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“It’s true,” she chimes in. “They’ve been circling each other for ages.”
I guess in a way it is true, but jeez, did she have to make it sound so suggestive? Bailey just shrugs when I glare at her.
This time instead of trying to pull away Cooper backs up closer to me, pulling my arm around his front. I try to keep a polite distance between us, but he parks his ass right on top of my dick. Pulling back now would give us away. I grit my teeth and brace myself for the humiliation waiting for me when Alan finally leaves.
“Glad I got a chance to meet you,” says Alan, extending his hand to Cooper to shake. “Should I tell Mom—?”
“Tell her I’ll call her in a few days,” I say. Alan puts his hands up in surrender.
“Don’t forget,” he warns. “You know how important this party is to them.”
“I won’t.”
Alan nods at Bailey and heads back down the stairs.
The instant my brother is out of sight I pull my hand away from Cooper’s waist.
“Well, now,” drawls Cooper. “That was illuminating.” He turns around slowly, all sorts of questions in his eyes.
“Thanks for covering for us, Cooper,” says Bailey in a quiet voice.
“Don’t thank me, Ross,” he says. There’s an edge in his tone. “You’d better get down to the floor.”
Pulling aside the heavy stage curtain next to us, I check the countdown clock running on the Jumbotron overhead. We’ve got about twenty seconds to get up on stage. Bailey takes off down the stairs at a jog, disappearing from sight.
Cooper doesn’t move.
12
Cooper
The headset looped around Drew’s neck crackles with static a moment before I hear Kenna Burch’s voice coming through the speakers.
“Somebody…in the control room…” she says. “On standby…”
Drew pulls the microphone to his mouth and hits a button on the receiver.
“Do you need me?” he asks. After a second he shakes his head and the speaker goes silent once more. “Five to seven minutes, she said. Some kind of technical delay in the sound booth.”
Unexpected delays are never good in this business, but I’m glad for the chance to get my head back on straight. So to speak. Not that I’d ever admit it out loud.
“Alan seems nice,” I say. Drew looks over at me and snorts disbelievingly. “What?”
“Liar,” he says. He’s standing too goddamn close but there’s not a lot of room to move around back here without bumping into the stage curtains, or worse, other people. Or worse still, bumping into each other. And I’ve got one particularly hard reason not to be bumping into anybody just now, least of all Drew.
It’s his own goddamn fault. Though at the moment I can’t exactly remember why.
“So your brother’s not nice?” I ask. Maybe if he’s too busy talking he won’t notice.
“Alan is…” Drew scrubs a hand over his face. “He’s Alan. An older brother, through and through. He’s a little uptight, but he’s not a bad guy.”
It’s my turn to snort.
“Now what?” Drew asks.
“Guess it runs in the family,” I say. “Being uptight.” I watch, fascinated, as Drew’s face goes tense and hot.
“Not so uptight that I’ll stop you from telling my family that you’re my boyfriend,” Drew mutters, glancing around. I can hear people shuffling around a few feet away, but I can’t see anyone. This corner of the backstage waiting space is lit only by the faint blue-green light coming from a storage closet behind Drew. Most of his face is shadowed and I can’t discern his expression but he sure sounds annoyed.
