Page 6 of Now or Never

“I guess I never had to worry about you and Adam, then, eh?”

A thrill shot through Chelsea’s veins at the mention of the man who had asked her out at the baseball tournament. She could still feel his eyes on hers, the energy that radiated off him, the intensity of his cocky smile.

Then she remembered he’d run off after seeing Ben and told herself he was a dick, just like that other dick.

“Adam?” Jae asked, sitting up in her seat. “Who’s Adam?”

“Adam is my boyfriend’s best friend,” Natalie said. “He’s ridiculous, and way too good looking, and a total player. When I first met him, he was going out with his old high school English teacher. Ethan said he’s only had one girlfriend his whole life.” She turned contemplative for a beat. “Although . . .”

Chelsea swallowed another gulp of wine, trying not to make it obvious that her butt was moving closer to the edge of her seat.

“Although . . . what?” Jae asked, her butt also on edge.

Natalie took a breath, blew it out. “I don’t want to sound like a gossip, but I know he was interested in you, and I want you to know what he’s like.”

Interested.

The thought of Adam being interested in her made her want to take her panties off. “Okaayy . . .”

“He had a vasectomy.”

Chelsea nearly choked.

“Two years ago.”

“What?” Jae scream-asked. “How old is he?”

“Thirty-one.”

“Wow,” Jae said, leaning back. “He must really not want kids.”

Chelsea slumped back in her seat and mentally pulled her panties back up. No wonder he ran away in shock and horror when her sweet little boy came over and called her Mama. Atleast now she knew, and she could use that information to stop the fantasies about him that would roll through her mind every once in a while.

She shook off the thought. Those fantasies always made her feel like a terrible mother, because in them, she was childless when he asked her out, and she said yes, and they went on a date together, then back to his place where she pretty much let him do whatever he wanted to her.

He looked like a guy who knew what he wanted to do and how to do it.

“You okay?” Natalie asked.

She looked up and realized she had gone silent, lost in her thoughts for the last few minutes. “Yeah,” she said, standing, vowing to never think about Adam again and hoping she could actually make that happen. Now that she was living in Mapleton, running into him was an inevitability. She’d just keep her distance.

“Time for the white?” she asked, walking to the counter and reaching for the untouched bottle of wine just as her phone pinged with a new email.

She opened her mail app and recognized the sender immediately.

“Everything okay, Chels?” Jae asked.

Chelsea opened the email, scanned the text, and broke into a smile. “It’s a location scout. They want to come here on Tuesday to check out the property.” She flipped to her calendar and looked at her day. It was Ben’s first day of school. Other than that, she just had her normal, thankless, mindless freelance work to do all day, which was perfect. It gave her a couple days to cut the grass and pull the weeds before they came.

She sent off a reply saying “Absolutely!” and brought the bottle of white wine to the table.

“That’s perfect, Chels,” Jae said. “Hopefully, they’ll like it.”

“Man,” Natalie said, filling her glass. “In Spain, there was a hotel that was the highlight of our tour, where they filmed a Ryan Gosling movie. Wouldn’t it be cool if this was the place people wanted to stay at, where So-and-So filmedWhat’s It Called?”

Chelsea and Jae exchanged a knowing smile. They knew what it was really like to have an entire production crew take over a little town for months at a time. It all seemed very glamorous and exciting at first. Hopefully, she wouldn’t piss off the entire town she’d just moved to.

But even that was wishful thinking. She knew how the industry worked. There were so many things that factored into a decision like this. Space for trailers, whether the Director of Photography liked the lighting, catering, the logistics of housing the crew, and on and on.

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