Chapter 35
“You’re not even gonna let me peep on him first?” River whined. If Amanda had put this Jem guy in one of the rooms with the one-way mirrors, River could’ve taken his measure without revealing himself.
Instead, she’d had him shown into one of the many bland conference rooms, so River was going in blind.
“I’m not giving you an excuse to hate him before you even talk to him,” she said reasonably.
Which, okay, fine. River might have done that given the chance. But he’d already agreed to this plan, hadn’t he? And Amanda knew him better than anyone save his own mother, so if the perfect man for this sugar baby gig existed, she could find him. River didn’t have anything to worry about.
But as soon as he went in there, this guy, whoever he was, was going to know that rock star River Wild was actually in fact a pathetic loser who couldn’t be trusted unescorted in public.
On the other hand, maybe he should take pride in being ungovernable. That did sound very rock-star-like.
Fuck it. He couldn’t wait any longer. The curiosity would kill him. He pushed open the door and went inside.
At his entrance, the room’s lone occupant stood up. With more than twenty years of practice rolling with the unexpected on stage, River did not burst into laughter.
The man Amanda had hand-selected to babysit River was tall and broad-shouldered with floppy brown hair.
He’d dressed for the occasion in dark-wash jeans and a gray henley with the top two buttons undone, showing a smattering of chest hair.
Dark brown deck shoes on his feet, an uncertain half smile on his conventionally handsome face.
Hot enough no one thinks twice about it, River remembered. Check.
“Uh, hey,” the guy said, hands in his back pockets first, then brushing against the front of his jeans, then the right one extended to shake. “I’m Jem. Are you also here to meet Amanda?”
River eyed the hand—more like a mitt, good Lord, what did he need with hands that size—and then shook it, bemused when Jem’s fingers reached his wrist. “Something like that.” If Jem couldn’t handle River having a little fun during the interview, he wouldn’t last five minutes at one of River’s stupid parties. “I’m River.”
“Nice to meet you.” Jem sat back down, monster hands on his thighs. Then he glanced at his watch, grimaced, and raised his gaze to look at the clock above the door. For the first time, River clocked how red his eyes were. “Hey, do you have the time?”
River was sure Amanda had screened for drugs. Maybe Jem had really bad allergies? “Yeah, it’s ten to.” Jeez. Amanda had actually gotten him here early.
Jem’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Okay, great. Uh, can I ask a favor?”
Already? River hadn’t even agreed to pay him yet.
Before River could answer, Jem said, “I just—I’m supposed to be meeting someone at four, and I thought I’d be really clever and make sure I was here early, but I rushed through putting my contacts in and one of them is inside out.
I can barely see and it’s driving me crazy.
” He huffed out a breath. “If someone comes in here looking for me, just let them know I’ll be right back. ”
“Sure,” River said automatically, his mind for once shocked into silence. What kind of wholesome parallel universe had he stumbled into?
In his imagination, he heard Amanda laughing at him. River took the opportunity to pull out his cell phone and send a text. Are you absolutely serious. He omitted the question mark. She should recognize the intentional lack of it.
Isn’t he perfect!!!! she texted back, also without a question mark.
River didn’t have time to formulate a reply, because the door opened and Jem returned, face scrubbed pink and eyes already returning to normal.
Without the irritation, they were a charming dark hazel, fringed with the kind of lashes people paid good money for.
River wondered if he had. Probably not; his clothes were nice, maybe even designer, but not new by any means.
“Thank you so much—” Jem started, and then he looked at River with clear eyes for the first time and said, “Oh God, you’re River Wild.”
Okay, that was kind of adorable. River smiled in spite of himself. “So you do know who I am.”
The color that had fled Jem’s face a moment earlier rushed back. “Uh, I mean….” He pushed the still-open door behind him wider and gestured. “Amanda framed your Rolling Stone cover. With your name in seventy-two-point font.”
Ouch. Right in the ego.
Amanda sure did know how to pick ’em. She probably thought that was hilarious.
“Right, okay.” He gestured for Jem to sit back down. “I guess the jig is up. Since you signed the NDA and everything, I might as well tell you it’s me. I’m the client.”
Jem didn’t sit. “Yeah, uh, I did put that together now that I can actually see you.” He ran a hand through hair an inch too long to qualify for clean-cut and offered a wry smile. “Start over, I guess?”
Sure, River thought. Why not. None of this had gone the way he expected.
Probably not the way Jem had expected either.
“Hi,” River said dutifully, shaking. Jem’s hands had not gotten any smaller.
If River had hands like that, he could touch every fret on his guitar at the same time.
Jesus. “I’m River Wild, musician and general chaos magnet. ”
Jem grinned a typical All-American-Boy grin. River’s publicist was going to send him flowers. River’s publicist was going to send him an entire florist shop. “Nice to meet you, River. I’m Jem, uh, hopeful sugar baby.”
