At least all those women had actual talent. Not only did I not particularly want to be famous, I very particularly did not want to be famous for doing absolutely nothing but putting on some lacy underwear and getting groped by a rock star. Which I now kinda was.
While I contemplated this, Max whined and snuffled my foot.
“Yeah, Max. I know. Pee and food.”
I gave myself three more seconds to be weirded out by all of it, then dragged my ass off the bed. Because even though I was some kind of music video sensation out there in internet land, in real life I was still a regular girl with bills to pay, no boyfriend—rock star or otherwise—and a job to do. A crappy job, but still.
And a dog to take outside to pee.
◊◊◊
It was a gorgeous mid-summer morning, trees heavy with blossoms and the air sweet with the scent of freshly-mowed grass. The sun was already blazing out of a flawless blue sky. Max jogged alongside my skateboard as I rolled to work, tongue lolling contentedly out the side of his mouth.
Really, my life was pretty good.
By that I meantmylife, not the life of that girl in the video who got to roll around in bed with Jesse Mayes. Because clearly that life didn’t exist, as evidenced by the fact that once we were finished shooting it, I never saw him again.
That didn’t mean my life hadn’t changed at all.
Iwas still the same person, but now I had little kids coming up to me asking for my autograph, jealous chicks giving me catty stare-downs and random guys hitting on me a lot more than they used to. I’d even gone on a few dates. They weren’t exactly earth-shattering or anything, but really, one could hardly expect regular, mortal dudes to compare with Jesse Fucking Mayes. Which was okay. Once the overwhelming memories of my hours in bed with him eventually dissipated, and the crazy, sexy dreams stopped, I was sure to find someone super cool who’d rock my world, right?
Or so I’d been telling myself to get over the feeling that the most thrilling thing I’d ever done, and may ever do, was over. And it wasn’t happening again.
Forget about it,I told myself, part of my new daily mantra.It was cool. It was crazy. It was brief.
It’s done.
Welcome to reality. It’s not so bad.
My sister’s place was a beautifully maintained heritage house in Mount Pleasant, less than five minutes from my apartment, where Nudge Coffee Bar occupied the front rooms. If I thought I could get away with it, I would’ve rolled right on past and taken Max for a longer cruise around the neighborhood, but I was already running late, thanks to my red wine hangover. So I turned my skateboard and rolled on up the sidewalk toward the house.
I noticed the big dude out front right away. Kinda hard to miss. Over six feet, muscles bulging from his sleeveless black shirt. He was wearing dark shades and leaning on a black luxury car parked in the no-parking zone, and for a dude with a giant tattoo of a gnarly tree running up one arm he kinda had the vibe of a Secret Service agent. Or maybe a bodyguard…
Holy shit.
I rolled to a halt.
A rock star was sitting on the stairs to the front porch of my sister’s house. Which would explain all the vibrating my cell phone was doing in my ass pocket on the way here. Kinda regretting ignoring that now.
He was wearing shades so I wasn’t sure he’d seen me yet. He had a takeout coffee cup in hand and I started rapidly calculating the odds that he’d just happened by for coffee. Then his head tilted in my direction and a dazzling smile broke out on his face. He stood and started walking over to me.
Shit.
I looked away for a sec to get my bearings. I was in the right place, right? I was awake, right? This wasn’t just another horny dream where we were about to go at it on the hood of his car while his bodyguard watched and then I woke up in a sweaty heap, alone with my dog?
I popped my skateboard up into my hand and let Max’s leash out enough so he could bounce over to Jesse Mayes, which he was dying to do. I watched as Jesse Mayes patted my dog, then slipped his shades up onto his head where they sat in his thick, dark curls.
He stopped in front of me. “Katie Bloom.” He was still smiling when he said my name.
“Jesse Mayes,” I said as coolly as I could while my heart drummed like a Dylan Cope drum solo. His eyes dropped to my chest and for a split second I thought he could actually hear it. Then I remembered it was going to be hot as fuck today and I was wearing a skimpy white halter-style bikini top and the tiniest jean shorts I owned.
Even though he’d seen me in less, I felt utterly naked as he looked me over. His smile faded, replaced with the same dark, unreadable look he gave me most of the time we were shooting that video.
“Um… I thought rock stars didn’t get out of bed before noon or whatever,” I said. Because it was really fucking early in the morning to be standing face-to-face with Jesse Mayes, unprepared. And it was definitely too early for him to be looking so good.
“You’ve been in bed with a rock star?” he asked, straight-faced.
“Just the once.”
