Sidelined (16 page)

“So, you’re in New York this weekend?” Macey asks Leah.

“Yeah,” she replies. “Quinn has shortlisted some models for the spring/summer show and I need to go pick out my favorites. I’m excited. I didn’t get to do it properly before. I kind of feel like a real designer now.”

“You always were a real designer. Even if you didn’t tell me,” Macey grumbles.

Leah laughs. “Technically, I didn’t tell anyone. Corey figured it out, and the hacker oh-so-helpfully told everyone else.” She shrugs.

“He’s gone kinda quiet,” Corey adds. “I think half the female population in America is pissed off. They were hoping for Jack’s nudes after I went off the market.”

“You have nudes?” Macey says, shocked.

“If I do, they aren’t intentional,” I snort. “If someone is photographing this body, I want to be fucking paid for it.”

Macey laughs softly. “You get many of those offers?”

“Nah. I think Cole stole all of them,” Leah giggles. “He joked that he’d taken Corey’s place as ‘most eligible bachelor’ in Los Angeles, but I really think he has.”

Macey purses her lips. “You know, I felt kind of guilty at first, but that picture has really raised his profile, huh?”

“Oh, yeah,” Leah nods. “Although he still wants your boob pic.”

“Uh, what?” I look between them.

“Never mind,” Macey giggle-coughs into her hand. “It’s an old thing.”

“Six months ago is not old,” Corey interjects and then looks at me. “These two and Ryann promised Cole Dalton that, if he sent them a nude, Macey would send him one. She never did.”

“Would you send me one?” I lean to the side and look at her.

“What?” she sputters, putting her wine glass down.

“Would you send me a nude? Because you’re pretty slow on calling, and next time I feel like sex and you haven’t called, a picture of you would be real fucking helpful.”

“I am not sending you a nude!” she gasps, knocking my thigh with the backs of her fingers. “And I have, technically, never called you. You called me twice and you turned up at my workplace! Thanks for that, by the way,” she shoots as an afterthought to Leah.

“You’re welcome.” Leah grins.

“So, if I call you tomorrow, you’ll let me fuck you?” I ask Macey.

“Hey now. Let’s not get greedy.”

“Greedy? No. Greedy is me flipping you over my shoulder and hauling your tight ass upstairs for round two right now.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

She looks at me stonily, but she can’t deny the hope glittering in her eyes. “You. Wouldn’t. Dare.”

I turn to Corey and Leah. “You guys can show yourselves out, right?”

Corey nods, and Macey snaps, “Jack!”

“Let’s go.” I tug her up by her hands and easily lift her over my shoulder. She wiggles in my hold, and I slap her ass. “Behave. We’re not upstairs yet.”

I run up the stairs with her, and she grasps my shirt, squealing and laughing.

“Jack!”

I shove the door to my bedroom open and throw her on the queen bed.

“Jack!” she shouts again, this time breathlessly. “You cannot go again already!”

I jump onto the bed and lean over her, my leg between hers, my hands pinning hers above her head. Then I lean down, my lips brush over hers.

“Desire for dominance, power, and stamina. Try me.”

Macey wiggles her wrists free and shoves at my shoulders. With surprising strength, she pushes me to the side. I roll onto my back and pull her over with me. My hands are circling her waist, and she leans forward, hair falling around my face.

“In that case,” she says in a low, sexy, seductive tone that shoots straight through my body and settles in my cock, “this is
my
turn.”

I
t’s not a bad arrangement.

I mean, it’s not ideal. The ideal situation would have, obviously, been my first argument: no sex at all. Evidently, Jack used his sexual skills as a weapon totally against me, and fuck me if I’m going to argue with the wonders of his penis. I’m not. I’m not even going to argue with the wonders of his mouth.

The next best thing is definitely sex, and if-slash-when one of us feels something stronger, we back out. We run, because neither of us wants a relationship. We don’t even have to say it in so many words. In one respect, we’re cut from the same cloth. We both got betrayed in a horrible way, yet in very different ways. Even if the way I was betrayed isn’t quite as bad as I thought it was.

Ever since he told me yesterday how badly his ex screwed him up, I’ve tried to imagine how it would feel to walk in on the person you love having sex with someone else…in your bed. I can’t, and I fear that it’s the kind of thing you actually have to experience to understand. And that fear is exactly what stops me from loving again.

“Jack seems nice.”

I stare at my brother across the dinner table. “Cal, all he said was his name and you were throwing ‘LAPD’ around like he needed a warning.”

“You met Jack?” Mom asks him. “What’s he like?”

“Like I said, Mom, he seems nice. We didn’t speak much. Apparently, someone forgot to tell him she wasn’t interested anymore and he found out when she told
me
.”

“It was not like that!” I protest, putting my fork down. “I just hadn’t called him yet. I didn’t even know he knew where I worked!”

