Page 50 of Cockpit
“Who me?” she asks. “Never.”
When I look back to the computer, I know the person who’s going to get me into trouble is in the picture in front of me.
I’m not sure how.
I’m not sure when.
But I definitely know he will, because I’m thinking about him way too much, and it has nothing to do with this contest and everything to do with his kiss.
“Who put you guys up to this?” I laugh as I glance around the dispatch room, where everyone has their heads bowed at their stations, trying to fight the grins on their faces. “Bueller? Bueller?”
I take a step closer to my desk and just shake my head. There are copies of the Gazette’s gossip column everywhere. There’s Sidney kissing me on the lips taped to my chair, to my monitor, to my headset, to my bulletin board. To every fucking place imaginable. The words “hot dad” are on a banner stretc
hed over all of it.
Christ.
I look around again and this time everyone is looking my way and they all bust up laughing. “You guys are assholes.” I start taking down the papers.
“Oh, flyboy, come and give me mouth-to-mouth!” McArthur mocks.
“Mount me, Malone.” That one was Vin.
“Way to date a rich girl!” Uley says, and his words stop me in my tracks. I know he means nothing by it, but every part of me rejects his comment, and it takes me a second to clear my head. To bring my mind back from the bullshit it brought up.
“Dating? Sorry, Uley, but not this man. How’s a guy supposed to work with all this crap in the way?”
“You could always roll it up and spank her with it,” someone at my back tosses out, and the whole room busts up laughing.
“She isn’t a dog, and it’s just gossip.”
“Gossip, my ass,” Uley says. “Looks to me like she has you right where she wants you.”
I look over to him as his words hit, but his head is already down, and his fingers are flying across his keyboard. Then I look back down to the picture of Sidney kissing me. The same damn one my brothers had already given me shit for.
I was letting myself believe it was a coincidence—that I was the one who started the chain reaction by kissing her—but as I look at the photo I realize it’s the second time she’s made me look like a fool. It’s the second time she’s manipulated me into her publicity-fueled fire.
It’s the second time she’s used me.
Maybe that’s why I’ve yet to hit send on the bio she wants. Maybe that’s why I’ve gone to text her ten times already to cancel the photo shoot.
I try to shrug off the notion that her kiss was nothing but a publicity stunt, but it sticks in a way that makes me want to bail from work, from this office that’s a kicker of a punishment on top of grounding me.
And I hate that for a second time with a similar woman, I’ve let my guard down.
“It’s Grayson.”
“Hi. What’s up?” The smile is automatic when I hear his voice. I look over to the photographer, who is setting up her reflectors and staging out shots, and then down at my watch. “Where are you?”
“I can’t make it.”
“What?” It’s a half-laugh, half-panicked sound.
“I can’t make it,” he repeats matter-of-factly.
“The vote is in less than twenty-four hours. I need to get these shots of you, so I can put them up on the site.” Desperation edges my tone. I’ve pushed this deadline as far as I can and still be able to get the magazine to the printer on time. I have no more wiggle room. The website is more forgiving of the time constraints, but not the print side.
“Are you giving everyone else the same personal attention you’re giving me?” His question throws me.
