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Her eyes narrow. “You better be. Just because you rejected the first woman I picked for you doesn’t mean it’s over by the way. We’re finding you someone.”
“I don’t really think I need a matchmaker. I can find my own dates.”
“You really can’t. I’ve seen the women in your DMs and the ones you’ve been photographed out with. If you want to do that in private, fine. Be discreet. But if you’re going to have a public relationship, and I recommend it, it needs to be with someone who will match you. Someone serious and driven. Someone who has clout in this city. Even better if she doesn’t see it coming and is shocked when she falls for you because she wasn’t the kind to date a football player. Infinitely better if she’s the kind they could see you walking down the aisle with. Everything about your image has to be carefully curated right now.”
“All of that sounds sickening.”
“Thank you. I’m glad to hear what I do for a living sickens you.” She steps back and gives me a deadpan look.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I just mean… I want to be who I am.”
“I’m trying to show people who you are. You’re smart, driven, clever, and funny. You’re the kind of guy who changes someone’s tire for them when they’re broken down on the side of the road, and who buys a woman twelve dozen flowers and ice cream to help her get over the guy who broke her heart. You care about people. You want to be part of the community here. It’s not just a job for you. Your family’s here now, and you want this place to be a real home. You want to make people proud. Show them you’re invested. Right?” She rattles the list off as she puts me in position in the chair and pulls her phone out. She’s clueless that everything she’s saying makes me feel seen. That she knows my joke about Xander was really as much an apology for what I did as anything. Because this girl knows me. Ten years have gone by, and she still knows every detail of my soul. When she finally looks up, I have to close my mouth and remind myself to blink.
“Right,” I agree. I don’t have more words right now.
“Okay. Let me show them that.” She crouches down andangles the phone. “But right now, I want them to see the way your biceps look in this shirt, so can you kind of casually flex?”
A laugh tumbles out of me before I can stop it, and she gives me a perplexed look.
“Nothing. Sorry. I’ll try tocasuallyflex.”
“Good. Because we’ve got about a hundred of these to take.”
15
Madison
We manageto get through most of the casual photos I want to take, but nothing’s quite working for the final one. A local coffee shop who wants to marry the bad-boy-athlete look with something a little more philosophical. As I root through his closet, looking for a sweater or a button-down for him to wear, I pick up a pile of shirts from the top shelf. There’s a pile of books nestled behind them, and the movement knocks them loose, and one tumbles to the ground.
It’s a well-worn copy of something, whatever it is. The cover’s half torn off, and I pick it up gingerly to not make it worse. I never took Quentin as much of a reader. Not that he didn’t read. He was smart as hell, just not the kind of guy to have a library to himself or keep books stashed away in his closet.
I look up at where the book fell from and see three morebooks. Which is when I see the spines and the name of the author. My absolute favorite. My heart flutters in my chest, and I turn the book over in my hand to get a better look at the spine.Sense & Sensibilityis in bold lettering, and I bite my lower lip. The other books are Austen too.Pride and Prejudice,Emma, andPersuasionare all neatly stacked. I run my fingers over the spines.
“They made me feel close to you.” His voice startles me, and I take a step back, holding the book that fell behind my back like I’ve been caught red-handed. His brow raises in response.
“Close to me?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
“That summer. You told me they were your favorites. That you reread them all every few months. I wanted to know what they were about. I’d only read a summary to pass a test once. So I got copies for myself. I started rereading them every year, figuring at some point, on a long enough timeline, we might be reading the same book at the same time. Maybe even the same page. It made it feel like you weren’t so far away after all. Especially as time went on.”
I stare at him wide-eyed. My heart is in my throat; it’s keeping me from being able to speak. Not that my brain is giving me many words in the moment.
“I probably shouldn’t have told you that… But you’re smart. I know you wouldn’t believe me if I told you they had nothing to do with you. Given how much you like them.” He shrugs and takes the book in my hand and puts it back on the shelf.
“I can’t believe you remember.”
“I remember everything,” he says softly, grabbing the clothes I laid out on the bed. “We should get the rest of this done, so you can get home.”
When I stand again,I have to roll my shoulders and tilt my neck back and forth. Everything has already started to get a little sore from crawling and standing in every position imaginable to help him get these photos and videos done for his socials.
“Stiff?” he asks from behind me as he turns to the room.
“A little. I think we got a lot of good content though.” I flip through the series of photos on the phone.
“Here…” I can feel him step closer to me, closing the distance between us down to inches, and he sets his drink down. His hands are on my shoulders a moment later, and he’s gently massaging the muscles.
“Oh. That feels amazing.” I sigh, leaning into him before I even realize what I’m doing.
“I got you, Madness. Can’t have you getting injured working with me.”
