Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
P iper glared at Blake with all the venom she could muster, considering it was eight thirty at night and they’d been rehearsing for four hours, on top of spending all day in the studio.
“What was wrong that time?” she demanded as she stomped out of the office.
“Nothing, if you were trying to portray a nervous fifty-year-old virgin,” Blake said. “If you were trying to be a young princess about to hook up with an attractive, funny, slightly annoying, definitely-in-the-way prince, then, well…”
He shrugged.
“I don’t sound like a fifty-year-old,” she grumbled. “You’re just doing this to mess with me.”
“No more than you messed with me,” Blake said. He sounded sincere, but there was a twinkle in his eyes, and his lips did a quarter smile thing that meant he was suppressing a laugh.
“Jerk.” She’d learned over the past few weeks that while his pretend emotions were easily visible for the camera, his real ones were a lot more subtle and harder to read .
No matter how many times he patiently went over Acting 101 with her, she couldn’t seem to fall into character the way he did. The worst part was she was pretty sure it was the student, not the teacher, at fault.
He made it all look so easy. One second he was Blake Ryan, the next he was Jesse, with no visible transition between the two. She could tell when he’d flipped the switch, though. Blake was the cool kid. Jesse was the bad boy.
“I swear there’s something you aren’t telling me. Like a recipe, you know? Grandma’s meatballs, which she swore was in the family cookbook, but when we made them according to her recipe, they never tasted the same. She left out an ingredient and nobody will ever know what it was and I swear she did it on purpose.”
“Am I supposed to be Grandma in that scenario?” He furrowed his forehead. “Nobody’s ever called me Grandma before. That’s a new one.”
“You’re leaving out an ingredient. Fork it over.” Piper put her hands on her hips.
He laughed and held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, let’s try something different.”
Blake’s phone dinged. He checked it, then scowled.
“What’s going on?” Piper asked.
“We’re being invaded.” Blake walked away. “Be right back.”
He opened the front door but didn’t immediately move out of the way. “I told you we couldn’t do edits tonight. You do know how to read, right?”
Blake’s voice sounded relaxed, but he gripped the door like he wanted to shut it in the new arrival’s face.
“Come on, you didn’t really expect me to pass this up, did you?” a low, amused voice said. “Besides, I know how you get when you’re running lines. You’ve probably starved the girl half to death, unless she bolted in self-defense? ”
Piper leaned over the edge of the couch to get a look at the speaker.
A dark-haired man in a sport coat and jeans stepped past Blake carrying a bag from Factor’s Famous Deli. “Oh good, you still have company.”
The man smiled at her, his eyes twinkling with delight. He was tall, with close-cropped hair and a George Clooney smile.
She knew that face. Every female on the planet knew that face.
Marshall Weston had just walked into Blake’s living room.
Piper blinked hard, twice. No, she wasn’t imagining things.
Blake had said his buddy Marshall was working on Conned with him, but he hadn’t said it was the Marshall.
The Marshall Weston, who’d starred in her favorite show when she was a kid. The Marshall Weston who’d been on her bedroom wall with a red heart drawn around his face. She’d had such a huge crush on him.
Her heart was racing so fast and so hard it was actually going to leap right out of her chest.
“Hi.”
Hi? Did she really just breathe “Hi” at him like some love-sick idiot? She was going to die right here of lust and mortification.
She was not a giddy teenage girl anymore. She would not act like one.
A helpless giggle escaped before she could stop it. “You’re Marshall Weston.”
Apparently, that teenage girl wasn’t as far behind her as she liked to think.
Marshall set the bag down on a nearby table and crossed the space between them.
He took her hand in both of his, and it was more of a caress than a handshake. “And you’re Piper Bellamy. I am absolutely delighted to meet you. Shame on Blake for keeping you all to himself like this.”
“Shame on Blake for not telling the guards to keep you out,” Blake muttered.
Piper squeezed his hand. “I’m…wow. Marshall Weston. It’s really, really nice to meet you.”
Marshall grinned. “It’s really, really nice to finally meet you too. I’m a huge, huge fan.”
“Me too.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off his. They were a mesmerizing, playful, evocative, sultry brown with hints of gold. He was everything she thought he’d be, and everything her teenage self had wanted in a man.
She’d met musicians all over the world, but she’d never felt as girlishly giddy as she did right now.
