Page 64 of The Comedown

I glance at Julian again, seeing him studying his Jell-O cup with furrowed brows.

Is he getting it yet? Why I avoid dating men in the public eye. And why I sneak around so much. Julian lives his life so…unfiltered. He has no idea what happens when the tide he’s been riding turns, because not everyone is contractually obligated to Julian, and it will turn. Sooner or later, it always does.

“Well, the offer still stands, if you want to join me,” I tell him, returning the conversation to the hospital instead of a relationship that’s not even real and will never be real.

“What do you do? Autograph hats?”

“Hats?”

“Yeah. Aren’t the kids missing their hair?”

I consider his question. Though innocent, it’s also incredibly ignorant.

“Some of them have lost their hair due to chemo, but not all the kids staying there are being treated for cancer.”

“Why are they there then?”

“How about you see for yourself?” Experience is life’s greatest teacher.

“I don’t know. Kids freak me out,” he says, getting up to throw his Jell-O cup away. My bus’s fridge is now stocked with it, too, because Julian has to have at least one cup a day.

“You’ve been doing fine with Holter.”

Holter, busy on a FaceTime call, tips a hand side to side from his bed.

“Meh? That’s all I get? I gamed with this kid for five straight hours yesterday and I get a meh?”

Julian looks genuinely offended and I snatch a pillow off the couch to toss at him, laughing when he catches it to immediately throw down the hall into Holter’s bedroom.

“He’s just showing off,” Mary says on her way to the back to close Holter’s door so he can talk to the girl he took to dinner without too much interruption. He still maintains she’s not his girlfriend, but…they talk every minute that I don’t keep him busy. Probably even then, too. He’s never not on his phone now.

Suddenly, Julian shoots over to the massage table, saying, “Hey, man. Do you need to be up in her shit like that?”

The travel masseur rubbing my upper thigh stops what he’s doing to look at Julian, and the two of them seem to have some sort of silent stare-off above my head.

“Irelynn, can you ask Antonio to pull over? Julian needs to take a walk.” Back on to his bus.

“If I take a walk, I’m taking this motherfucker with. He shouldn’t be touching you like that.”

I roll my eyes. “Have you ever had a massage?”

Thankfully, the masseur returns his attention to my leg, kneading a particularly sore spot on my inner thigh. It’s been tight the last three days and no amount of stretching has helped.

“Are you offering?”

“No,” I half-moan.

“I swear those fingers…” Julian’s voice is coiled tight like a snake preparing to strike, but I rise onto my elbows, covering my bare breasts with a forearm before he can ruin my massage with a fight. Would he actually fight the masseur? Over a simple massage?

I don’t want to find out.

“See the sheet?” I ask, feeling like a schoolgirl defending my skirt length to the principal all over again. “He doesn’t go above the sheet.”

“It’s hiked up to your ass cheek!” Julian argues, and I flop back down, sighing, “No, it’s not.” It’s just below my ass cheek.

“Jeez. Haven’t you ever heard of a happy ending?” one of my backup dancers teases, making me laugh into the headrest, my shoulders bouncing.

The sheet covering my back gets yanked down until it stops mid-thigh instead, then I hear Julian threaten, “Don’t touch the fucking sheet.”