Quite well indeed, and so much better than the homeland.
As the phone chugged along, a text message dinged from the name Hack.
I thumbed it open and read. So what’s the story with the new gig? Think you can keep this one for longer than a weekend? – Your big brother. (Don’t forget—I’ll always be older and wiser and better looking.)
I typed a quick reply. Don’t worry. I won’t embarrass the family in front of good old Uncle James. (And you will always be older, which means you’ll be grayer and fatter.)
After I fired off the note to my brother Matthew in New York—he’d caught American fever, too—the Riley Belle search results appeared, so I clicked back to the browser and scrolled through them on a mad dash for the best image. I had to kick unholy ass on this job for a million reasons, not the least of which was to end Matthew’s ribbing. I needed a quick visual of the subject. I tapped a close-up of Riley Belle, then studied her features until I had damn near memorized her face. Right, she was the brunette with the sunshine smile and chocolate eyes. Or so this story said on some entertainment site. Probably a suck-up one. After all, who uses words like sunshine and chocolate to describe a hot girl?
As I tucked the phone into my back pocket and revved the engine, I ran through better words for hot girls. Blond, sarcastic, a fan of huckleberry pie.
I pulled into the westbound traffic, weaving among cars, with my focus on the beach.
Oh, there was one more word. Competition.
She was the competition.
Jess
The memory of William’s pinchable butt and lickable lips was front and center as I sank down on the worn and cracked vinyl couch kitty-corner from J.P.’s desk.
“Jess,” he said in his gruff voice. “You might want to pick up your jaw from the floor.”
“If my jaw is anywhere near the carpet, it’s from your handiwork as a baker,” I said quickly, pointing to the tray of the chocolate-covered biscuits on his desk. Sure, they looked delicious, but I’d been caught red-handed and I wanted an alibi as I denied that William had me all agog.
He rolled his eyes. “Right. You were salivating over my kitchen skills. Not that hot man in the well-worn jeans.”
“You are correct, sir,” I said with a straight face because there was some truth to his comment. I stood up, picked up the tray, and carried it to a table in the corner, placing the biscuits far away. There. Now I wouldn’t be tempted to gobble them and then throw them up, like I’d done every now and then for many years with other delectable treats. But no longer. I’d been on the wagon for two full years now, 100 percent in control, and I had to stay that way.
No. Matter. What.
I returned to J.P. “Just thought they’d look better over there,” I said with a shrug.
“Right. Sure. You were just rearranging. I also didn’t notice you giving sexy, scrumptious Will the old once-over.”
Perfect adjectives.
“If my eyes were on him, it was only to size up the potential competition. So which is he? My competition or your next boyfriend?”
“He’s either a shooter or a suitor,” J.P. said, kicking his feet up on his desk and crossing his ankles. “Which way do you think he swings?”
“You never can tell in this town. Everyone’s acting.”
“He acts straight, then,” J.P. said, shaking his head as if he were sad that William liked girls. I was happy. But I couldn’t be happy. I reminded myself I didn’t care about his preferences.
“Shame for you. He’s criminally handsome,” I said, admitting begrudgingly what J.P. and I both already knew. William was a certified babe.
J.P. gave me a knowing look. “Shame for you if he can shoot as well as he looks.”
“Doubtful. The pretty ones belong in front of the camera. But who has time for boys anyway?”
“You should make more time for boys, Jess. Maybe you wouldn’t be so tightly wound.”
I scoffed, because boys were on the back burner. “If I wasn’t this tightly wound, you wouldn’t have any good pictures from me. I’d be a blathering mess of hormones and lust rather than your top shooter. I don’t give in to boys because boys scramble brains and I do not function well with a scrambled brain,” I said. In fact, I worked hard to avoid the temptation to fling myself bodily at beautiful guys.
Fine. I was guy-crazy. I knew that about myself. I fucking loved them. I loved their chests, and their arms, and their hair, and their eyes, and their guy smell, and their jeans, and their abs…and, well, you get the point. I loved everything that made a guy a guy, and I was often caught staring at the pretty ones. That’s why I stayed away as best as I could. Beautiful guys were trouble, and so I regularly warred with all such impulses to align myself with one horizontally.
