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“You’re sharing a room?!” she squeaked. “Shut up, please tell me there’s only one bed?”
Scowling, I turned to glare at the singular mattress I was adamantly avoiding, and then at the murder sofa in the corner. “How did you know that?”
A trill of laughter carried through the line. “Classic,” she muttered, tone way too satisfied for my liking.
“I’m beginning to think this was a mistake.”
“No!” she yipped, and it sounded like the speaker brushed against skin. “This is textbook fate, Allen. People write this shit all the time, I sell it every day. Do not—I repeat, do not—fuck this up.”
Wincing, I begrudgingly admitted, “I might’ve already. But this isn’t a thing. This isn’t?—”
“It is totally a ‘thing’ that you don’t want to screw up. Also, what on earth did you do? No!” The abrupt barked demand startled me so severely, I yanked the phone away from my ear, glaring back at the screen before tentatively returning it.
“What?”
But she was still reprimanding quite vocally, and it took me a second to make sense of what the hell she was saying. “We do not chew on cords. That is a no, Quinny. Sorry,” she muttered, now back towards the phone as a happy little coo sounded near enough I knew she must’ve picked up the baby. “How did you screw it up?”
“Look, I just wanted to get through this week with some pride intact. But…the idea of competing against her was bugging me, and there’s this guy that’s just all over her, and it was grinding my gears, and I said some stupid shit.”
“Broderick Allen, jealous. Never thought I’d see the day.”
“I am not jealous,” I stated matter-of-factly. “You should see these guys, Brex. It’s ridiculous. We’ve been here twenty-four hours and they’re surrounding her like scavengers.”
“Sure. Such a very disinterested, not jealous observation. Go on.”
“I am not jealous.”
“Mm—hmm. So. What did your not jealous mouth say?”
“That she should drop out of the competition.” The line went entirely silent save for the quiet baby babbles in the background. “And that if she asked, the guys would back her foundation.
Brex’s dramatic groan did absolutely nothing to ease the tightening in my belly. Nor did the irritated exhale that followed.
“What?” I demanded.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
“Dude. What the fuck?”
“It’s bad. Isn’t it?” Honestly, it wasn’t really a question. I was fucked.
“The only way this could be worse is if you told her she’d somehow ridden someone’s coat tails to success.”
Grimacing, I rubbed my thumb and forefinger against the bridge of my nose.
“Your silence doesn’t bode well,” she noted flatly.
“I…may have told her that networking with the men here was looking to win based on who wanted to lure her to bed.”
“Jesus Christ. I’m a writer, not a miracle worker. What is wrong with you boys? I swear to God, Rhyett got all the sense of the three of you.”
“Don’t I know it,” I mumbled. After a long moment, I said, “So? What the hell do I do?”
“You mean besides grovel?”
“Yes,” I sighed.
