“I knew you were with Patrick,” Ron argues.
“That’s not his job.”
“Maybe it should be,” Alicia says, looking at something on her laptop.
Manny takes it from her.
“What is it?” Lou asks, looking at me and then Manny and Alicia.
Manny flips the laptop around to show a picture someone posted, tagging Lou on social media.
The picture is from five minutes ago.
It’s Lou mid-fall from the stairs and me catching her.
You can barely see my face—thank goodness—but because of the way I caught her, my mouth is right next to her ear, and the small smile of relief on her lips coupled with my hand on her back looks intimate.
Lou pinches the skin between her thumb and forefinger, exhaling hard. Her eyes flick to mine, but I don’t know what she’s looking for. Reassurance? A joke? A fight?
I feel none of those things. Just a slow burn, steady and unwelcome, curling beneath the surface.
“And the rumor mill has already started,” Alicia says.
Manny flips the laptop back toward himself, staring at the image while he thinks.
“Okay,” he says, looking between Lou and me. “The way I see it, we got two choices: fake boyfriend or bodyguard. What’s it gonna be?”
CHAPTER TEN
LOU
“Bodyguard,” Patty and I say in unison.
I’m not sure whether I should be relieved or offended at how quickly Patty removed the “fake boyfriend” option from the table.
Well, I definitelyshouldbe relieved. Not sure why it’s a pebble in my boot that he was a beat faster than me saying it, though.
“All right,” Manny says. He looks at Ron. “We’ll have you ride with the crew from now on. Patrick’ll take your spot as primary security on the bus.”
“What?” Patty and I blurt in unison—again.
Manny holds out his hands in a “what’s done is done” gesture. “In four hours, this picture will be trending on every platform.” He points to the picture, to how close Patty’s mouth is to my ear. “If this guy isn’t your boyfriend, he’s your personal bodyguard. Anything else is going to add a whole lotof speculation and a whole lot more questions. Is that what you want?”
I look at Patty and hold back a sigh. His dark brow is deeply furrowed, and with the way his shaggy hair is falling in his face, he looks part menace, part mess.
All hot.
Wait, no. Not hot. Nothing about Patty is hot. No one anywhere is hot. I don’t care about attractive men or mysterious men or frustrating men who never give me a full answer.
I care about crushing this tour and writing a follow-up album that’s even better than my debut.
That’s. It.
I shrug and lean back into the soft tan leather couch. “Fine by me,” I say. “Patty, you comfortable taking Ron’s spot?”
“I already got a job,” Patty says. “I can’t be your security guard when I’m running sound for every show.”
“In low-risk situations like travel, sure you can,” Manny says. “We’ll make sure we have more people around in higher-risk periods, but between you and the ex-military driver, I’m not worried.”
