Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Travis
Katie: Landing in twenty minutes.
Travis: I’m here. Just parked. I’ll come to Arrivals.
Katie: I think you should kiss me hello.
Travis: Okay.
Katie: It would be realistic. Right?
Travis: I’ll do it. How would you rate the last one?
Katie: Perfect. 10/10, no notes.
Travis: Good to know. I’ll do that again.
Katie: Lucky for you, I always travel with mints in my purse.
Travis: I’m not worried, babe.
Katie: Also, I’m not wearing lipstick. We should probably discuss lipstick at some point. And lip gloss. Does either bother you? I have setting spray I use on set, but it smells weird. Or I could just not wear it.
Travis: Wear whatever makes you happy. Lipstick doesn’t scare me.
Katie: It could be a problem, depending on how much public kissing we plan to do. It’s a worse problem if any tongue is involved.
Travis: Are you requesting tongue for this airport kiss? I need a heads up for that.
Katie: Forget I mentioned it. Let’s stick to the plan.
I rolled my shoulders as I walked into the arrivals hall. I needed to focus. Katie had forgiven me for coming onto her again , and she’d given me another chance to do this right. She’d asked me to kiss her. I didn’t want to screw this up.
I got double takes as I walked through the airport crowd, and I heard murmurs. Portland was a chill place, I knew now, full of people who didn’t go nuts over celebrities. I did the walk that worked best in public—a rolling saunter with some speed to it, gaze straight ahead, posture relaxed, a way of moving that said I’m the cool dude you think I am, I’m not stuck up, but right now I’m on my way somewhere . You had to walk the line between businesslike and unfriendly. It helped that I wore a hoodie and a baseball cap, so a lot of people missed recognizing me.
While I waited at the arrival doors, a few people made eye contact with me and gave me smiles or nods. I nodded back, then focused on the doors, making it clear I was expecting someone.
When Katie came through the doors with her rolling bag, I waited for her to notice me. Then I zeroed in on her, strode up to her, cupped her face in my hands, and kissed her.
I didn’t open her lips, but I kissed her more deeply than I had when she left. I kissed her like I’d been thinking about her nonstop, like I’d been restless waiting for her to come back. I kissed her as if I’d like to be polite in public, but at the sight of her I just couldn’t fucking do it. Like at the sight of her, I’d forgotten all of my good intentions.
Her cheeks were flushed when I pulled away, and a strangled word came out of her throat. “Oh.”
“I’m obsessed, remember?” I took the handle of her bag in one hand and flung my other arm over her shoulders, tugging her into my side. “You’re a sex goddess. You’re only back in Portland because I’ve been begging you nonstop, and you finally took pity on me.”
“Right.” Her arm slid around my waist as we walked through the crowd toward the doors. People gawked openly at us. “I think we gave them a show,” she said in a low voice.
“That’s the idea.” I led her out toward the parking lot and my car. She felt good under my arm, her hand curled against my hipbone and her arm snug against my lower back. A guy hauling a suitcase from the back of a cab gave me a thumbs up, and I winked back at him.
The rich, famous rock star, getting the girl and taking her home. Another day in paradise.
Katie took a long, hot shower when we got to the apartment. She came out of the bathroom wearing navy sweatpants and a T-shirt, her hair damp around her shoulders. I forced my gaze away from her shirt, but not before I noted that yes, she was wearing something under it. Nice try at being a gentleman, bro. Try again.
If she noticed my wandering eyeballs, she didn’t let on. She put a laptop bag on the counter and slid her laptop out. “I’m starving,” she said. “Are we going out?”
“Nope.” I poured myself ice water from the pitcher in the fridge, which I had stocked for her. I’d taken note of what she liked to eat the last time she was here. “That isn’t in the script.”
“It isn’t?”
I gave her a look as I sipped my water, trying not to remember how her lips had tasted. Good. They’d tasted good. “Babe, it’s been almost two weeks. I’ve been dying. It was the best sex I ever had, and my balls are bluer than the Mediterranean. Please tell me we’re having reunion sex for at least a few hours. Put me out of my misery.”
Her cheeks flamed red. “Right. I suppose we would do that.”
“I’m just telling it like it is. Or like it would be. You know what I mean.”
She lifted her hair from her neck and blew out a breath. “You make a good point. I didn’t want to go out, anyway. We’ll order in.” She looked around the room, caught sight of my guitar, and whirled back to me. “Play me the music you’ve been working on.”
I groaned. “Katie, no. A sex goddess does not listen to her boyfriend’s terrible music and pretend she likes it to feed his ego. It’s beneath her.”
“She does if her boyfriend is Travis White,” Katie argued.
“Dubious claims of my talent aside, still no.”
“You are talented. I’m sure the music is good. I’m dying to hear it.”
