Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
When Cory blew his coach’s whistle the next day, Jamie rued not sleeping a few extra hours on a rare free Saturday morning. Yet, there he was, willingly torturing himself with sit-ups.
He dragged his bare torso from the grass, squeezing his fatigued abs and wringing out the last drop of oxygen from his lungs.
“That’s one hundred,” Cory barked, grinning as he leaned over Jamie’s bent knees. “A little slow on the pump, and your speed drills are dogshit. But not bad for an old-timer.”
Cory wailed on the whistle thrice more, the shrill peaks cleaving through Jamie’s heaving breaths. “Let’s go, round two.”
Jamie fell against the turf, the pool of sweat from his forehead stinging his eyes worse than the mid-morning sun bearing down on the practice football field.
When Jamie wasn’t on tour, he and Cory worked out together at the Anderson Training Facility, where his friend’s day job was to whip nineteen-year-olds into prime NFL picks.
Between Cory’s masochistic drills and the physical cracks and creaks of no longer being nineteen, it was grueling. But Jamie wouldn’t trade this time with his oldest friend for anything.
Still, that whistle was as pleasant as sand wedged between every crack on a beach day.
“You blow that thing again, and I’m whooping your ass,” Jamie said, once he got his breath back.
Cory outstretched a hand and peeled him from the ground. “I don’t think you could catch me.”
He tossed Jamie an icy water bottle from a cooler before they trudged down the sideline. “C’mon, let’s walk it off.”
Jamie simply nodded, still too winded to function. He drained the bottle in two gulps.
“So, we gonna talk about why you’ve been moping like when Liza fries okra, but you can only eat a sad plate of kale because of a photo shoot?”
Cory laughed, nudging Jamie’s shoulder until he did too.
Jamie groaned. “If I tell you, you can’t give me shit.”
Cory rubbed the crop of stubble on his chin with his thumb and pointer finger. “Sorry, but that dog won’t hunt. It’s in the best friend handbook that I give you shit. I’m legally bound.”
Jamie shoved his shoulder.
“But I promise to give you my honest advice, which you always need,” Cory reasoned, nudging him back.
“Damn, I must be desperate.”
Which, honestly, was true.
Cory howled, leaned back, and launched into high-knees. “And if you keep holding me in suspense, you’re running laps till you puke.”
Jamie gripped his hips and blew out a long breath. He hadn’t told anyone about what had happened with Brinton at the Skylight last night. But Cory was his best friend, and Jamie needed someone to talk to so he didn’t lose his mind.
Or worse, blow his chance if left to his own devices, which, frankly, he’d probably already done.
“Brinton and I…we’ve gotten pretty close.”
Cory eased into a trot and narrowed his eyes, earnestly concerned. “How close?”
“We kissed at the bar last night.”
Cory flung his hands skyward and ran circles around Jamie, who threw his own head back and laughed.
“Hallelujah! Judging by how y’all got on at the cookout, that’s a good thing, right?”
He slowed to a walk, returning to Jamie’s side.
Jamie shrugged. “I thought so. We were dancing and things got pretty…”
He let himself get tangled in the memory of her top-tier ass thumping against him and swallowed hard.
“Anyway, we both wanted some more”—he cleared his throat—“privacy, so I took her to my spot. Everything was going great until something set her off.”
With his massive palm, Cory smacked Jamie upside the head.
“What the hell, man?” Jamie hissed.
Cory stopped walking. “I could ask you the same thing. You don’t take a woman like that to a back alley.”
“I take a lot of women back there,” Jamie said, rubbing his throbbing skull.
“You told her that?”
“Yeah. It’s quiet, so it’s easier to…” Jamie circled his hand in the air, fairly certain there was no helping his case. “You know, have a conversation.”
“And I bet you didn’t consider that she might feel like she’s no different than any other girl you’ve hooked up with? Not for nothing, but you’ve got a hell of a reputation. So of course she’d feel slighted.”
Shit.
Is that how she felt? Because Brinton she was different. She was unlike any woman he’d ever met. Jamie shook his head, raking his hands through his sweat-slicked hair.
“I’m an idiot. I’m a fucking fool.”
Laughing, Cory crossed his arms over his chest. “Glad you said it so I don’t have to.”
Jamie loosely hooked his arm into a headlock around Cory’s neck, then released him. Once they both stopped laughing, Jamie continued. “I care about her, man. More than I ever have about anyone. She’s so damn smart and kind, and she treats me like what I do and say matters. How do I fix this?”
Cory squeezed Jamie’s shoulder. “You tell her that. Exactly that. And please don’t wait because I’ve never seen you so smitten. You’re blushing worse than a senator at a peep show.”
Jamie grinned. “That’s probably all the blood that rushed to my head.”
And the fresh sunburn spilling across his collarbone.