“Are you going to stop feeling up her fingers any time soon?” Blake asked.
“Why?” Marshall’s smile widened. “It’s a very nice hand. I like holding it.”
“We’re working here,” Blake said. There was something pointed underneath his amused tone.
Marshall leaned toward her in a conspiratorial way. “Someone sounds cranky.”
“You’re a flirt.” Piper couldn’t stop smiling. She was holding Marshall Weston’s hand. Every teen fantasy she’d ever had swirled around her in Technicolor detail.
“Is that a bad thing?” Marshall asked.
“Not to me.”
“Okay, break it up.” Blake stepped in between them, forcing Marshall to let go of her hand. “It’s time for you to go.”
“You can’t kick me out. I have a key. Besides,” Marshall gestured toward the bag he’d left on the entry table, “I figured you being you, nobody ate dinner, so I brought snacks. ”
Blake gave him a hard stare. “We don’t have time to stop for dinner.”
The rush of adrenaline and excitement settled into Piper’s stomach to play with her nerves about tomorrow’s attempt at the big scene. She needed to focus, and she couldn’t do that with Marshall in the room. It was too much like having an out-of-body experience.
“I hate to say this, but he’s right. We’ve been at this for hours and I’m nowhere near ready. It was really thoughtful of you to think of us, though.”
Marshall waved a negligent hand. “That’s why I brought sandwich wraps. They’re the perfect food for reading lines. Grab one, and I’ll help you work through the scene while we eat.”
Marshall Weston wanted to help her run a scene. Reality skittered away to play in someone else’s yard for a while.
One hour and one excellent roast beef wrap later, Piper was over her schoolgirl crush on Marshall and back to feeling a level of frustration she hadn’t experienced since she was eight and trying to learn guitar with her stubby little girl fingers.
“Look, I hear what you’re both saying, I do.” Piper picked up a discarded wrapper and tossed it into the trash. “I just don’t see how thinking about a time when I was mad at my sister makes me better at saying these lines. And I’ve never been the kind of scared that Jewel is supposed to be. Nobody’s ever tried to kill Della, or even kidnap her, though lord knows I’d understand if they did. And forget the whole magic rock thing.”
“That’s very literal-minded of you,” Marshall said. He still held half a sandwich in one hand. “Surely when you go on stage you do something like this? I mean, when you sing ‘Love Is Addiction,’ do you mean you’ve actually been addicted?”
“No. Yes. Of course not. You’re not serious, are you?” She studied his eyes and realized that yes, he was serious. “Songs, especially The Bellamy Sisters songs, are mostly metaphors for other things. ‘Love Is Addiction’ is about a teenage crush and, yes, I had one and, yes, it felt like an addiction but, no, I’ve never been actually addicted to drugs or something like that. It was that can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t stop thinking about him feeling. You know? It’s what I imagine an addiction would feel like, if it were to a person and not a drug or something.”
He and Blake glanced at each other, and there was a whole conversation that passed between them.
“So you do have an imagination,” Blake said.
“It’s not the same thing,” Piper said. Exasperation made her voice louder than she’d intended.
“It’s exactly the same thing.” Marshall nodded emphatically.
Now they were ganging up on her for sport. “Having an imagination and doing what you two are doing is not the same thing. At all.”
“You know what I think the problem is?” Blake asked Marshall.
“She’s too much in her own head.” Marshall crumpled up his empty sandwich wrapper. “Improv?”
“It’s time for some ABCs.” Blake gestured for her to stand up. “Come on. Everybody on your feet.”
She had no idea what he meant by ABCs. “I don’t get how singing the ABCs is going to help me say my lines.”
Blake flashed her a devilish smile. “Not the song. The game. The rules are simple. The three of us tell a story, one sentence at a time. The first person must start their sentence with the letter a , the next with the letter b . We go like that until we get to the end of the alphabet or until someone freezes. Last one standing wins. Got it?”
It sounded simple enough. “How does this help?”
“It’s a great way to take your mind off things,” Blake said.
“By the time we get to z , you won’t care about your lines,” Marshall said. “What are the stakes? ”
“Stakes?” Piper asked. “Is this some kind of bet?”
“We have to play for something, right?” Blake said. He looked around, then held up a finger. “Wait a sec.”
