“Pushing one out?” I look to Eli in horror and make a beeline for him. I press my hands over his rock-hard chest and hold on for dear life. “We need to get out of here!” I hiss as I try my best to hightail us through the door.
“Whoa, whoa.” He spins me back around gently. “You can’t leave. You have the lead, remember? This is just nerves or something.”
“It is not nerves!” I hike up on the balls of my feet and practically bite his nose off. “You have no idea what those people want me to do. I’d rather lick the bathroom floor at your frat house than recite my line.” I shove my script in his face, and he grimaces.
“Oh crap.”
“Oh crap is right! And they’ve got the shitter right there!” I point hard behind me at the makeshift bathroom where I’m expected to drop trou in less than an hour.
“Look, you said yourself that the Ashley Grayson booked this gig for you. Do you really want word getting back to her that you blew it off?”
Thoughts of my modeling career going down the proverbial toilet take over, and I cringe as I’m about to push the inevitable words from my throat.
“No.” I glance back as the director cues the music and the extras start dancing to the beat. “Fine, I’ll stay.”
“Cool. I’ll be right here watching.”
“Oh no, you don’t! You need to leave. I can’t stand the thought of saying or doing those things in front of you.”
“Why not?” He backs up an inch and actually manages to look affronted. “You’re doing it in front of them, aren’t you?” He nods over to the mingling masses.
“Yes, but that’s different. They’re paid professionals,” I say, leading him toward the exit. “And I won’t have to stare at them for the long flight home.” I wince. “Would you mind hanging out nearby? I don’t know if I trust these people.” It’s true. “I feel as if I was promised a rose garden and shoved into a sewer instead. I realize I should channel all of my anger toward Ashley Grayson, but I don’t have the nerve, not even in my subconscious. Everyone knows Ashley Grayson has the power to make or break a career. I bet this is something akin to hazing.”
“Hazing?” Eli looks amused, and it only annoys me that much more.
“I’ll text you and let you know when we’re through.”
Eli ducks out, and I head back over to the party scene. The music starts up, and soon enough I’m dancing and getting lost in the beat with the best of them. Secretly, I pretend I’m back at the Black Bear dancing with anyone, my new sharky boyfriend, or even Eli. Anything would be better than this. I’m given my cue, and I collapse my hand over my belly and pretend to be in morbid pain—and, believe you me, I am. Who knew humiliation could hurt like a mother? And just like that, I’m about to do what scares the ever-living hell out of me. How’s that for irony, Eleanor?
“Why am I always so constipated?” I whine it out as if I really cared.
“Cut!” the director shouts. “Again! Harley, give it your all this time. I want to hear angst. I want to hear the stopped-up shit. I want to feel it!”
Kill me.
We go through it a few more times, and after I nail it—the happy hippie’s term, not mine—we migrate over to the makeshift bathroom.
Most of the actors from the dance scene stick around, knocking back sodas and noshing on donuts while I pull down my pants and sit on the toilet in front of what feels like a cast of thousands as if it were an everyday occurrence. I now know what the homeless lady who crapped into a planter box next to the Dushanbe Theater felt like. There is more than a little stripping of dignity that takes place when you resign to public pooping.
“All right,” the director, whom I have deduced will never be my friend, shouts. “I want to see you struggling to push it out. Let’s see the veins in your neck pop. I want to see color changing in those cheeks. Put on a good show.”
And put on a show I do. I strain, push, and grunt through fifteen takes, two hours—read one hundred twenty minutes of my precious life I will never get back nor will I ever want to own. And then it hits me. I am filming a freaking commercial. This foray into showbiz is going to haunt me for my entire natural life, and that, my friend, is the energy I muster for take sixteen in which I cry out with anguish as I push my way into the entertainment field.
Once we wrap, I try to scrape my dignity off the fake bathroom floor, but it’s no use. Instead, I change into my own clothes and find Eli out in the hall like a faithful puppy. A handsome, far too rock-hard, drop-dead gorgeous faithful beast who did not deserve to hang out in the hall and listen to me pretend to crap my pants for the better part of the afternoon.