Mercilessly, Cory blew into his whistle. “It looks good on you. Now, let’s get some more pink in those cheeks.”
He kicked Jamie in the ass, then bolted down the field.
“You’re a dead man,” Jamie yelled, sprinting after him.
At the guest house, Brinton awoke that morning in her bedroom feeling like a decadent shit sundae. Her throat burned as if she’d sipped the entire Sahara through a straw. Her joints popped like bubble wrap.
Brinton didn’t remember when she crawled onto the floor last night. It must have been between her subconscious desires to be tucked and folded by a magnetic country music star.
Shay, of course, was no help when Brinton had texted her that morning. She wanted a play-by-play.
Worse yet, Brinton remembered everything. Jamie’s hands on her body. His lips whispering ruinous praise against her fevered skin. Her fingertips were still raw from gripping his lightly stubbled cheeks.
But now, reality had set in: she’d read the whole situation wrong.
However, this was another time she’d crater her feelings. She’d get through the next week, her final seven days in Iris, and never bring up what happened in that alley with Jamie again.
Simple compartmentalization. Men did it all the time.
Brinton considered this as Rich, eyes expectantly glazed, stared back at her from her open laptop screen that afternoon.
Unannounced, he’d called to finalize her pitch. Rich was the embodiment of wearing cute white capris the day your period decided to show up early.
His slumped posture in his chair confirmed his low hopes for this meeting.
“So, whatcha got, Shaw?”
What she got was a world-class exclusive. But even then, she didn’t trust Rich not to pass her hard work off to Agatha if she told him everything now. It’d be better that he read her finished article.
She needed to be vague enough to get him hooked and reaffirm her acuity.
“It’s juicy,” she said. Brinton tasted a faint wash of bile from parroting his own insincere words.
His eyes flickered beneath his fitted dad hat. “Yeah?”
She picked at a cottony white tuft from the eyelet quilt on the bed. “Jamie is giving me unparalleled access into the agony and ecstasy of stardom.”
God, why did I say ecstasy?
“I’m peeling back layers…”
Of my clothes.
“He’s showing a side I didn’t expect.”
His tongue strumming my tonsils!
Brinton’s cheeks heated. She was miserably, infuriatingly down bad. And way too fucking horny for this conversation.
Could Rich tell?
His obnoxious bark of laughter popped through her laptop speakers. “Peeling back layers, huh?”
Conspiratorially, he leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You aren’t screwing him, are you?”
Just then, Brinton’s phone buzzed with a new text from Shay.
Shay: If you don’t let that sweet-talking man butter that biscuit, I’m telling mom. Actually, I’m telling her anyway.
Brinton clenched her jaw until she heard a deafening pop. She was so close to getting what she wanted.
She hadn’t screwed Jamie, but she almost had, not twenty-four hours ago. And while it stoked a long-dormant flame, her awoken desire had jeopardized her objectivity.
In more ways than one, she had gotten too close to the story. To Jamie.
“Because that would be a huge conflict of interest,” Rich added, steepling his fingers. “And I can’t have that.”
She eyed her discarded cut-offs on the bedroom floor. Why did she feel guilty? Why couldn’t she lie, like everyone else who’d sped past her to climb Landmark’s totem pole?
Brinton grasped for the words to save herself, but came up short. Because she wasn’t a liar.
“Rich, I have to tell you something…”
Sneering, his hands flew up in mock defense. “I’m kidding. Jamie Crawford Jr.’s body count includes first- and second-generation supermodels. And you’re a regular…No offense.”
Brinton wiped her slick palms on her jeans. She didn’t know whether to be incensed or amused that Rich had the social grace of an amoeba.
“Oh, in case Deb from HR is listening, I apologize for my spirited, off-the-cuff joke. I’ll do better to temper my enthusiasm.” Rich winked, one hand obsequiously over his heart. “Your generation’s got no sense of humor.”
Sighing, he continued. “You wanted to say something?”
The blood rushed back into her limbs. Brinton was safe, for now. But she had to cut off her budding relationship—if you could call it that—with Jamie.
She couldn’t let the way every single muscle in her thighs clenched at the sound of his name derail her future with Landmark.
She smiled weakly. “It’s nothing.”
“Anyway,” Rich went on, looking at his phone, “good work. When can I get a draft?”
“As soon as possible.”
Satisfied, Rich nodded and ended the call.
Needing to channel her scattered energy, Brinton slipped on her headphones. She pressed play on her new favorite playlist of Black country music artists. She had started curating it when she first arrived in Iris.
Mickey Guyton, Shaboozey, Brittney Spencer, Breland, Reyna Roberts, and The War and Treaty were on repeat, and she found more each day. But not even Mickey’s sweeping vocals could save Brinton from her free-falling thoughts.
Simple compartmentalization was not for anxious baddies after all.