The room is …
I don’t even know where to start. But the heart-shaped jacuzzi, shaggy bearskin rug, and rose petals feel like as good a place as any. Above the bed, a neon sign flickers, "Antlers Ever After," casting a pink glow over the room.
Patty looks at me.
I look at him.
“Is that … I mean, I know I’ve never even kissed someone, but does that … mean something?”
A laugh explodes from Patty’s throat, but he chokes on it, too. “No. No, no, no. That’s not innuendo. That is … I don’t know what that is. But it’s not that.”
I nod, looking around the rest of the room.
Patty crosses the shaggy rug toward the heart-shaped headboard, the thick fur muffling his boots.
“You’ve really never kissed someone?” he asks, casting me a glance over his shoulder. “And Nash tried to kiss you on stage?”
He angles his head at the neon sign, then a moment later, reaches down and yanks the plug. The sign goes dark.
“Yeah. It’s not a big deal. It would have been for show. Some stunt for the label.”
He stands and folds his arms, a stern look on his brow. “Did they suggest that?”
I fold my arms back at him. “A label exec encouraged the idea, and that’s clearly what Connor was going for.”
His whole body goes taut, his forearms so tense, I see veins pop out. “It ain’t clear at all. It would be exactly like Nash to pursue you, to kiss you on stage.”
Was that a splash of Tabasco in his molasses voice?
“What does that mean? And what’s it to you?”
Patty tilts his head slightly, studying me, his gaze unreadable. “It means that Nash knows how to pick ‘em. And it’s nothing to me if it’s nothing to you.”
I take a step forward. “Stop trying to read my mind and make up your own. Is it nothing to you?”
He looks down, shaking his head so his hair falls into his face. “He shouldn’t have tried to kiss you.”
“Yeah, but he did.”
“And he had no right.”
“Why?” I press, because it looks like he’s fixin’ to burst out of his own body. “He likes me.”
Patty exhales sharply, his nostrils flaring. “Do you like him?”
I take a step forward, and then another, closing the space between us until I’m standing right up in his face.
“Why. Do. You. Care?”
His eyes narrow, his jaw clenches, and his breathing grows short and sharp.
“Because—” he blurts, but then stops himself just as abruptly. His amber eyes flicker, a storm brewing behind them. The fact that he’s containing the storm at all is infuriating me.
“You know what? Maybe I’ll kiss him on stage next month. Walk right up to him, grab him around the collar, and kiss him?—”
“NO!”
Patty grabs me by my shoulders—not hard, but firm, like he can’t let me slip away—and his face screws up like he’s in agony. “Don’t.”
