In Her Sights (The Thousand Words Series Book 2) (4 page)

“Wait. What’s going on?” Kenny asked, putting a hand on Dev’s shoulder and moving him back a step.

“Brunette – eleven o’clock. Hair only slightly shorter than her dress,” Dev answered Kenny first, then Jess. “I know you can read, Jess, it’s the big words that you stumble over. Words like ‘Miss,’ ‘Great,’ and ‘Lakes’ that are written on her sash. She’s not wearing the little crown thing tonight. No idea why sometimes they wear that stuff and sometimes they don’t. Give it up, Jess. You’re not going to score with her,” Dev told him.

Jess didn’t want to hear that and used the one bargaining chip he had that would bring Dev around to his side. “Want to get me off Cassie’s back?”

“Scheiße,” Dev swore under his breath and started to turn, in theory to consider the offer. Jess smiled when Kenny smacked the back of Dev’s head. He stopped smiling when Kenny turned on him.

“Have you even talked to her?” Kenny asked.

“No. Have you
seen
her?” Jess responded.

“That answers my next question. It’s a crush, get over it. Dev’s right, you don’t get her. Miss Great Lakes, or Miss Anywhere-Else for that matter,
you don’t get
. Those young ladies worked to get those titles and they cannot afford to even be seen with you. Your reputation precedes you like a pace car at the Indy 500. Don’t touch her, don’t talk to her, don’t approach her. You know what? Don’t even
look
at her.” Kenny paused and watched Miss Great Lakes.

Jess started to turn back to the object of their debate, but Kenny caught his wrist in a vice-like grip that made Jess momentarily forget the beauty standing only yards away. He looked down at where Kenny held his wrist in one hand, he swore threatening to break it. Every time Jess started to look away, Kenny twisted, bringing pain to hold Jess’s attention. Jess was stunned by the assault, it was more like something Dev would do than Kenny.

Finally his best friend released him and Jess rubbed his wrist.

“What the hell was that about?” Jess demanded.

“Don’t look at her. Now, you’re going into the lounge to find Bryan. He’s talking to some local TV executive. Stay there with him,” Kenny ordered.

Jess wasn’t fond of this business-like tone Kenny adopted. It wasn’t that he was used to being on equal footing with the lead guitarist, he knew that was never going to happen, but it wasn’t usually this bad.

“Dev, take him for a walk, keep him there. Apparently, I get to have a chat with Miss Great Lakes,” Kenny finished. “Jess, I’m keeping your drink.”

“How come the rules don’t apply to you?” Jess demanded.

“I’m smarter.”

“You’re not supposed to drink. I’ll tell Flynn.”

“Way to put Dev in a good mood. Be careful he doesn’t throw your ass overboard now. This will be the only one. It’s only half-full anyway. Thanks for that, asshole. Haul him off, Dev.”

“Yes sir,” Dev saluted. He led Jess off toward the lounge where he could look forward to a completely boring evening listening to executives cry on Bryan’s shoulder.

○ ○ ○

Kenny watched Dev lead Jess off with mixed emotions. He wanted the safety of going with them. Whatever Miss Great Lakes wanted, it couldn’t be good. While he was busy telling off Jess, she turned and focused her attention on him.

He immediately stopped and estimated the distance between them, then tried to remember if he’d accidentally raised his voice enough to be heard. Kenny prayed she didn’t hear.

Glancing quickly at the other guests, no one else seemed to be taking undo notice of them, except for the photographers of course. Damn them. Miss Great Lakes smiled and Kenny could almost see Jess’s point in offering up his infatuation with Cassie in trade. He wasn’t buying it for a second, but he could see what prompted the desperate offer.

Jess started to look back her direction too, and that would be a problem. Kenny didn’t like to get physical, wrestling was Jess and Dev’s thing, but he could hold his own and people constantly underestimated him. Keeping Jess distracted was easier than he thought it would be. Just a little pressure ...

Miss Great Lakes raised one perfect eyebrow in amusement and beckoned him to her with one finger. A clear ‘come here’ gesture.