He strode into the kitchen and fished a box of what looked like gourmet chocolate out of a drawer and carried it back. “The last one standing wins this very special box—”
“Half-eaten box,” Marshall filled in.
“Not-quite-full box,” Blake amended, “of fantastically delicious delicacies from—”
“Valentine’s Day,” Marshall interrupted.
Blake gave his friend an irritated look. “From John Kelly’s very fine chocolate shop.”
“You never told me who sent those. Was it Melanie?” Marshall asked. He snapped his fingers. “Rachel?”
“No.” Blake looked as if he were summoning every ounce of patience.
“Who, then? Surely it wasn’t Roxane,” Marshall said. “Or Beverly. Oh, tell me it wasn’t Gretchen.”
Piper snickered. These two pushed each other’s buttons like brothers.
Blake put the box down and gestured at Marshall. “You start. Winner gets to find out who sent them.”
“Fine, I’ll play,” Marshall said. “Any theme I want?”
Blake glanced at Piper. “Within reason.”
Marshall’s grin would have put Loki to shame. “Whose reason?”
“Hers,” Blake said. “So, the other rule to this game is to keep the narrative going. You can’t say anything negative. Think of your sentence as yes, and.”
“Yes, and?” Piper glanced back and forth between them. “Yes, and…what?”
“Exactly,” Marshall said .
She gave Blake what she hoped was an I’m-running-out-of-patience stare.
Blake relented. “I’ll say something like ‘another crazy thing happened at the office today.’ Then Marshall would have to continue that story, starting with b . He’s not allowed to say ‘but you don’t have an office.’ Because that would kill the story, so he’d say something like ‘Brenda dumped an entire pot of coffee on Marshall’s head.’ Got it?”
“Sound simple enough. I think,” Piper said. “How is this going to help?”
“You’ll see.” Blake nodded at Marshall. “Go for it.”
“Hmm. What theme shall I pick.” Marshall rubbed his hands together. His face brightened. “After today, I’ll have to take a cold shower.”
Piper’s thoughts instantly went somewhere they shouldn’t, as she knew he’d intended, the rat.
“Because I spent all day playing basketball,” Blake said.
Both men looked at her with expectation. She was supposed to say something that started with c now.
Everything she thought of started with other letters. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
Marshall made a loud buzzer noise. “Fail! That, ladies and gentlemen, is called a freeze.”
Piper laughed. She couldn’t help it. “I literally can’t think of anything to say. Everything I thought of started with the word and.”
“I blame him.” Marshall pointed at Blake. “He told you that yes, and rule right before we started.”
“We’re playing this game for her, so she can’t be out yet,” Blake said. “We’ll call that a practice run. At least you see how it works now.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” She still couldn’t think of a sentence that would have worked .
“Why don’t you go first,” Blake offered. “That way you won’t be distracted by certain people with nefarious intentions.”
“Ouch.” Marshall put a hand on his chest. “Are you going to let him diss me like that, Piper?”
She pretended to think about it. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
“I’m hurt.”
“No you’re not,” Blake said. “Go ahead, Piper.”
Being put on the spot like that made every thought she had scurry into the corners of her mind to hide. All she came up with was what had really been on her mind all day. “All I want to do is get this scene right.”
She winced, then looked to Blake for approval. “It did start with the letter a . That’s okay, right?”
He patted her shoulder and nodded. “Because if the scene is right, then the movie will be fantastic, and…”
They both looked at Marshall. He rolled his eyes. “Chances to get laid will be a thousand times better.”
It was her turn again. This time, she’d had a few seconds to catch up, and the sentence leaped to mind. “Despite the fact that Marshall hasn’t showered in a week and his feet smell, and…”
Blake laughed. “Everyone thinks he looks like Jaba the Hutt when he’s naked.”
“Freaks and chicks dig this body,” Marshall said, utterly unoffended, “and that makes Piper my Princess Leia.”
Piper had a hard time getting her sentence out over a fit of giggles. “God knows I wouldn’t want to deprive the next girl of that dubious pleasure.”
The sentences became more outlandish as they went on.
“Quite frankly, my dear, I need more money if we’re going to involve the neighbors,” Blake said in a haughty British accent.
“Right, then we’ll have to trade something else,” Marshall responded in heavy Scottish brogue .
By the time they got to the end of the alphabet, Piper’s sides and cheeks hurt from laughing.
