“Poor fella. Maybe all he wanted was a kiss.”
Jesse grinned. “What else has the internet told you about me?”
Ugh. I hated having to admit I’d been reading up on him. “Not much other than the obvious. You know, rock god, guitar legend in the making, blah blah blah. Oh. And you’ve dated a lot of famous women. Models. Actresses.”
“That’s true.”
I was kind of hoping he’d deny that one. Not that it should matter to me—fake girlfriend that I was. But I didn’t exactly relish being compared to his usual “type.”
“But not many actual girlfriends,” I said, digging a little.
“Also true.”
“One, actually.” Because according to Wikipedia, Elle was the only woman who held that distinction.
“Two,” he said. “I had a girlfriend in high school. Then we went on our first tour and fame took its course. Relationships got sticky.”
Sticky how, I wasn’t sure, though obviously the long distance thing probably sucked. And I could imagine dating a guy who suddenly rocketed into the spotlight would be a lot to take, especially when he was being pawed by rabid female fans every night. But I wasn’t sure I wanted the details on that; I was nervous enough about walking into this party on Jesse Mayes’ arm and being the object of jealousy and judgment. I’d had a taste of that since the video came out, and it was pretty hard to swallow.
“So, you just don’t do the girlfriend thing?”
“No.”
I was surprised by the blunt answer. And maybe, way deep down, just a tiny bit disappointed, which was beyond stupid.
“You’ll probably hear a lot of things,” he said. “But here’s the truth. Elle is family to me. But she wasn’t any more right for me than any of the other women I’ve dated these last ten years. We stuck it out a while, probably longer than we should have, because of the band. We were in the middle of the tour when we realized things weren’t right.”
“How long were you together?”
“About a year. But the last few months of that was a prolonged breakup.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you for filling me in.”
“That it?” he asked. “The internet trail go cold there?” Clearly, he knew it hadn’t.
“Not exactly.” I met his gaze. “You get horny on stage.”
He grinned and kind of rolled his eyes. “I wish I could say that’s a lie.”
“It embarrasses you?”
“If I said yes, would you believe me?”
“I don’t know yet.” After the way he’d pretended to fuck me senseless in front of a camera crew, all the while with a raging hard-on, it was hard to imagine anything would embarrass the man.
“Anything else?”
“Um… yes. It also seemed evident that you have a reputation as…” I tried to put it as diplomatically as I could, and not give his ego too much of a stroke. “A talented lover.”
To my surprise, he didn’t laugh or gloat. He didn’t say a thing about it.
“What about you?” he asked. “What would your ex-lovers say about you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you could ask him sometime.”
“Seriously?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