“How did it go?” He offers a mournful smile, and surprisingly he doesn’t manage to infuriate me.
“All of my emotional energy is drained, and all I want to do is run out and forget my troubles.”
“Lucky for you, the hotel has a special on massages. I’ve got a kink in my neck that needs to disappear before my next game. You in?”
“A massage? Finally, a man who speaks my language. I’m in.”
My phone buzzes in my hand.
“And would you look at that? It’s a text from my favorite shark. He’s so thoughtful, he texts several times a day just to remind me how wonderful I am.” I wince when I say it because it sounds terrible.
Eli grunts as he peers at the screen. “Don’t have too much fun with football boy? Wait a minute. This dude knows about me?”
“You bet. We tell each other everything.”
“So, you think. I’d watch what kind of info you give out. Where does this guy live?”
I think on it for a moment. “Hollow Brook Hills.”
Eli inches back as if I slapped him, and suddenly he looks lost in thought.
We finally get back to the hotel and get those well-deserved massages. A couple’s massage, go figure.
Eli and I stare at one another while a strange woman pounds over our backs, and I contemplate what it would be like to be a real couple with Eli.
It’s silly for me to even think about.
I glance down at his bare upper torso as he lies on his steely chest. He has an amazing body—one that’s been passed around the sororities one too many times, I’m quick to remind myself.
He gives a devilish grin my way, and my insides pinch tightly with heat.
Eli is a sex god, and he knows it.
The very worst sex gods are the ones that know they have what everyone wants.
I turn my head the other way and do my best to pretend not to want him.
I don’t want him.
Do I?
Eli
I don’t want her. Do I?
Harley Shelton. She’s all I can think about lately.
It’s early evening at the Black Bear, and I’m twirling fries on my plate like a three-year-old just as my buddies, Rush and Lawson, come and take a seat across from me.
Rush glances to my meal. “Looks like we didn’t get the dinner invite.” He pushes out an obnoxious grin. Rush happens to be dating Trixie, Knox’s twin sister. And Lawson here has leashed himself to a beautiful girl named Lucky—but I’d say that Lawson was the lucky one in that equation. Rush looks like every surfer on the West Coast, and Lawson looks as if he could be my brother with the same dark hair and general features.
Lawson steals a fry off my plate. “Why the long face, princess?”
I shrug it off. “I’m moving out of the frat. I’m too old for that crap.” It’s true. I had one girl after the next knocking on my door all night trying to make their way to my mattress, and, for whatever reason, I decided to decline every kind invite. I figure it’s time to branch out on my own if I want to get any decent sleep. “You wouldn’t have any openings on your street, would you?” Rush and Lawson live next to one another, a few blocks from the Row where all of the frats and sororities are located.
Rush pushes a stack of fries into his pie hole. “Down the street from me,” he mumbles through a mouthful of potatoes. “Two bedroom.�
�� He shrugs. “You sure you can afford it?”
Lawson smacks him on the arm. “Dude, Eli is loaded, and you know it.” He nods my way. “Did you crack into that trust fund yet?”
“Just a bit—school, my car, the basics. The rental won’t be a problem. Although, I am trying to live frugally until next summer.”
Rush looks vexed by the idea. “What happens next summer?”
“I rob your bank account and leave for New York for good.” I press out my own obnoxious grin before taking a bite out of my burger.
But Rush doesn’t look amused. “You do realize that for as long as I’ve known you, I don’t really know you. I mean, I am aware of the fact you lost your entire family.”
I squirm in my seat a bit.
“So what did your dad do?” He boldly starts in on his inquisition.
“It was my mother,” I correct. “She outearned my dad. She was a top attorney at Burrow and Burrow.”
Lawson’s brow lifts an inch. “That’s huge.”
“It was. She made full partner. My dad did pretty well for himself, too, as an executive at a toy manufacturing company. That’s what gave my brother and me a love for anything to do with a ball.”
