“Sure.”
“I need for this to be clear. None of this was my doing. Quinn came to me. I was all set to join another band, and then he knocked on my door and offered me the world. I couldn’t turn it down.”
“I know,” she said, wandering over to me. “Relax.”
Relax? Did she have any idea what her presence did to me?
“Quinn explained everything to me.”
“That’s it? You’re not pissed?”
“Not about that, no.”
I didn’t need to ask what she was still pissed about. She’d made her feelings very clear in the bathroom at the hospital. And while I’d play nice for the tour, keeping my distance, that didn’t mean I wasn’t still angling to win her back.
“But we can put all that behind us because”—she paused, sliding a strand of hair behind her ear just as she had as an insecure girl—“at the end of the day, we want the same thing, right?”
“Yes.” I rose from the stool. “Exactly.”
Her face lit up. “Oh my god. I was so nervous. I wasn’t sure where your head was at. But you agree?”
“A hundred thousand percent, I agree. We have the same goal, Grace. Our careers come first. Both of us benefit if this Sketch Monsters tour succeeds. Just because we have a past doesn’t mean we can’t keep our relationship now totally professional.”
She blinked, looking flustered. “Professional?”
“Is that not what you were talking about?”
“No, it was.” She turned away from me. “Totally professional.”
I sensed tension. “You all right?”
“Uh-huh.”
She wasn’t okay. She was definitely pissed. I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong, but Grace wasn’t making eye contact, so it was clearly something.
“So, what do you suggest we do to keep it professional?” she asked, on the move. Crossing the room.
The vibe was way off now, but that didn’t change the fact that I’d made Tucker a promise—to saveherjob.
“Oh, okay,” I said, pulling my talking points from the list I’d already created in my head. “About the tour. We’ll be traveling in tight quarters, so we should probably have someone between us at all times.”
She blinked. “Like an old grandma chaperone from the fifties?”
“I mean, sure, if we can find an old grandma chaperone from the fifties who wants to go on tour with us. But I was more thinking along the lines of the other band members.”
“So, let me just be clear. I can’t sit next to you?”
“I think it’s best for both of us if we keep our distance. Do our own thing. Be friends.”
“Hmm. That doesn’t sound very friendly to me.”
“Well, what do you suggest we do, Grace? Get back together and blow up the entire tour?”
Her eyes widened to ungodly proportions. “That’s what you think will happen?”
“We don’t have a great track record.”
“You, Rory. You don’t have a great track record. I’ve never faltered.”