“I’d like to meet him,” Mom says, ignoring me completely. “Mace, why don’t you invite him for dinner?”

“Because I’m not crazy,” I reply. Well, not entirely. “Besides”—I lower my voice—“I don’t want to bring someone around when it isn’t serious. I don’t want to confuse Dad.”

“Mmm,” Cal replies softly.

“He heard me talking to Cal yesterday,” Mom explains on a whisper. “He told me about Mitch. Your dad thought you were back together.”

“And this is why I’m not bringing Jack around.”

“Who’s Jack?” Dad asks from the doorway.

“No one, Dad. How’s the puzzle?” I say quickly.

“Puzzling,” he shoots back with a bright grin. “Who’s Jack?”

“He’s a friend,” I answer evasively.

“Important enough to be mentioned at the dinner table,” he notes.

“Dad.” Cal looks around at him. “He’s just a guy she knows. I met him the other day when I stopped by to see Mace at work. He seems nice.”

“Why don’t you bring him to dinner?” Dad offers brightly. “Oh, wait, Georgia. Is he that football guy you mentioned Macey knowing when we watched the game?”

I widen my eyes at Mom. Oh, shit, no.

“Uh, yes, honey, he is.”

“Fabulous! Macey, invite him around for dinner on Monday!” Dad claps his hands together. “I’d love to talk game with him.”

“I…” I stare at my family helplessly.

Cal looks concerned, Mom looks apologetic, and Dad… Jesus. He looks so excited. It’s the first time I’ve seen him excited for something other than his puzzles in a few months. There isn’t a single cell in my body that wants to deny him.

“Sure, Daddy. I’ll invite him for dinner on Monday, if he isn’t busy.”

“Invite who, Mace?” Dad asks, frowning.

“My friend. He plays football,” I explain quietly.

“Oh! That would be nice. Wouldn’t it, Georgia?” he asks Mom.

“Sure it would. I’ll make him my chicken and potato pie,” Mom pats Dad’s hand. “Did you need something, darling?”

“Oh, no, no. Just stretching my legs. Gotta finish that puzzle.” With that, Dad turns and trots back to his puzzle room.

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. It’s almost painful. In the space of seconds, he totally forgot who or what we were talking about.

Cal squeezes my hand. “It’ll be okay.”

“I hope so.”

My phone rings with Mitch’s name on the screen. I ignore it and put it on silent. After finally making a kind of peace with my “dinner, sex, and bacon” relationship with Jack, I don’t want to talk to Mitch and flip back to how I was a few days ago. I don’t want to regret a whole bunch of things again.

Friday night means official girls’ night—such an important night of the week that Leah refuses to fly to New York until tomorrow morning. Which means I’m not the only one getting pissed off at the persistent ringing of my phone, even if it is facedown and on silent.

“He’s like a little leech, isn’t he?” Ryann observes, staring at my phone with her head tilted to the side. She points at it with her mascara brush. “It’s like he finally broke away, but now that he’s not the baby daddy, he’s all alone and hungry, so he’s back, sucking the life out of everything beautiful.”

I frown at her. “Are you already drunk or something?”

“No. I just… Well, I’m going to go crazy if he doesn’t stop fucking calling your phone!” she finishes on a yell.

Leah shoves a shot at her. “Calm down, firecracker.”

“Hmph,” Ryann grumbles, but she downs a shot. “I need vodka and Red Bull to last longer than thirty minutes tonight.”

They’re close to wrapping up the filming of Chasing Tucker, and between auditions, callbacks, and general demand from sources dubbing her the Next Big Thing, Ryann is exhausted. And she looks it, which makes girls’ night all the more important.

“We can stay in if you want,” I offer. “I don’t really care about going out.”

“No, no,” Ry sighs. “If I stay in, I’m going to collapse in ten damn minutes.”

“Wow. Her analogy was right,” Leah butts in. “Seventeen missed—oh, eighteen. Brr, brr, brr,” she imitates a ringing phone. “Nineteen. Ready… Twenty is the magic number…”

“What are you—oh God!”

“Beeeeeeep. You have reached Macey Kelly’s answering machine. She does not care for your message at this time, so kindly hang up and fuck off.” Leah ends the call and drops my phone on the sofa. “There we go.”

“I don’t know if I should laugh or cry,” I say slowly, staring at my blond friend.

Ryann already knows. She’s laughing hysterically, and even Leah is giggling. As usual, their laughter wins me over, and it takes me mere seconds to join in with them. We end up on the same sofa in a pile of craziness, all laughing.

“Oh, my,” I breathe, wiping under my eyes. “This is why I love you girls.”

“Because I get your ex to fuck off in two point five seconds?” Leah raises an eyebrow. “By the way, don’t you have something better to do tonight? Like a running back?”