Rush and Lawson exchange a quick look.
“I mean sister.” I try to shake it off as if it were nothing. “Sarah. She and I would play out in the yard for hours. She’d be seventeen right now.” I swallow hard just thinking of my sweet baby sister.
Lawson squeezes his eyes shut tight for a moment. “Man, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how I’d make it without my sisters. We’re pretty tight.”
Rush elbows him. “I get it, though. I’m protective over Sunday. My brother is cool, and we get along great, but Sunday has my heart.”
“How’s the baby?” I ask with an apprehensive smile. Seth Baker, our shared friend, knocked Sunday up and now they’re married with a sweet baby girl to call their own.
“Rissy?” Rush whips out his phone and quickly pushes through a slideshow of pictures, all of them including a sweet sleeping doll.
“She doesn’t even look real.” I shake my head at the little angel. “Are you sure she’s related to you? She’s too cute.”
He flops his phone screen side down onto the table. “She’s mine. And as much as I feel protective over my sister, I feel ten times more protective over my niece.”
Lawson grunts out a laugh as he steals more fries. “In other words, the girl doesn’t stand a chance.”
Serena comes up clad in a waitress uniform and bubbles out an adorable laugh. “Are these fools eating your meal?”
Rush grins up at her. “These fools want twice as much as that fool.”
“Please,” Lawson adds.
Serena is a petite blonde with a tiny nose that’s turned up just a notch. Gorgeous as all hell, but she doesn’t have anything on Harley. Not many girls do.
Did I just think that?
Serena narrows her gaze on mine. “Speaking of fools. Dare I ask, why are you playing with fire?”
“If there’s an inferno somewhere, I’d much rather blame these two.”
She makes a face. “Yeah, well, Knox says it’s you. I know all about your jaunts to New York with my roommate. Are you trying to get into her panties?”
“What?” I inch back as if the thought actually affronted me. “No way, no how. We’re keeping it G. Or at least I am. I have no idea what the queen of mean told you. I’m strictly there as an escort.”
Rush grumbles with a laugh. “An escort? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“Shut up.” I kick him lightly from underneath the table. “Harley is just a kid.”
Lawson shakes his head. “She’s of age.”
Serena glares at me once again. “And she’s fresh off a heartbreak. Do not, and I repeat do not, do anything that might fracture that fragile heart of hers. That girl might act like tough stuff on the outside, but on the inside, she’s cotton candy fluff, ready to dissolve in a puddle. She’s vulnerable. She needs to be treated with a delicate hand.” Someone calls for Serena from the back, and she takes off.
“Hear that?” Lawson squeezes out some ketchup onto the corner of my plate. “Make sure your hands are delicate with her.”
Rush winces. “That is more information than I care to know about. I’m certainly not giving you any tips in that department.”
Lawson scoffs. “That’s because you don’t know how to be delicate. It’s a wonder Trixie can walk.” He looks to me. “So, you slept with Harley?”
A shadow darkens my left and groans. “Oh hell, tell me I didn’t hear it.”
We look over to find Knox looking as if he were in serious pain.
“You didn’t hear it,” I assure him as he falls into the seat next to mine. “Because I didn’t do it. These two are surmising things from their own imaginations. I do believe they are projecting.”
“No way.” Rush is the first to dismiss the idea. “I’m quite content with Trix, and don’t you dare get any rumors started. That girl has a kick, and I don’t want to rev her up.”
Knox thunders with a laugh. “Don’t I know it. And dude, you knew it the second you signed up for my sister what you were getting. She’s a firecracker.”
“She’s dynamite,” Rush counters.
Lawson ticks his head. “Lucky is an entire powder keg of gunpowder.”
I take a deep breath. “Harley is an entire fireworks factory.”
The table grows silent, and soon all eyes are on me.
Knox groans as if I just mortally wounded him. “Please tell me it’s not true.”
Rush glowers at me. “It’s true.”
“What’s true?” I glance around, truly stymied by this indiscernible truth.