Kenny felt Dev shift uneasily beside him. Who was she beckoning to? Dev would almost certainly run scared. Kenny looked at the younger man to his right, he had a light sheen to his skin that promised worse if he didn’t do something. Kenny nudged him and Dev looked at him. Jess started to look up and he applied renewed pressure to his wrist to recapture his attention. Jess flinched.

Returning his attention to Miss Great Lakes, Kenny subtly used his other hand to gesture to Dev, hoping she’d realize he was asking who exactly she was summoning. She shook her head. Kenny pointed to Jess. No, thank God. Kenny pointed to himself. She nodded and smiled brighter, he didn’t know that was possible.

Kenny gave her a brief nod of acknowledgment and released Jess, then sent him off with Dev. Now he had to face the music. Taking a deep breath, he took a step toward where Miss Great Lakes was, to find that she’d come to meet him.

“That was amusing,” she said.

Kenny felt his insides turn to jelly. How much did she hear? “How so?” he asked carefully.

She smiled, but it was an amused one, like he’d told her a joke. If she started laughing next no one around them would be surprised. “You’re fishing for how much I heard?”

Kenny looked around. “In this, I’m surprised you heard anything. Was I that loud or obvious? No one else acted like it.”

“The photographers were onto you.”

“The photographers are always onto us. Are you going to make me beg?” Kenny asked.

She smiled. “Would you? I can’t picture it.” Miss Great Lakes shook her head and Kenny caught a glimpse of the dark, lustrous waves of hair bouncing gently, behaving as she wanted them to. No doubt everyone and everything behaved just as she wanted them to.

“You clearly have not met Jess and Dev. If begging would make them behave, I would be on my knees in an instant.”

She frowned, it was an alluring sight. “You seemed to have the matter in hand. Jess didn’t sound like he was going to listen to Dev. Dev likes to bait him doesn’t he?”

“It’s give and take, why?”

“Just before you showed up, Jess asked who I was and Dev gave a very witty, and smart-ass, answer.”

“Oh, the dig about reading.” Kenny nodded.

“Mostly. Who’s Cassie?”

Kenny hesitated. They didn’t discuss Jess’s obsession outside their inner circle. Actually, they rarely discussed within their inner circle. Discussing it with Miss Great Lakes was out of the question.

“Ah.” She smiled knowingly. “One of those young women that fall in the ‘not to be discussed’ category. I imagine he has a few. I like that pace car at the Indy 500 analogy you likened his reputation to. You’re right, Jess is
beyond
off limits. I appreciate you stepping in. It didn’t look like your babysitter could handle him. I was worried I was going to have to play cat and mouse with him all night. Does he like the hunt?”

“Yes,” Kenny admitted, grateful that she’d let the subject of Cassie slide. He wondered now exactly why she called him over. Not that he wasn’t enjoying the company.

She sighed and Kenny realized he didn’t even know her name. “That would have been tedious. I’m not allowed to hide.”

Kenny smiled.

“There you go. That wasn’t so hard was it?” Miss Great Lakes asked with an approving smile of her own.

“You got him to smile? Good job,” Dev said. He handed Kenny a tumbler of Coke. “The bartender said you’re drinking ginger ale,” he said handing Miss Great Lakes a tumbler of amber liquid. “I’m Dev, by the way.”

“Paige. Thank you.” She took the drink from him and Dev took her empty glass, handing it to a nearby caterer with a tray. Now with empty hands, Dev took Jess’s half-full champagne flute, but didn’t hand it off like Kenny expected. The caterer wandered off and Kenny stared at Dev.

“What?”

“You don’t drink,” Kenny said, indicating the drink in the twenty-year-old’s hand. He didn’t want to point out that Dev wasn’t technically old enough to drink either. No point going there.

“You just sent me on babysitting duty with Jess, then made me escort him off to safer waters. Let me describe safer waters to you because clearly the occupants of the lounge have changed since you were last there,” Dev began.

“You’re going to tell me it’s not full of old men in toupees anymore aren’t you?” Kenny reached for the champagne glass but Dev held it out of reach.

