“And now Anthony Devine is offering to clean up our kitchen. I need to process this.” She grabs Nick’s arm. “We need to talk.Now.”
She drags him toward her room, and through the paper-thin walls, I hear every word.
“You had sex with Anthony Devine, and I stepped in coffee because of it. You owe me new slippers!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NICK
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” I say for the twentieth time as Anthony holds the door open to a trendy restaurant in the West Village.
“Doing what? Eating decent food? Very scandalous,” he teases, his hand briefly touching the small of my back as we enter. That single contact sends warmth radiating up my spine, which is frankly a ridiculous reaction given what those hands did to me an hour ago. But apparently, my body reacts to chivalry in much the same way as it reacts to hot sex.
“You know what I mean. We’re out in public. Where people can see us.”
“That’s generally how restaurants work, yes,” he says.
I shove my hands in my pockets to keep from fidgeting.
I’m too nervous to address the underlying issue. If we’re out together, people will take photos of us. Photos of him and me will be splashed across the internet. Combine that with what he said at the concert, and people will infer things. Is he happy for this…whatever it is…to be dissected by the world?
My stomach twists at the thought.
After my haphazard attempt at making him breakfast, we stumbled back to my bedroom, where we chatted on my bedbefore it morphed into another round of getting to know each other’s bodies to mutual success.
Afterward, Anthony showed no signs of wanting to leave, and we just hung out in bed talking and laughing together.
I’ve never had this before. Someone I can just talk and laugh with so easily. Someone where the transition from talking to kissing and sex feels like the most natural thing in the world. Like it’s just another extension of our conversation.
It’s kind of terrifying how right everything feels.
The hostess does a double-take when she sees Anthony.
Because this isAnthony Devine. It’s strange how I almost forgot that at different points this morning, even as posters of him stared down from my wall.
Poster Anthony has perfect hair, smoldering eyes, and looks like he emerged fully formed from some kind of celebrity factory.
Real Anthony had bedhead this morning and gets a crease between his eyebrows when he’s concentrating on how to make me squirm, and spent five minutes trying to figure out how my shower worked while I laughed at him through the bathroom door.
As much as I’d admired and obsessed about poster Anthony, I think I like real Anthony better.
The fame almost feels like just another fact about him now, not the defining feature. Like how Jade is left-handed, or Teddie is allergic to shellfish. Interesting, relevant sometimes, but not the first thing you think about when you think about them.
But right now, watching the waitress’s professional smile falter and her eyes widen as she realizes it is him, I’m reminded that, to the rest of the world, he’s not just Anthony. He’s a headline waiting to happen.
“Table for two?” she manages to ask once she’s recovered.
“Please. Something in the back if possible?” Anthony asks.
We’re led to a relatively secluded corner booth, though at least three people track our movement across the restaurant. Anthony seems unbothered, immediately picking up his menu like this is totally normal.
“This place has an amazing all-day brunch menu,” he says. “But it raises an important question. Are you a sweet or savory brunch person?”
“Both. Always both. I don’t understand people who can choose.”
“Correct answer.” He grins at me over his menu. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
I raise a skeptical eyebrow. “Just one reason?”
