“Oh, you know. I just picked it up somewhere.” Milo laughs off Ray’s question.
“Sure, butwhyare you wearing it? It looks like it’s wearing you instead of the other way around.”
Milo shrugs. “It smells good,” he says nonchalantly.
I’m still looking straight ahead and pointedlynotat them. My heart is racing. It’s my fault for having ears and hearing Milo admit that he likes how my clothes smell. My imagination is running wild.
Maybe he likes the wayIsmell?
Ray is rightly unconvinced, but he doesn’t push the matter. We make our exit, stopping every few feet so Milo can give his autograph to fans from the live audience and some staff who’d secretly sneaked over for one too.
It’s another thirty minutes before we finally make it out to the car. Milo heaves a sigh and sinks into the back seat. Raygets in the spot beside him and pulls out his phone. I uncap the water bottle I grabbed for him and hand it over.
“Thanks,” he says as he accepts it and chugs it back. He must be thirsty after his performance and all that small talk with his fans. I don’t know how he does it without breaking a sweat or dropping his smile.
“Remind me again where you got the jacket?” Ray suddenly asks.
“Why are you asking?” Milo hedges.
Ray looks up from his phone and narrows his eyes between the two of us. Fear shoots down my spine, and I know something is wrong.
I’m proven right when Ray slowly turns his phone around to show us what he’s looking at. Three images take up the entire screen. Two of them are Milo. One of which looks like he’s at a grocery store with Jack, and the other one must have been taken just moments ago, as it’s of the three of us walking out of the building.
In both photos, Milo is wearing my leather jacket.
The last one is a picture of me walking beside Milo when I picked him up from the airport, and I’m wearing—yep, you guessed it—my leather jacket.
“Congratulations, you two officially have a ship name. The article went out ten minutes ago, and #roloforever has already been tagged over a thousand times,” Ray says and massages two fingers over his temple.
“Ship name? Rolo?” I ask, unsure of what these termsmean.
Whatever it is, it can’t be good if I’m being pictured in an article with Milo.
“A ship name is when fans want to see two or more people in a relationship and mash their names together to create a name. In our case, ‘Rolo’ is probably taken from the first part of your name, Rowan, and the last part of my name, Milo,” he explains to me in a very calm manner.
Meanwhile, I’m feeling anything but calm. It takes a second for me to really process his words.
“So you’re saying there’s over a thousand strangers out there who want us to be together, liketogether, together?”
Milo shoots me a dopey smile. “I guess we’re just too stinkin’ cute, and everyone and their mom can see that.”
I nod without really thinking.
More like my body moves to agree without my consent, because Milo and I arenottogether.
We agreed to be friends, and that’s it.
“Be that as it may, this is going to be a media nightmare. Don’t you think you should have come to me, your manager, about this so we could at least have a plan on hand?”
Ray flicks Milo on the forehead lightly enough that Milo doesn’t even blink.
My head is still swirling because why is no one pointing out the fact that Milo and I arenottogether?
You’re not correcting them either.
“You really live up to your name, goblin. There’s never a moment of peace with you,” Ray continues. He types something on his phone before slipping it into his pocket. “I’ll have to head into the office and take care of this. We need to getyour publicist on it sooner rather than later. You two go home and stay there.”
He opens the car door again and is out the door, speed-walking away, before I can even offer to drive him.
