Sold out. Additional tickets. Multiple viewings.
Holy shit.
I open the event website. All one hundred tickets have been sold, and over two thousand people have added themselves to the waitlist. My head swims. All of this from one video? It’s not making any sense.
The girl from the store. She knew his name. She called him my boyfriend.
The video plays in a loop on my phone. Pushing back the mild discomfort of knowing she recorded us without our knowledge and posted it online, I can admit the video comes off as romantic.
If you closed one eye and squinted the other.
“Sofía, are you still there?” Mateo asks.
“Uh, yeah.”
The comment section is a nightmare of questions, comments, and a few thinly veiled insults aimed at me. The most popular ones all have the same theme: They want to know who I am and what I mean to Jett. There are hundreds asking if we’re dating and another hundred that complain that I’ve taken him off the market.
I snort, but then an idea hits me. An insane one, at that, but if we’re looking at it from a purely public relations and marketing standpoint, it might work in our favor.
“Have you read the comments? They’re hilarious,” Charlie says. “One woman said she would fight you in hand-to-hand combat for Jett.” She cackles, sucking in a breath. “Another asked if you had room for a third in your relationship.”
Mateo lets out a low laugh, but the wheels are turning in my mind, and the path leads to one conclusion: We need to use this to our advantage.
“We’renotdating,” I say, surprising myself with how defensive the words come out. The pause on the other end of the line is loud. “That doesn’t matter, anyway, not the point,” I continue, eager to fill the silence with chatter. “Thanks for telling me. See you guys in Cairns. Talk to you later, bye!”
I hang up on them without another word. A message pops up at the top of my screen.
Charlie: Oh, we are definitely talking about whatever that was when I make it to Australia.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I don’t believe it, not for a second.
That message goes unanswered while I race to Jett’s room. I belatedly realize I’m in my pajamas as I bang on the door.
It flies open, and my jaw slackens.
Jett also wears pajamas, and the soft, stretchy material leaves little to the imagination.Fuck.His shirt sticks to his torso, and when he lifts his arm, resting a palm on the doorframe, the fabric rises, offering a peek of the happy trail that disappears into the sleep pants.
As far as clothing goes, they donothingto hide the outline of what lies beneath the waistband.
I’ve lost function of my tongue, and now I’m standing in the hallway in my silk set that can’t disguise the way my nipples harden from the cold air, holding my laptop and ogling my boss like an idiot.
The more time I spend with him, the more attractive he becomes. I need him to be ugly for my sanity.
“Sofía, is everything okay?”
I barrel into his room before I can think about the consequences of my actions. The lights are dimmed, and his bedsheets are rumpled and unmade. The consequences bulldoze into me, and nerves grip my chest and tighten.
Retreat!
Any attempt at a clean getaway and gaslighting him into thinking this was all a dream turns to ash when I slam into him,his hands bracketing my hips to steady me. I let out a small squeak, and he rips himself away, taking three steps back like I’ve burned him.
“Viral,” I scream, waving my laptop around like he’ll magically understand. His brow furrows, so I add, unhelpfully, “Sold out!”
Jett perches at the end of the mattress, his gaze roaming over my skin, causing goose bumps to break out along my flesh. I suppress a shiver, clutching the laptop to my chest to hide the effect of his focus on me.
After an eternity, he says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but you seem pumped about it, and for that alone, I’m in.”