“Well, you’re half right.”

“And the other half?”

“Their twenty-one-year-old daughters,” Dev said, taking a drink of the champagne. “How can you guys drink this stuff?”

Kenny ignored him. “Why are you out here then?” he asked.

“To bring you drinks, and because – and I know this will not come as a surprise – I was causing as much of a stir in there as Jess was. Bryan said we were disruptive. What with Jess trying to get away from him and me trying to stay behind them both, it’s no wonder Bryan finally sent me packing.” Dev shook his head. “If you try to send me back in there, I’m jumping overboard and swimming for shore.”

Kenny nodded, realizing Dev approached Miss Great Lakes, Paige, rather than stayed in the lounge and that said something. Turning back to Paige, he saw she was watching Dev unhappily.

“So,” Paige said brightly, “you all seem pretty close.”

Dev finished the drink in his hand. “Too close.”

“You live across the country, quit complaining,” Kenny told him.

“Jess wouldn’t dare moon me in person. Distance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Wait,” Paige held up a hand. “Jess
mooned
you? Long distance? How?”

Kenny sighed. “Video conferencing gone wrong. We could spend all night listing the pranks and scuffles between these two. Only a fraction of it makes it online. And in fairness, Dev mooned him first.”

“I hope someone taped those video conferences.” Paige smiled wickedly. It was a gorgeous smile and Kenny was glad Jess wasn’t here to see it.

“No,” he said firmly. Beside him, Dev shifted his weight and the hair on the back of Kenny’s neck stood on end. He turned to look at the younger man around whom so much trouble orbited. “Tell me ‘no,’ Dev.”

“Kenny –”

“All I want to hear is ‘of course I didn’t record the band’s video conferences’ or, if you did, try ‘nothing to worry about, I deleted them.’ Anything along those lines is fine.”

“I’ll find a corner and get right on it,” Dev turned to leave.

“Freeze,” Kenny ordered and Dev flinched.

“Auto-back-up,” Dev said. “Forgot about it until now. I can access it remotely, I just have to make sure I find the right files. But you’re going to want me to do that somewhere no one can look over my shoulder. We don’t want to delete
everything
, just the bits that we don’t want saved for posteriors. Posterity.”

“I would say wait until later, but you’ll forget. Go. Just be
very
careful. Very –”

“Got it,” Dev said and left with a purpose in his step.

Kenny turned back to Paige to find her smiling at him. The idea she was rewarding him crossed his mind, but he pushed it aside. He’d dealt with beautiful women before, he wouldn’t be trained that easily.

“Unchaperoned again,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re not allowed to disappear, you said so yourself,” Kenny pointed out.

“True.”

“So when’s the Miss North America playoffs?” Kenny asked, then wanted to kick himself when her smile faltered.

“It used to be in January, but they moved it to Mid-September. Also to Toronto instead of Acapulco, not that it makes a difference.”

“I’m sensing more to this.”

Paige shrugged. To Kenny, it looked odd. She didn’t want to talk about it. If Paige didn’t call him over to talk about it, then why ...?

She could be playing him. She’d make a lovely con artist. Why him though? She’d easily have Jess eating out of her hand. Kenny would be much harder to control. She already overheard enough to confirm that, yet she chose him anyway.

“Spill,” Kenny ordered.

Paige smiled again, a shadow of one of her former ones. “You forgot you’re not dealing with Jess or Dev.”

He nodded, conceding the point. “Please.”

“I have absolutely no chance of winning Miss North America, so it’s difficult to get excited about it.”

Kenny took a step back and slowly sized her up. Frowning, he walked around her, taking his time. It had to be something political, of course. Some skeleton in her closet that came out. If she made Miss Great Lakes and suddenly had no chance to go further, it was something like that and she had to know he knew it. Still, his little inspection was bound to bring a smile to her face. Sure enough, by the time he made it back around to the front, she was quietly laughing.

“You look great to me and I should be in a good position to judge. I mean, I’ve been around. Your talent must really bite.” Kenny shook his head sadly. “Of course I haven’t seen you in a swimsuit,” he added.