Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Iwas already agitated watching Bree talk to the Clark Kent wannabe when Joey moved in for the kill.
Again. Andrew Fisher—I’d looked up his name on the guest registration sheet—had spent thirty minutes talking to AC Frampton before fixating on Bree.
Several of the female authors giggled about how good-looking he was and how they wished he was a fan of their writing.
That was the only reason I noticed him. When he sat down with Bree, however, something kindled hot inside me.
Jealousy. That was what it was. Denying it would have been a comfort, but I couldn’t do that.
I was jealous at hell. I was debating how I was going to get Bree away from Andrew so I could spend some time with her when Joey appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
My jealousy turned into anger, and maybe a little fear, in that moment.
Why did this guy keep showing up? He was clearly interested in Bree—not that I could blame him. She was beautiful, and when she laughed, she lit up the entire room. She had charisma coming out of every pore. She radiated warmth. Of course he would want to be around her.
I did. Apparently, that was all I truly wanted these days—to be around her, whether it was a good idea or a bad one. And it was definitely bad, for the record.
The look on Bree’s face when she saw him was too much for me.
It would have been one thing if she was okay hanging around with him.
She wasn’t in distress with Andrew, the Clark Kent lookalike.
I hadn’t liked that, but it wasn’t my business.
Joey, though, she hated. More than that, she was afraid of him.
She had an expressive face, and it was obvious what she felt when she looked at him.
I could not tolerate the idea of her being afraid of him—or of anything. That was why I’d walked away from Blair when she was midsentence—mid–bullet point actually—and headed straight for them. I wasn’t some macho guy who wanted to throw a punch. Getting Bree away from Joey was my singular goal.
I wasn’t certain how we ended up outside, with her pressed against the building as I let my tongue wander through her mouth.
She was a willing participant. I didn’t ask—I just waited for her to say no.
She didn’t, so here we were … and nothing had ever felt better than my mouth against hers.
I managed to keep my hands from taking a walk over her ass—which had been driving me crazy in her tight shorts for hours at that point—but only because I was too fixated on her mouth.
I couldn’t say how long we kissed. I felt drunk when I finally pulled back.
Her eyes were glazed, and she seemed confused as to why we’d stopped.
As much as I liked the sight of her that way, pride expanding in my chest because I’d done that, I regretted it right away.
The distance between us, however minimal, allowed her to sober instantly.
“What the hell?” she demanded. She didn’t push me away, but her tone made me take a step back. “What were you thinking?” Her eyes were the size of saucers.
I opened my mouth to respond, but no words would come out.
“Hello!” She snapped her fingers in front of my face to wake me up. “What were you thinking?” she repeated.
I found my voice, but barely. “I was saving you from Joey.” A lame response, but it was all I had.
“I didn’t need you to save me.”
Her words, however automatic, angered me.
She corrected herself almost immediately. “I actually appreciate you swooping in regarding Joey,” she said after a beat. “He makes me nervous.” She said it in such a low voice that it tempered the anger that had been kindling.
“I think we should try to get him banned from the events.” This seemed like a safe topic. I didn’t want to dwell on the kiss, especially since I hadn’t yet wrapped my head around what it meant.
She immediately started shaking her head. “On what grounds?”
“He makes you uncomfortable. That’s reason enough for me.”
“But technically, he hasn’t done anything.”
“He backed you in a corner in a hallway with no exit at the last event,” I argued.
“Okay, but when I’m questioned as to whether I tried to push past him, and I tell the truth, what do you think they’re going to say?”
Her response bothered me. “You don’t have to justify your feelings. You get a say in who is around you. You should trust your instincts, and right now, your instincts are telling you to stay away from him.”
She nodded, her fingers going up to restlessly comb through the hair that had been messed up when we’d been making out.
We still hadn’t talked about that. It was a conversation we would have to have—one way or another—but I was thankful we had something else to distract us at present, because I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t certain I would ever be.
“But if I say something, and he’s kicked out, he could make a big deal of it on social media,” she said in a low voice. “He could cause it to go viral by saying he was just minding his own business. You know how misogynistic people on the internet can be. It’s a powder keg out there right now.”
