Page 17 of One Time Only (One Time Only 1)
My heart squeezes at the truth in that, at her awareness of who I am. But even if I used to lean toward the relationship side of the romance fence, that doesn’t mean I want to hang out there now. I may no longer hurt, but I don’t want to open myself up to more pain. When my partner died, something broke inside me that I don’t want to repair—the piece of me that liked commitment, connection, partnership.
“Right now, I like not being with someone,” I say, speaking the full truth.
“Maybe someday you’ll want the opposite.”
“Maybe someday you won’t be a sassy wiseass,” I say.
“Doubtful.” Her grin is playful, and so damn cute that I snap a picture of it.
“How about a shot of both of us?” I ask.
“Because pics don’t exist if you’re not in them?”
“Pretty much.”
She joins me on my side of the table, smushes her face next to mine, and does some kind of hang-ten gesture that probably isn’t a hang-ten thing at all, but what the hell do I know?
The pic makes me happy, and I save it to my photos. If I’ve learned anything since Fabian’s death, it’s that you need to grab your happy while you can.
After I put the image in a folder, my phone pings with an email, and I check it quickly. Tension radiates through me as I read the email from the credit card company, a reminder of the money I owe for the choices Fabian made.
The ones he made without me.
“Everything okay?” Bethany asks.
Clutching my phone, I give her a shrug. “Stupid credit card company wanting to collect on a stupid bill for a stupid motorcycle.”
“Sorry, Jackson,” she says. “Debt sucks.”
I’m sorry too, but for entirely different reasons. Because finding out a few weeks after he died that he’d used our card to finance his bike, the mangled one that died with him, rubbed salt into my fresh wound. I’d not only lost the man I loved, but I’d lost him to the thing I’d begged him to stop doing, and he’d gone behind my back to do it. Stunts for prize money. Crazy, reckless, dangerous stunts.
The cold, cruel irony is that I’m paying for what killed him.After we finish our drinks, I take Bethany to school. We chat about Mom and Dad the whole way until her phone pings.
“Oooh. It’s a new post from Shipping News,” she says.
“You’re following the shipping business?”
“No. It’s this Instagram feed. The name’s ironic. It’s about celebrity ships.”
“English, please.”
“Right. Mr. No Social Media. It’s a feed that pairs celebs with other celebs, or fictional characters with other fictional characters. Like Kirk and Spock, or Harry and Draco, or Groot and Rocket Raccoon.”
We turn onto the street to her school, and I glance at her, sure she’s pulling my leg. “People want the tree and a raccoon to get together?”
“The internet loves all sorts of pairings. I’ve seen you on there,” she says, tucking her phone away.
I pull up to the curb, my eyebrows climbing into my hairline. “I’m on there? For what?”
She gives me a classic duh look. “You and Stone.”
I flinch. “What the . . . why . . . how?”
There was no one around that night in the hallway. There are no cameras on that floor. How could anyone have pics of us?
Laughing, she sets a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry. It’s just an internet thing. It’s not bad. It’s like when a picture surfaces of the two of you. Like in the airport when you’re walking next to him through security. Or when you’re holding the door of a limo open for him and the paps take a shot.”
I breathe a huge sigh of relief. Normal pics. Not salacious shots. That makes sense. Everyday images go along with my job. Stone’s publicist circulates those in the regular briefings. “Right. Sure. But aren’t there pics of Cruz or Terrence with him too?”
“Sure, but not as many. I mean, the other bodyguards are fine-looking. Cruz has the whole Michael Peña vibe going for him, plus he speaks Spanish. But, for better or worse, Twitter thinks you’re hot. Instagram thinks you’re hot. And the world thinks Stone is hot.”
I tug at my collar because it’s weird hearing that from my sister. Then I gesture for her to go on. “Continue.”
“So, there are usually some comments about how you guys look together. How Stone should do you because you’re hot. Or vice versa.”
I exhale sharply, since we’re getting a little too close for comfort. “People have time for this?”
“It’s just fun. No one is saying you’re a thing. It’s just a ship. It’s a fandom thing, like Oh my God, if he was my bodyguard, I’d be all over that or Let’s make Jackstone a thing this year.”
“Jackstone? What the hell is that?”
“If you were together, the internet would call you Jackstone. Like Brad and Angelina were Brangelina. It’s cute.”
