“You are so freakin’ cute when you blush.” Rafe pressed a hard kiss to my lips and took his phone from my hand. “Don’t be embarrassed, Jay. That’s the sweetest thing ever.”
“Pfft. I wasn’t blushing because your birthday ismypasscode! I was blushing because your birthday isyourpasscode. Don’t you know social engineering is by far the greatest threat to cybersecurity?” I quoted Gage with no regrets. “You should be ashamed.”
“So, so sweet.” He grinned smugly and patted my ass before dealing with his texts.
He was lucky his smugness did it for me.
“Hmph.” I scooted away to fuss with my suitcase, refolding the clothes there. “Did you still wanna visit Aimee before we leave? What time should we go?”
“Huh?” Rafe looked up from his phone with a scowl still on his face. “Oh, sorry. This Extravaganza stuff.” He shook his head in exasperation. “My dad hasthreenew food trucks he’s already signed contracts with, Dale Jennings threw his back out, and Gage can’t find a replacement contractor to fix the stage scaffolding on short notice…”
“And Ms. Berger passed on.”
“That too,” Rafe agreed. “I keep telling myself that this whole mess is mydad’s thing, right? I mean, he came up with the idea, he put the limitations on it, and he’s the one who keeps blowing through them. He’s the one who should deal with the fallout. But at the same time…”
“It’s your responsibility now.” I clasped my hands behind his neck. “You want things to go right. You don’t wanna let people down. It’s your nature.”
“Yeah.” The word came out like a confession. “It’s weird, because I kinda hated this project from the beginning. I wanted nothing to do with it when my dad first put me in charge of it.” His thumbs rubbed circles on my hips above my jeans. “Before you crashed into the meeting the other day, I told myself the Extravaganza was the one last thing I was gonna do. My last responsibility on the Key. But…”
“But?”
“How’d you put it the other day? They’re odd ducks, but they’re our odd ducks?”
I nodded.
“Well, they’re ridiculous responsibilities, but they’remyresponsibilities, I guess.”
“Mmmhmm. So what you’re saying is that it’s not so much the Extravaganza that’s stressing you out, it’s being away from there when there’s so much to be done.”
Rafe hesitated, then nodded. “You hit the nail on the head.”
“So, we leave for Florida right now! Aimee won’t mind. We’ll gas up the van and take shifts driving through the night. We’ll be there tomorrow at noon, and then we’ll have a whole afternoon to iron things out before the Extravaganza officially starts on Saturday.”
“If we did that, I’d be too exhausted to do much of anything tomorrow night.” He shook his head. “I think it’s time for me to face my fear of flying. Bum bumbum.”
“Wait, be serious.” I remembered his face in the airport bathroom, even ifhewanted to make jokes about it. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I think so. The therapist I saw after the crash gave me tips on distracting and reassuring myself when I was ready to get on a plane. I just never had a compelling reason to face my fear until now.”
I nodded. “The Extravaganza.”
Rafe’s lips tipped up. “I mean, yeah. But mostly… I’ve got a boyfriend who goes on tour and stuff. I need to fly if I want to see him play.” He stuck his fingers in my belt loops and pulled me closer. “And I do.”
That deep sense of rightness I only felt with Rafe settled over me, momentarily blocking out all the other problems in the world.
“I’ll hold your hand the whole time,” I promised.
“Thank you, baby.” He gave me a thoughtful look. “But that might make it tricky to keep our relationship on the down low, huh?”
“Oh.” I literally hadn’t considered that, not even for a second.
“It’s fine,” Rafe hurried to reassure me. “I told you that last night. You don’t owe anybodyanything, Jay Don. Not the media, not your fans, not even me. We’ll figure it out. One thing at a time.”
“Yeah.” I chewed my lip. “But it’s not fair to ask you to hide—”
“You didn’t ask, babe, I’m offering. Because I don’t need the world to know, as long as you’re cool with telling my family. And as long as there are no more twins from Peoria.” His possessive growl made me shiver in the best way.
“I never said they were twins!” I argued.