She wasn’t wrong. Still, I didn’t like the idea of Joey being around her. “You’re afraid of him.”
“But I don’t have a reason to be. He’s just … always there.”
“That’s enough. You have a right to feel safe.”
“But what if there’s nothing wrong with him? What if he really is just minding his own business? He doesn’t deserve to be locked out of these things if I’m the one making a mountain out of a molehill.”
She shouldn’t have been questioning herself.
That wasn’t fair. But I knew how this stuff worked out for women.
Even other women would judge her. That was simply how it worked.
I’d seen it with countless celebrity and political scandals.
This would be on a much smaller scale, obviously, but she was right.
If Joey wanted to make a stink, this could blow up.
She would be the one facing consequences under those circumstances.
“It’s not fair,” I said finally.
She eyed me for a long beat. Finally, a small smile quirked the corners of her lips. “Life isn’t fair.”
“Maybe not, but it should be.” Only then did I realize my hands were still on her hips. I jerked them away, my cheeks burning as she eyed me. “I … um…”
Should I say something? Should I apologize?
“It’s okay,” she said in a soft voice.
“It’s really not.” I hated myself, but I didn’t know why. We weren’t dating. I’d dragged her outside against her will and kissed her without asking for permission. Those were two big no-no’s in my book.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it.” Her hand landed on my chest, causing hope to flare again. Her smile was rueful. “It was an emotionally charged situation. No harm, no foul, right?”
I swallowed hard. What if I wanted there to be harm? Not that I wanted to hurt her. It was more that I wanted to cause a ripple in both our lives.
Despite that, I flashed a flat smile and nodded. “No harm, no foul.”
“It was a much better activity than the alternative.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Which is…?”
For some reason, despite the surreal fact that we were hunkering in the dark outside Vic’s on the River, she giggled. The simple sound sent things zinging through me. Feelings I couldn’t remember ever feeling.
What the hell is going on with me?
“You got a breather from Blair, right? That’s a good thing.”
I rubbed my chin and nodded.
“Bullet points?” Bree asked.
I groaned. “She’s been rereading my books. She has questions about certain logistics.”
“You should take it as a compliment.”
“How can I take her nitpicking as a compliment? It makes me feel inferior.”
“Don’t look at it that way.” She shook her head. “Look at it as she loves your work so much, she cares so much, that she can’t help obsessing about every little detail because it takes up so much space in her head.”
When she put it like that, it was easier to swallow. Still, there was pain associated with the jabs Blair kept taking, whether she knew what she was doing or not.
“She doesn’t understand that authors are soft at their cores,” Bree continued. “We have to be to let that amount of emotion in. We’re channeling emotion when we write, which makes us weak in certain ways.”
I didn’t appreciate being called weak. She continued anyway.
“Writers are weird dreamers who go soft under criticism,” she explained. “We can’t help it. Blair really isn’t trying to hurt your feelings, though. She just cares about the books so much she glosses over your feelings because she can’t see past her own beliefs.”
“She’s a little intense,” I managed.
“She is, but you can’t take it personally.
It’s part of the game. People both love and hate us.
The internet has become this place where people can be evil with no repercussions.
They don’t see us as people, because you can be anonymous and safe on the internet even when spewing vitriol.
And that has extended into the real world.
Ninety percent of my readers are absolute gems. A handful, however, see us as commodities and nothing more. It is what it is.”
I sighed. She was right. “I know. Blair is just … a lot.”
“Oh, Blair is definitely a lot,” she agreed on a grin. “But it could be worse. Andrew was in the middle of asking me if scales were sexy on my alligator shifters when Joey decided to make an appearance. I would take Blair over either of those guys ten times a week.”
I laughed and nodded. The spell between us had been broken. We still hadn’t talked about the kiss—the never-ending, ridiculously hot kiss—but in that moment, it almost felt as if it had happened to somebody else.
“I guess we should head back inside,” I said, scooping my fingers through my hair. “We still have an hour left.”