Realization dawned, drawing my body up in the chair until I sat straight as an arrow. “Do you mean… I mean… You don’t think…”
“Yes, Marcie. I do think you could end up a target, too.”
“I’ve gotta go.”
I stood, the chair tilting back on two legs, as I rushed from the table as quickly as possible without actually running.
I made my way through the house toward the backyard.
“Marcie! There you are.”
I stopped, forcing a smile as I turned to look at my boss. “Hey, Katie,” I said, then spied Jackson and Evan sitting with her, and I sighed mentally.
Crap!
I walked over and sat down with them so we could map out Katie and Jackson’s schedules. Keeping track of one celebrity’s schedule was difficult enough, but trying to mesh a celebrity couple’s schedules together was more like merging four schedules, and with Jackson having the dealerships as well as the racing team, which he owned, and now Katie’s promo tour for the nominations, their busy lives bloomed into something like six different schedules. Then, when you added in their desire to be together as much as possible, scheduling became a mix of Jenga and Tetris, or that sorting kids game, only all the holes were round and all the pieces were square.
“Marcie, you’re a magician,” Evan said as he looked at the schedule we’d cobbled together.
“It’s nothing.”
I flushed under the praise, glancing at him, but it wasn’t Evan I saw. Oh, he was there in the periphery, but it was Hayden and Declan I saw. They were standing on the patio. By the look of things, they were arguing—like you would with a boyfriend.
Were they together?
Holy crap that would be hot!
I turned my attention back to Evan, Katie, and Jackson. The way Jackson looked at Katie was hashtag goals, and Katie looked at him the same way. The sun rose and set in the other for them.
No one has ever looked at me that way. Not even close.
Declan and Hayden’s faces flashed through my mind.
Well, maybe I should take that ever back?
Because, while Declan and Hayden didn’t look at me with the affection Jackson’s gaze held when he looked at Katie, the smoldering heat banked in his green eyes was similar to the way Hayden and then Declan both looked at me earlier. Declan’s blue-green eyes heated in the hall when I barreled into him as I raced to the bathroom. Then, there was Hayden’s molten, chocolate gaze when he smiled and winked at me before he taunted Jackson into that fight.
Before I came in my pants without even being touched?
Shushing the voice in my head, my eyes strayed back to the window to watch Hayden and Declan. They were still going at it. The frustration they both held was palpable. What I couldn’t wrap my head around was if they were together, why would they look at me the way they had?
Whatever the reason, whether they were just flirts or it was something much, much more to my liking, I’d take it. I was sure it was just innocent flirting and not something more. I wasn’t the type of girl guys like that looked at for the things I wanted a man, or two, to do to me.
“Marcie, I’m sorry to take you away from your dad.”
Katie’s voice pulled me from musing any further. She and I were alone in the room now.
Oh, gosh. How embarrassing.
And rude. I didn’t even say goodbye to Evan and Jackson.
“It’s alright. He doesn’t really know I’m there. He confuses me with my mom. It’s sad.”
“Is there anything more that they can do for him?”
“No. The dementia is getting progressively worse. Everything that the home can do has been done. They’ve tried it all.”
“If there is anything I can do to help…”