“X marks the spot, especially the G-spot, so I should probably do an inspection to verify,” Marshall said with a leer in her direction.
“You are such a pig, and I think you should go away now,” Piper said, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Zounds, I think she’s got it,” Blake announced with a wide grin.
She beamed with an odd sort of pride. It was a silly game, but somehow it had eased all the tension she felt about tomorrow. Her awe over Marshall had drained away, and it was like she was having a fun night with two old friends, if those friends had more charisma and “it” factor than any two people should possibly have.
“If only doing the voice-over was this easy.”
“It is. Or it will be,” Blake said.
“Let’s do another round, only this time as Jesse and Jewel.”
Anxiety rumbled around Piper’s stomach. “How do we do that? I mean, the lines don’t exactly follow the ABC rule.”
“Forget the lines,” Blake said. “This isn’t about the lines. This is about finding out who your character is in between the lines.”
“Outside the lines, if you will,” Marshall said. “There are no lines.”
“Who’s Marshall going to be?” Piper asked.
“Marshall’s going to pretend he’s not here,” Blake said with a sideways glance at his friend.
“I seriously doubt he can pull that off,” Piper said.
Marshall pretended to zip his lips shut and blinked innocently at her.
“Ready?” Blake asked in a low voice.
She looked into his eyes.
He’d done it again. He’d flipped a switch, and she had no idea how he’d done it. It was so fast, and the only real indications that he was in character were the way his eyes narrowed slightly and the crooked tilt to his lips she’d come to associate with Jesse.
They were standing in the rain, about to crawl through a sewer, she reminded herself.
“Any chance you’d let me tag along with you, Princess? I mean, you’ll definitely need my help to save your sister from the evil sorcerer.”
A part of her wanted to tell him that was the wrong line, that this didn’t make any sense, and it wasn’t going to help. Another part told her to say something, anything , that started with the letter b . She didn’t want to disappoint Blake and Marshall. They’d tried so hard to teach her what she needed to know. She had to make this work if only to prove she could.
She faltered and stammered as she said the first b-word that flew into her mind. “But…”
Blake gave a slight nod of encouragement.
She swallowed and tried again. “But…if I do that…you’ll just betray me like you tried to do before. How can I trust you?”
“Can’t you see how much you need me?” His flirty tone and intense gaze captivated her, and she found herself leaning toward him.
Princess Jewel would never give in to Jesse, especially not with her sister’s life on the line. He’d just tried to steal the stone out from under her. He probably had some other hidden agenda. She couldn’t trust him. She shook herself and straightened her shoulders.
“Don’t you have somewhere else you need to be?”
“Eventually you’ll have to admit you need my help.” Blake quirked a smile at her.
“Forget it, you’ll just betray me again.” She turned away. She couldn’t do this staring at his face with that come-hither expression on it .
Blake grabbed her hand. Warmth traveled up her arm and made her heart flutter. “Give me a chance?”
Piper paused. She was supposed to use h , but all that came to mind was hell no, which was not a yes statement. The limitations of this game were frustrating. Princess Jewel wouldn’t accept limitations like that. She’d say what was on her mind.
Piper leveled a cold stare at Blake. “No. You used me to get to the stone.”
A gleam of triumph flashed through Blake’s eyes, then he became Jesse again. “It wasn’t like that.”
She snatched her hand away from him. “You tried to steal the map the first time we met.”
“I only did that to save my family and my kingdom. Come on, you’re about to crawl through a sewer to save your sister. Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing in my shoes.”
She absolutely would have, except for one crucial detail he was conveniently leaving out. “Maybe I would have. Until I found out your sister was in danger.”
“Well, guess what, Princess, my kingdom is still in danger and I’m standing here with you , because like it or not, there’s no way I’m letting you face Malignon alone. I’m crawling through that pipe. I don’t need your permission.”
“Yes you do.” She thrust her chin out.
He brushed nonexistent hair out of his eyes and leaned toward her. “You’re the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met.”
“I don’t need you.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Ugh,” Piper growled. “You are so…so…”
“Handsome?” Blake offered.
“Infuriating!” she shouted.
He gestured to the imaginary pipe. “After you.”
She looked down at the wood floor where no pipe existed, and reality crashed in on her. “I…have no idea what to say. ”
She couldn’t figure out what to do with her hands. For a second there, she’d almost had it. She’d felt different. She’d been in the moment with him, but now it was gone.