Lawson offers up a slow blink. “Dude, you’re into her.”
“I’m not into her,” I’m quick to deny. “I’m annoyed by her.” I think on it for a moment. “We’re just good friends.”
“Good friends?” Rush shakes his head. “Try again.”
“I don’t have to because it happens to be the truth.” Harley bounces through my mind, that glowing honey skin, those eyes that make me sit up and pay attention. I do my best not to think of her body, lest I find myself in a hard situation. “Look, we’re just stuck with each other for a few weeks. It’s not a big deal. And once Harper is through with her group project, I’m sure she’ll want to hitch a ride to New York with her little sis. It’s not a big deal.”
Serena stops by and drops off two more plates before taking Knox’s order.
She looks my way. “Are you still talking about her?”
Lawson gives a wistful shake of the head. “You know it.”
“Oh my God, you’re obsessed.” She stalks off with a look that suggests she’s had it with me. Hell, I’ve had it with me. I’ve had it with this entire conversation.
“See that?” Rush points her way. “Even Serena knows it. Admit it. First and foremost, to yourself. That was the hardest part for me.”
Knox laughs. “That’s because you’re dating my sister.” He smacks me hard over the chest. “Keep your junk away from Harley. She’s not for you. She’s a good girl at heart.”
“And what exactly am I?”
“A beast,” Knox answers without hesitating. “You’re out of control, and we all know it. Look, screw your way through the Row.”
Rush moans as he shakes his head. “He’s already done it.”
Knox glares over at me as if that thought alone offended him. “Then make another round. Just stay away from Harley.”
Lawson leans in. “I get that you’re dating her sister, but why are you fighting so hard to keep Eli from her? What do you care?”
Rush lifts a finger. “I’ll answer for him. Harper has him by the balls. This is her order he’s repeating. He knows what side his balls are buttered on.”
Knox flexes a dry smile. “That would be correct.”
Rush shrugs. “You didn’t want me with Trixie, and n
ow you’re completely happy with it.”
“That’s debatable.” Knox isn’t giving an inch. “Besides, I didn’t know about it in the beginning. I know about this, and I know for a fact there’s still time to circumvent it.”
Serena drops off Knox’s food without so much as giving a dirty look my way.
Lawson shakes his head. “Dude, if Jet Madden, tattoo artist, muscle man extraordinaire, didn’t stand in the way of Lucky and me, there is no demon in hell that’s going to keep Eli and Harley from getting together.”
“We’re not getting together. Am I speaking English? We’re all still speaking English, right?”
Lawson shoots me a look. “This isn’t about you.”
“Am I still on planet Earth?”
Rush blinks a quick look of annoyance my way. “All we’re saying is that you can’t keep a good thing down. The quicker you admit this to yourself, the better. Don’t waste time like I did.”
“Or me,” Lawson is quick to add.
Knox lets out a riotous groan. “What the hell. Or me.” He glares my way. “If you try to implicate me in any way to Harper, I’m pleading the fifth.”
“You don’t have to plead the fifth.” It comes out a little rougher than I meant for it to. “And nobody at this table needs to worry about me. If I wanted Harley, I’d go for her. It’s as simple as that. But, as it stands, she’s taken.”
“What?” Knox looks as if I just swiped the patty from his burger.
“That’s right. Fish boy or something like that. She fell for some idiot on that app. But don’t get Harper’s panties in a bunch because we all know you’re wearing them. They’ve yet to meet, and I’m monitoring the situation. If anything escalates, you’ll be the first to know.” I salute him, and just like that, the subject is seemingly dropped and all of our attention shifts back to the food.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I fish it out. It’s a text from Harley, but I don’t dare announce it or they might just throw me a bachelor party.
Guess who thinks my backside is hot???
A picture pops up underneath her text, and it’s Harley walking toward the English building, her hair blowing wild and free as if it were glorying in the brisk fall air.
Shameless Kisses: 3:AM Kisses 18 Page 5