“Later. What’s that?” I pointed to a thick stack of pages resting on top of her laptop.
She picked up the stack, playing along with the change of subject for the moment. “This is the thriller script I’ve been offered. I think I’m going to take it.”
“A thriller? That’s new.”
“It’s new, it’s dark, it’s different, and they offered it to me because they saw me with you.”
I blinked. As much effort as I’d put into this fake-dating thing, I hadn’t thought much about it actually working. “Really?”
“Really.” Her cheeks were still pink, this time with excitement. “They saw a picture of me walking around Portland with my hot boyfriend and my sex hair, and they decided I’d be perfect for the role.”
Our gazes locked. I was happy for her. I wanted to kiss her again.
Actually, I wanted to scoop her up and put her ass on the counter. Then I wanted to tug down her sweatpants, get on my knees, and?—
This was agony, wanting this. And yet I couldn’t stomach the thought of being anywhere else than right here.
“You’re welcome,” I managed to say.
Katie smiled and held the pages out to me. “Would you read it and tell me what you think?”
I took the script reluctantly. “I’m not in the movie business.”
“Still, before I decide, I want your opinion.”
Who the hell wanted my opinion on a script? I was hardly Edgar Pinsent. But I was curious about what might be Katie’s next project. “You don’t know anything about my taste in movies,” I warned her.
“I know you like mine.”
“I do,” I admitted. “I was only a little bit stoned.” I didn’t tell her about my crying session in front of The Christmas Date. If I could hold on to the thinnest shred of my male dignity, I would keep it.
“I’ve been told my movies go well with weed,” Katie said Fuck, I liked her. “I’d appreciate if you’d read this script sans cannabis, if you would.”
“I’m happy to oblige.”
We smiled at each other for too long, and then the air got heavy, and it was hard to shut out the fact that we were alone in this apartment with no distractions. And we had kissed at the airport. And it would be night in a few hours.
“Oh, shit,” I said, jolting us out of the moment. I put the script down. “I forgot to clear out the bedroom for you.” I’d slept in until it was almost time to pick her up. I had been up late recording the demo for the Road Kings.
As I climbed the loft stairs to the bedroom, I heard Katie’s footsteps behind me. “Wait, Travis,” she said.
“This won’t take long.” Was my underwear on the floor of the bedroom? The odds were good. Did Katie care about underwear? Were we past that by now? I had no idea, because this fake relationship was confusing as hell. “I can launder the sheets,” I told her as I swept into the room. “Not that I did anything gross in the bed. I don’t even jerk off, honestly. The last year has been weird.”
“Travis,” she said again.
“Ah, shit. I made it awkward again.” I scooped up my underwear which, yes, was on the floor. “Sorry, Katie. I swear I’m not?—”
“You don’t need to move out of the bedroom.”
I straightened and looked at her, my boxer briefs crumpled in my hand. “No way. I’m not making you take the sofa. Forget it.”
She looked frustrated. “I’m saying that we can share.”
In the moment of shocked silence, I felt a rush of heat all over my body that was almost embarrassing. Share a bed with Katie? Yes . My brain screamed it at top volume. Absolutely fucking yes .
“What do you mean?” I asked her, because I couldn’t trust myself in that moment.
“I mean that it’s silly for you to sleep on the sofa,” she replied. “We don’t need to pretend like we’re in a 1960s sitcom. We’re going to be rooming together for a while, and we’re both adults. I think we can get along.”
That only added to the confusion. Did she mean get along with my dick inside her and a string of stellar orgasms? Maybe she meant get along as in oral only? Also good. Or she might mean get along as in we fall asleep fully clothed every night, like mature adults who don’t think about fucking all the time.
That last one, apparently, was not me.
It didn’t matter what she meant by get along , really, because I would take any one of those three options over sleeping alone.
Be cool, Travis. Be cool.
I nodded. “Ah, yeah,” I said, sounding like a fifteen-year-old doofus whose crush just asked him out. Real smooth. “I can see—yeah. That makes sense. We can share.” I realized I was still holding my underwear, so I turned and threw it onto the pile of laundry in the hamper. “No sweat,” I said.
A smirk touched her pretty lips. “No sweat. Unless you snore.”
“I’m a cone of silence,” I said.
“Good. So am I. I like to keep the ceiling fan on.” She held up a finger. “I must have one leg out from under the covers, no more and no less, or I can’t sleep.”
“One leg,” I said. “Got it.” I was barely listening. I was too busy computing whether this meant I was supposed to make a move. Would making a move screw this up? Would not making a move screw this up?
Why was this so hard? I was a fucking rock star. You meet a woman, you make a move, she always says yes. Done.
I never had any idea what I was doing with Katie.
And still, I didn’t miss that old life at all.