“I’m sorry.”
Blake glanced up at the ceiling. “I just hope your friend knows how to keep her promises.”
It was the line from the scene. The real one, not the pretend ones they’d just been doing. She knew what she was supposed to respond, but it didn’t feel right. If she said her real line, she’d be back into the same wooden, awkward delivery she’d had all day.
She didn’t want to go back there. She’d worked too hard to get away from it, and, dammit, she had it. It was in her grasp, all she had to do was hold on.
She moved to the back of the couch, crouched down in front of the imaginary pipe, and said what she thought Princess Jewel would really say. “She’s a mother. She knows what it’s like to have someone she loves in danger. She’ll be here.”
Blake dropped to his knees and followed her along the invisible pipe. “It’s going to take a year to get this stench off.”
“Stop complaining. At least you’re not in a dress.”
They continued the scene, using the living room as the castle until they reached Elaine’s bedroom.
They climbed out of the imaginary food cart.
Marshall leaped up from the sofa and screamed in a realistic imitation of a girl.
Piper shrieked in surprise and scrambled sideways into the side table. The lamp on it teetered and fell over.
Blake caught it just before it hit the floor and replaced it.
Piper put her hands on her chest. “What the hell?” Her heart pounded so hard she could feel her pulse through her shirt.
“Stay away from me!” Marshall shouted in a falsetto that could easily pass for a woman’s voice. He picked up a crumpled sandwich wrapper and threw it at Blake. “Get away! Get away! ”
“Hey!” Blake cried out as he covered his head with his arms. “I’m here to rescue you.”
Piper scrambled to gather her wits. They were still in the scene. Marshall was playing the part of her sister. He’d put a napkin over his head like a kerchief and sucked in his cheeks to make his lips stand out. He waved his hands in the air in a pretty accurate imitation of Rachel playing Elaine.
Piper burst out laughing.
“Stop throwing things at me, you ungrateful…,” Blake said.
It wasn’t in the script. He was ad-libbing to stay in character.
“Elaine! Stop!” Piper finally managed to call out through a fit of laughter. “It’s me.”
Marshall lowered his hand, some crumpled paper still in his fist. “Jewel?”
“Elaine.” Piper rushed toward Marshall. She grabbed him by the arms as she would do if it was one of her own sisters. “We came to rescue you.”
Marshall threw his arms around Piper and squeezed. “Oh, Jewel, you shouldn’t have come. I wanted to warn you but I couldn’t. It’s a trap. It’s all a trap.”
Piper swore he squeezed her a little tighter before he released her to grab the script. She couldn’t believe he’d managed to remember as much of the dialogue as he had.
Marshall gave Blake a derisive once-over. “You don’t look like a hero to me.” He said it with more disgust than Rachel had managed.
Piper felt a fit of giggles rise up her throat again and tried to stifle them. “He’s with me. This is Jesse, from the Kingdom of Carenth. We have a plan.”
“It won’t do you any good,” Marshall said as Elaine.
When he finished Elaine’s lines, he whisked the napkin off his head. “A portal opens, and Malignon steps through.”
He took a long step sideways, puffed out his cheeks, raised his eyebrows, and chortled with apparent evil glee. “Well done, Elaine.”
They worked the rest of the scene with Marshall filling in for all the other missing parts.
Piper forgot herself as she was swept away by Blake and Marshall into a world filled with danger, adventure, and love.
They got to the end of the scene, and for the first time in weeks, Piper felt confident that she could actually do this thing. She could be Princess Jewel.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Piper said.
She dragged Marshall and Blake over to the chair that stood in for the dragon.
Marshall raced around to the back and growled in his dragon voice. “I am not a carriage.”
Blake whistled for his horse. “Allow me.”
“The princesses climbed onto his horse, who took off flying, leaving Jesse standing there like an idiot,” Marshall said.
Piper laughed. “They do not. The dragon gives him a ride.”
Marshall tossed the script onto the couch. “Well they should.”
“So how was that? Better? Worse? Should I give up now?” She tried to analyze every twitch of expression on Blake’s face, expecting to see the familiar cringe. Instead, she found approval.
“Much more like it.” Marshall’s voice rang with satisfaction.
Blake put a warm hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “That was great. Do it like that in the studio and they’ll be thrilled, especially with the way you do those songs.”
