“Fuck, Birdie,” he managed. “Jesus, fuck.” He knew that he had questions for her, that they should talk about this, but he couldn’t remember what his questions were, and he certainly didn’t want to talk aboutanythingright now.
He flipped her onto her back, and his lips made their way down her neck, then toward her nipple, which he couldn’t help himself: He grazed his teeth over it, okay? He fucking nibbled her nipple because she was absolutely goddamn delicious, and that’s when Birdie startled, jolting an inch or two away from him.
She blinked quickly, then again, as if she had disappeared into one of her fugue states of make-believe and had now snapped out of it. And Elliot saw it clearly, unavoidably: that he had to put a stop to this before they got in even deeper.
“Oh no,” he said, and rolled beside her, flopping one arm overhis face and resting the other on his crotch because maybe that would help disguise just how badly he wanted her. “Oh no,” he said again, then repeated it a third time.
Birdie pushed herself up to her elbows and turned toward him, her bafflement giving way to stoniness. “Oh no?” she hissed.
“No, Bird, that’s not what I—”
She waved a hand as if she wasn’t interested in his explanation, covered her breasts, and slid down to the floor. She scooped up the hoodie and threw it over her head so quickly, all he could see was the beautiful curvature of her spine, and then no skin at all.
“I am such an idiot,” she said. “I cannot believe—” she started and stopped, then shook her head, flexed her jaw, and strode toward the front of the RV.
“Birdie, please, let’s—” Elliot scrambled upright, wrapping the blanket around his waist, and hopped down. It felt like seven years ago all over again. When he had so much to say but said none of it, and he wasn’t even sure what to believe about whatever it was that she said. “Birdie,” he called again. Her back was to him in the driver’s seat. She had jammed the key into the ignition and was flipping it over and over, as if maybe, suddenly overnight, the RV had repaired itself.
“It’s fine,” she said. “Please, do not make this worse.”
“No, it’s not fine,” he said. “We should—”
He didn’t get to say exactly what they should do because someone pounded on the RV’s front door and they both startled and jumped.
“Shit!” she whispered.
“Shit,” he replied, glancing down at his state of half nakedness.
“Could we have honestly been followed?” she asked. “Dammit! You like this, me in your hoodie? Dammit, Elliot!”
“The press, I know.” He grimaced, like Birdie could always circle it back to her publicity hit.
“Mona,” she snapped. “I’m talking about Mona.”
And that’s when he remembered his own quandary of being found in a state of sexed-up hair and a still relatively visible erection. Mona, yes, but also Francesca. If he were photographed looking likethis, and she put together any sort of logical conclusion, he’d have crossed so many lines with her that he doubted he’d ever be able to find a job in the industry, much less with her, again.
The door clattered one more time.
“Birdie?” a woman shouted. “Birdie? Please tell me this is the right RV, and I’m not beating down the door of some retirees who are enjoying a road trip?”
Elliot looked at Birdie. Birdie looked at Elliot.
Imani, Elliot thought. He’d forgotten that he’d texted her late last night because he doubted they could find a mechanic first thing, and he assumed that she was the one who could fix this. He hadn’t expected her to show up in person. He definitely hadn’t expected her to show up in person first thing before he could tell Birdie that he’d reached out to her team rather than discuss it with her first. He dodged Birdie’s stare as he walked past her and down the camper’s steps. He suspected that if a look could wilt a man, he’d be in a puddle on the ground, helpless, immobile, like an amoeba. That’s what Birdie Maxwell could do to him: turn him into an invertebrate.
He hoisted up the blanket around his waist for good measure, then flung open the door.
If he thought he was calling in the cavalry, well, in what would turn out to be a series of foreseeable errors over the past day, Elliot O’Brien had gotten it totally wrong.
26
BIRDIE
I cannot believe youcalled them,” Birdie seethed, while Imani and Sydney, her agent, parked at the laminated dinette as if they were setting up a war room. “Do you think that I need babysitters?”
Birdie was in no mood to be chewed out by Imani, who had turned up with Sydney, as if it took the two of them to wrangle her into submission. As it was, she was spiraling about her idiotic make-out with Elliot, and the last thing she needed was her two parental figures giving her a dressing-down about all the ways she had made things worse for herself. She already knew she had made things worse for herself.
She hadn’tmeantto kiss him, obviously, when she marched back inside the RV, but somehow she simplyhadended up kissing him, and further, it had beenexceptional, and now she was just setting herself up to be emotionally annihilated again, andgood god, how many times could a girl make an utter fool of herself? She wanted to strangle Elliot but also she wanted to strangle herself, but since that wasn’t possible, she focused on him.
“No! I don’t think you need ‘babysitters,’ ” he whispered back. “I thought they would send a tow truck, not personally make a rescue appearance.”
