankfully, he laughed. “I mean . . . when you talk like that . . . it’s like listening to a preacher or a president or . . . I don’t know, Steve Jobs,” he said, and she snickered. “Jesus, with persuasive skills like that, why aren’t you in sales or something? Or actually in PR?”
“Haven’t gone to college, don’t really plan to go. It’s hard for me to keep my attention on any topic I’m not passionate about, like general ed stuff.” Not to mention the expense, but really, the thought of sitting in a chair like Rachel did, writing papers and putting up with a lot of bureaucratic bullshit, made her skin crawl. “So, do we have a deal?”
“You’re on. You come here, we’ll figure out something.” He paused. “I want to help your sister, too. I’ll figure it out, get over my neurosis, and make sure that I do the thing at your bookstore, okay?”
One True Pairing: A Geek Girl Rom Com (Fandom Hearts) Page 12