Relief relaxed her shoulders. She tried to give him a grateful smile but ruined it with a giant yawn. “I need to get Rachel back in the studio while this is fresh in my mind.”
“Rachel will love being ordered around like that,” Marshall said. “Can I tell her?”
She pictured the look she’d find on Rachel’s face when she insisted on doing a new take. The woman took pride in her own work, but she’d been reluctant to share the microphone, especially with Piper.
“No. It’ll require Southern finesse, not overcharged charm.”
“You think I’m charming?” Marshall’s eyes widened in pretend surprise.
“I think you’re a tool,” Blake muttered.
She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to hear that, but Blake’s reaction made her grin. “I don’t know how you do it, Marshall. You played every single part, including the orchestra. If something happens to Gina, I know who they can get to replace her.”
“Thanks.” Marshall looked pleased and proud. “One of my first gigs was in drag.”
“He wasn’t in drag. He played an angel in a choir,” Blake scoffed. “They wore robes.”
Marshall snapped. “I wore a skirt in Highland Fling .”
“It was a kilt,” Blake told Piper.
Blake opened the box of chocolates and plucked one out. He handed it to her with a flourish. “As promised, for making it to the end of the ABCs.”
She popped it into her mouth and nearly melted as the rich, creamy chocolate dissolved on her tongue to reveal a tangy raspberry center. “Sweet baby Jesus, these are so good.”
“Hey, you said you’d tell us who gave them to you,” Marshall said. “Cough it up.”
“No, I said I’d tell the winner.” There was a glint in his eyes as he leaned close to Piper’s ear and whispered, “My mother.”
She stifled a laugh.
“Lame.” Marshall reached for a chocolate.
Blake pulled the box away, put the lid back on, and handed it to Piper. “Feel better about tomorrow?”
“I think you mean today, but yes,” Piper said. It struck her what a roller coaster day this had been. “It’s kind of surreal. I just rehearsed with Marshall Weston in the middle of Blake Ryan’s living room.”
Marshall’s smile was warm and inviting. “You’re welcome to come check out my living room any time you like.”
“You’re a shameless flirt, you know that?”
“I do,” Marshall said with sincerity.
The two men couldn’t be more different. Blake was understated cool. Marshall was bedazzled charm. Between the two of them, they had enough charisma to hypnotize the entire planet, but it was Blake who made her pulse race every time she got close to him.
Piper gave Marshall a grateful kiss on the cheek. “You were amazing. Thank you.”
She released him and turned to Blake. “Both of you. I really appreciate your help.”
“It sounds like she’s leaving,” Marshall said with a quizzical look at Blake. “Why does it sound like she’s leaving?”
Piper waved her hand at the kitchen clock. “It’s two in the morning. Our call time is eight. I need a little sleep, and so do you.”
Marshall pointed at himself. “I don’t. I finished last week. There’s no reason I can’t stay up all night long.”
Blake kicked his foot. “Yes, there is. You have work to do today on Conned .”
Marshall wrinkled his nose. “Scheduling. Not my favorite thing.”
Piper stifled a yawn as she picked up her purse. “I’ll see you later.”
“Wait,” Blake said. “It’s too late to drive home. Why don’t you stay?”
She paused, not sure she’d heard him right. “Did you just invite me to a sleepover?”
Marshall grinned. “I invited you to an all-nighter. ”
She pretended to think about it. “I don’t think so. I’m tired. I need sleep. You two have at it.”
Blake held out a hand to stop her. “I’m serious. There’s eight bedrooms in this place, not counting the master suite. You can take your pick. I live closer to the studio than you. It makes the commute shorter in the morning.”
The thought of falling into bed in the next few seconds made her bones weak. Hell, she was so tired she’d sleep on the sofa if she thought Marshall would leave her alone. “You sure you don’t mind?”
“Mi casa es su casa, remember?” Blake gestured to the stairs. “Bedrooms are this way.”
“Hang on.” She patted Blake on the shoulder as she passed by. “Let me just grab my go bag from the car.”
“Go bag?” Marshall asked. “You planned on staying?”
Piper opened the front door and looked back at the two men. “I always carry a change of clothes. You never know when two gorgeous men might want to have a sleepover.”
She grinned to herself at the look on both men’s faces as she shut the door.