“So you can see how much I mean it. I desperately need those last dollars.”
“So what do you propose? Charm school?”
“You don’t need charm school. I can teach you how to be nice and have healthy relationships.”
He laughed.
And Mean Angie got mad.
“Look, no one likes you, okay?”
There. I said it.
But…oof. The look in his eyes. It was just a brief glimpse, but I’d swear to God I saw it: pain. It flashed through those aquamarine depths like a heart attack. Then it was gone, replaced with a dark wall.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “That was Mean Me. It’s this new thing I’ve been practicing. Just in my head. I’ve got the opposite problem as you do. I’m too nice.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean… usually. Not right now, I guess. But just hear me out on this, okay? People like me.”
“Like who?” he challenged. “Like the boyfriend who just broke up with you, or the boss who fired you?”
I took a deep breath. I probably deserved that one. “Okay, so besides those two people, people like me. And technically she didn’t fire me, she just never hired me. But that’s not the point. You know why people like me?”
Johnny stared at me blankly. “Again, I’m not sure what people we’re talking about.”
“How about your sister, for one?”
“Yeah, well, she likes me too. Are we really trusting her judgment?”
“I’m nice, but I’m not fake about it,” I pressed on. I knew my good qualities, so it wasn’t hard. “I listen. I care, genuinely. I treat people with kindness and respect—”
“And this haswhatto do with me?”
I blew out a breath. The man was stubborn as shit. “I’m taking you to a dinner. Tomorrow night.”
“What dinner?”
“Social calendar, remember? I organize, you show up and be nice?”
“I never said I’d be nice.”
“Yeah. Honestly, I really should’ve realized that you needed more… practice… before I set you loose at that party last night. That was kind of like setting a panther free in a den of lions and expecting him to make friends.”
He didn’t say anything as he stared me down, which I took as progress of a kind.
“It’s just a little dinner with a couple of VIPs, okay?”
“Who?”
“Not important. Just like in your daily life as a famous person, you should be prepared for anything. And to be nice about it.”
“If it’s Dylan and Amber Cope—”
“What? No. I would never blindside you like that.”
His deep, aquamarine eyes bore into me, silently assessing.
