Page 41 of Merry Mayhem
Her eyes are wide. “How? How are they going to do that? We have arock wall…” She trails off. “Crap. I can’t tell you that. You’re a competitor. I can’t tell you the challenges ahead of time.” She drops my arm and looks around. “Where are Andi and Everly?”
“I need to talk to Andi too,” I say quickly. “And you.” I look up at Josh. “You’re heading to Autre to get clothes and things, right?”
“If it’s still okay that I come back here late?”
“Of course. It’s fine.” I take my phone out of my pocket. “Give me your number. We should have each other’s anyway.”
We exchanged numbers, and I text him my address and directions.
“I’ll see you later then,” he says. He hesitates as if he wants to say more, but then just says. “Okay. We’ll talk later.”
I nod. “Yep. Later. Drive carefully.”
He leaves the stage, and I turn to watch him go. Once he’s heading through the crowd toward Bruce and Harley’s, I face Nora. “He’s really hot, right?”
Her eyebrows climb. “Uh…yes.”
“I mean, like anyone would think so. It’s just a fact.”
She nods. “Yes.”
I puff out a breath. “Good.”
“What is going on?”
“I needed to be sure that I’m attracted to him just because he’s attractive, not because of…you know, anything more complicated.”
She looks very interested now. “More complicated, like what?”
“He’sViolet’s boyfriend. So I can’t beattractedto him. But I can find him attractive. That’s different. You think he’s attractive, too. So it’s…fine.”
“I do find him attractive. But thatisdifferent from being attracted to him.”
I nod. She’s confirming what I just said.
“So are you?” she asks.
“What?”
“Attracted to him?”
“I find him hot.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s sweet, and charming, and fun, and heroic, and…” I frown. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“BecauseIfind him attractive because of his blue eyes, his big biceps, and his nice ass.”
My frown deepens. “I don’t understand.” Except, I think I do.
“Okay.” She nods. For a few seconds. Then she says, “It will be okay. What’s going to happen?”
“I could spend three days with him and like him even more in the end, and then have to watch him and my sister together when she comes home?” I groan. “OhGod, I’m horrible. She’ll be coming homefrom thehospital. How am I even thinking this way?”
“Oh, come on, that’s dramatic. You just met him, right? It can’t bethatmuch of an attraction,” Nora says.
“I met him last June. He’s the paramedic who was there with Harley.”
