“Hmph.”
My stomach pulled on my heart, and it was my turn to sigh a little. “What you said last night, though, about being careful. We’ll have to be careful after Christmas Notch too.”
“Oh,” Bee said. “Right.”
I didn’t want her to misunderstand. “Not because I want to be,” I said quickly. “I’d love for us to be together for all the world to see. But—”
“Your career. Your manager. Bunting.” She didn’t sound angry or hurt, but there was a carefulness to her words where there hadn’t been before.
I tried to read her expression, tucking my finger under her chin so she couldn’t duck her face away. “Bee, if I didn’t have to make this rebranding thing work, I swear I would . . .”
“I know,” she said. “I understand.” Then she moved her head so she could kiss my knuckles. “I’ll take it, Nolan. Just so you know. I’ll take you however I can get you. But maybe we should think about cooling things down here.”
“What? No!”
She laughed a little, although it sounded forced to me. “I know. I don’t want to stop either, but I have me and Teddy to think about too. And you’re here for less than a week, just until a couple days after Christmas, and I’ll wrap a few days after that, and then we’ll have as much time as we want in the privacy of our homes or in the privacy of a hotel. A real hotel, not a hotel with a heart-shaped bathtub next to the bed.” She pressed a hand to my chest, her green eyes locked on mine. “It doesn’t make sense to risk everything when we don’t have very long to wait.”
She was right. I hated that she was right because I wanted to spend every spare moment in bed with her, but her logic was undeniable. “So we’ll be dry until after the movie wraps?” I asked to clarify.
“Think you can handle it, Mr.Bad Boy?” she asked, looping her arms around my neck.
“Maybe,” I answered. “As long as I don’t look at you. Or think about you. Or smell anything with sugar cookies or figs.”
She leaned in, her exhales ghosting over my lips. I could feel the stiff tips of her breasts moving over my chest as she pressed closer. “Maybe the whole going dry thing could start after today—”
My phone erupted into the opening bars of “Fresh INK,” a ringtone chosen especially for Kallum, since that was his least favorite song from our debut album.
If Kallum was calling...
Panic fizzed through me as I thought of all the things that could be going wrong right now. As I imagined Mom back in the hospital and me all the way out here in Vermont.
“One second,” I muttered, dropping a kiss onto Bee’s forehead and then retrieving my phone from the counter with the coffeepot.
I answered as quickly as I could. “Oh my God, is it Mom? Is she okay?”
“No, man, it’s way worse,” Kallum said glumly. “My sex tape leaked.”
Chapter Twenty
Bee
“Eyes closed,” Luca reminded me as I steadied myself on his shoulders and stepped into the wedding gown. “You know what I see every time I close my eyes? Kallum Lieberman’s sex tape. Holy hell. That man is rocking the dad bod. I didn’t think straight porn could be hot until I saw that video.”
“Uh, excuse me? Are you saying my straight scenes aren’t hot?”
“Aw, Bee. You know I think you’re smoking, but P in V is just not my flavor.” I felt a chill roll through him as he fluffed the skirt of my dress. “But Kallum, he was always my fave. You would think Isaac was tailor-made for me, but something about that doofus Kallum always got me so hot. And Nolan... well, Nolan had big dick energy, but Kallumisbig dick energy if you get what I mean.”
I laughed to myself. I hadn’t told Luca about me and Nolan yet, but I could confirm that when it came to Nolan, his big dick energy was more than just energy. I hadn’t seen Kallum’s tape yet, but it was everywhere. And not only that, but apparently the media was now sniffing around INK’s past, looking for any juicy details they could possibly dig up on any past or current scandals. The moment Nolan got off the phone with Kallum, he’d dressed in a hurry and gone in search of Steph. We’d barely spoken since.
“I sort of feel bad for Kallum,” I said. “He’s moved on with his life. He’s a small-business owner. I can hardly imagine he wanted this out there.”
Luca scoffed. “There is no world in which a man who can fuck that good doesn’t want his sex tape publicly broadcasted.” He tugged on the underskirt, and I nearly fell over.
“Are you sure this isn’t some kind of Hopeflix trust-fall exercise?” I asked.
“No, but this dress is absolutely chef’s-kiss perfect on you and even better than my sketches. I attempted a wedding dress before I dropped out of fashion school, but I didn’t have a movie costume department budget at my disposal. Even a dinky Christmas movie budget is better than a fashion student budget.”
“I never took you for a wedding dress designer,” I told him as I forced myself not to cheat and squint.