River barked a laugh. This time they did sit down, each in a corner chair so their bodies were half turned to each other. “Sorry,” he said after a beat, when no other words presented themselves. “I’m not really sure what I should be doing. Believe it or not, I’ve never had a sugar baby before.”
Jem rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “That’s okay, I’ve never been a sugar baby before either. I guess we can figure it out together.”
Right. River could do this. He’d interviewed staff before.
Well, he’d been present while Amanda or Ted—the Flat Tires’s manager—interviewed staff, and sometimes he paid attention.
Amanda had already given Jem her seal of approval, so all River had to do was figure out how he and Jem could fake a relationship in public.
River was good at improvising. “So why now?”
Jem gave a wry shrug. “I like living indoors?” Okay, yes, fair. LA was expensive. “I had to take a couple weeks off work a while back. Emergency fund depleted, decrepit car is on its last wheels—”
“They just don’t make them like they used to,” River said automatically.
Jem raised his eyebrows, and the corner of his mouth twitched in the hint of a smile. “Yeah, I think they’ve been doing it a little differently since they discovered rubber.”
Oh, so he was kind of a bitch! No wonder Amanda liked him. She’d never pick someone River would run roughshod over. “Touché.”
“Same question,” Jem said. “I mean, I heard the official line from Amanda, but I feel like it’s more useful to hear from the horse’s mouth.”
River opened said mouth to make a dick joke, or a riding joke, or both, and then forcibly reminded himself that he should try to be professional for at least part of this meeting. “So when I said I was a chaos magnet, what I meant was I’m a slut with bad taste in men.”
Should River be offended by the way Jem just nodded as though this made perfect sense? Not fazed in the least? “Yeah, that tracks.”
“It’s like I have ‘sucker’ painted on my forehead. And whatever, there’s nothing wrong with having a lot of sex, but it puts me in a creative funk when the guy I’m seeing steals my favorite Gucci belt or hosts an orgy when I’m on tour.”
That, at least, gave Jem pause; his mouth worked like a fish’s for a moment before he said, “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“Wow,” Jem repeated, which River thought was unnecessary. “Okay, so you’re looking for, like…? How do I help you solve this problem?”
“Oh. That’s easy.” River shrugged. “I have shitty taste, but I don’t cheat. Not even on a fake relationship. So you tag along with me to places where I generally get suckered by bad boys with sticky fingers and wandering eyes, they see I’m with someone and leave me alone.”
Jem raised his eyebrows. “You think they’re gonna give up that easily?”
“If we put on a good enough show, sure.” Besides, the point was that River had someone to keep him in line.
In the problem of River’s shitty taste in sex partners, River was the common denominator.
It galled him a little to think he needed a babysitter more than a good boyfriend, but whatever, the truth hurt.
Now Jem tilted his head to go along with the raised eyebrows. “A show?” he repeated. “That might be incompatible with my day job.”
“I meant you have to pretend to like me, not suck my dick for an audience,” River said wryly.
“Or in private, for that matter.” Surely Amanda had gone over that.
Then he paused and flipped the question around in his head.
Jem’s day job was incompatible with public sexuality.
What if River’s day job was incompatible with being seen with Jem?
“What else do you do for work, anyway?” He cringed; he sounded like a dick.
“By which I mean is it going to cause a scandal in the tabloids if I’m seen with you at a party, because you’re a hit man by day? ”
“I promise I have a normal nine-ish-to-five-ish. Pay my taxes and everything.” He held up his fingers like he was doing the Boy Scout salute. “Amanda said I shouldn’t tell you my job right away because it would be more fun to make you work for it.”
“That wench!” River said delightedly. Amanda knew how much he loved games. Games meant winning, or the potential to win. “All right, Jem, I’ll play. What are the rules?”
Jem tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Questions about important shit are allowed. Like—I’m allergic to shellfish. You should probably know that. I have an Epipen on me pretty much all the time; you know how Angelenos are about seafood.”
River nodded and made it a point to remember to ask where he had it when they went out, because he would absolutely freak out if Jem suddenly stopped breathing. “I do.”
“And it’s fair to ask things like….” He leaned forward, quirking a lopsided grin, and lowered his voice to a parody of a come-on line. “Hey, Jem, do you have any psycho exes who might try to kill me?”
Absolutely no one was going to doubt that River was ass over tits for this guy. Hilarious. River leaned forward too. “Well, do you?”
He dropped the flirty attitude and rolled his eyes. “Nah. That would require them to have liked me that much in the first place. Should I be worried, though?”
“It hasn’t been a problem so far. Keep us posted. We can get you security if it happens.” River carefully didn’t offer an opinion on Jem’s exes. Apparently he suffered from the same brand of luck as River did. “So those are the rules for me. That’s fair. But how do I earn the VIP passes, huh?”
“The old-fashioned way.” Jem smiled. “Conversation.”
Right away, River saw Amanda’s intention. “Oh, so I have to pay attention to you.”
“That was the hope, I think.”
Fuck it. The whole thing was kind of nuts, but River could work with crazy. He stuck out his hand. “All right, Jem. You’re hired.”