“Jordan.” Reid turned me toward him. “Come on, you had a shit day; it’s been a hell of a week. Let Max pay for a weekend getaway. We’ll go to a few choice clubs. You can call ahead of time, right? And let them know we’re making appearances?”
I nodded and bit on my lower lip, almost drawing blood. “But you still have a few scenes to shoot.”
“I’ll finish up this week, and if they need me for anything else, I’ll stay, but we’ve gotten a lot done. We’re ahead of schedule.”
Why couldn’t they be behind?
Max stood and crossed his arms. “What say you, Shrew?”
I say Max should have to fly on the outside of the plane, strapped to the wing with a cape, so it gets caught.
“Fine,” I huffed. “Let’s do it.”
“VEGAS!” Max yelled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
REID
The week went by painfully slowly. Probably because I was looking forward to getting away from the media. It had gotten worse since Jordan’s and my announcement. And when I say worse, I mean we’d gone from trending for a day on Twitter to being followed by cameras everywhere we went. It was impossible to get a damn cup of coffee without someone snapping a picture or asking why we weren’t together.
The attention I could get used to—I was an actor, it was part of the game. But the negativity toward Jordan seriously pissed me off. I was painted as some sort of hero for dating a girl who didn’t meet the entertainment industry’s standards for pretty.
Apparently people thought it was romantic that I’d fallen in love with the ugly girl. The Wonderwall on MSN was filled with unflattering pictures of Jordan with spilled coffee on her shirt and lipstick askew, among other things, while all of my pictures looked flawless. If they only knew her, they’d realize she was just accident-prone, not ugly—not by a long shot.
One entertainment blog went as far to call me a saint for dating an average girl with big, childbearing hips.
I almost cussed them out on live TV when the interviewer brought it up, but Jordan, bless her heart, managed to kick me with one of her sharp heels before I made an ass out of myself. Fat? Who the hell would call her fat? She had curves, gorgeous, luscious, spellbinding curves that had me losing sleep every damn night because my stupid hands refused to forget what it felt like to cup her perfect ass.
Thankfully almost all of my on-camera interviews included Jordan, meaning she was always right there, pinching me before I said something stupid, and ever since news of our engagement broke loose, I was more than likely to say something that would be offensive, probably because of all the stress and lies.
“Dude.” Colton cleared his throat. “Am I interrupting a moment between you and your Starbucks? Because I’m not gonna lie, I feel really uncomfortable with the way your gaze is lingering on that mermaid.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sorry, just thinking.”
“Good.” He exhaled. “Because for a minute there I thought were going to have to have a serious talk about your Starbucks addiction.”
I sighed and took a seat. “When’s the flight leave again?”
“Five o’clock on the dot from JFK.” He toyed with his coffee straw and then started fidgeting with a napkin.
“What’s wrong?”
“Huh?” He glanced up. “What do you mean?”
I rolled my eyes. “Colt, you’re shit at hiding things. What’s wrong?”
He cleared his throat. “Do you, uh, think this is a good idea?”
I let out a long sigh through my lips. “Well, it’s not a bad one, I can tell you that. Jordan lined up three separate appearances for Vegas, the buzz is huge for the movie, and according to Entertainment Weekly, I’m the next Jeremy Renner. So, yeah, I’m thinking it’s a better idea than staying here and holing up in my apartment just because the lie got a little bit bigger than we all expected.”
“Bigger.” Colt’s eyebrows shot up. “People named you the hottest couple of the year. Bigger is an understatement.”
I waved him off, even though my chest started clenching with what I’d assumed was panic. “I trust Jordan. She’s the best. If she says it’s going to be okay, then it’s going to be okay.”
“And that’s another thing.” Colt leaned forward, his voice barely above a whisper. “How do you know she’s not really falling for you? I mean, are you sure things aren’t progressing past a simple PR trick?”
“Because she’s a professional,” I said quickly, even though my heart started hammering against my chest so hard I was afraid Colt was going to see right through the bullshit. Forget Jordan, I was the one I was worried about. Was that selfish? Yeah, a bit, but I liked her, really liked her.
She was beautiful.
Hilarious.
Held her own with Max.
Focused.
Goal oriented.
Had the sexiest mouth I’d ever seen.
Oh, right, and she held her own with Max. That demanded to be said at least twice, possibly three times.
Hell, what wasn’t to like?
“You’re staring at the mermaid again,” Colton deadpanned. “And sorry to break it to you, but your cup isn’t a magic lamp, and no matter how many times you rub the Starbucks logo, the topless mermaid won’t pop out of the cup and offer you three wishes.”
One. I really only needed one.