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Brooke laughs out loud—it’s her cackle that makes her mouth go wide and her hand cover her lips—and even with my being on the phone, it catches my attention from across the room. The interviewer is also in stitches, and I can only imagine the kind of thing my girl might have said to set this off. I wish kind of desperately that I’d heard it.
These days, I’ve grown greedy to hear just about everything she has to say, both aloud and on paper.
“Mr. Chase? Are you there, Mr. Chase?”
I pull my attention away from the stunning woman in blue momentarily and focus back on the phone call. “Just get me in by the time I get back, Angelo. Please,” I tell him as quietly as I can. “I cannot express over a phone call how dire my roommate situation is while I wait for this place to be done.”
“Oh, oh, Mr. Chase, I understand. I remember you say something about him. Remind me of one of those ghosts like Shadow Brother. Very freaky.”
I can’t help but laugh at Angelo’s unknowingly relevant reference. “Yep. It’s just like that.”
“Of course, of course. I get this done for you, Mr. Chase. I promise. Be spick-and-span and beautiful when you get here. I make sure, okay? Not to worry, okay?”
By the time I hang up the phone, Brooke has moved on to the next interviewer, and she’s making this one laugh all over again. Her blue velveteen dress looks like an icy snow in low daylight, and I have a hard time remembering that she doesn’t do these public appearances every day. I know one of her main worries was about being natural in this kind of environment, but I think someone needs to break the news to her that she was born for this.
She can’t see it, but I could imagine her being on her own show one day—she’s that magnetic.
I glance at my watch to see what time it is in New York, which is three hours ahead of us, and then jump to text my sister again before she gets busy in the restaurant. It’s three o’clock there, and things start picking up around four.
Me: Angelo has assured me I’m going to be able to get in when I get back. Please, pretty please, if you can, arrange to have my stuff delivered to the apartment from the storage unit the day before I get back?
Mo: Brooke’s too?
I roll my eyes.
Me: Mo.
Mo: Love you, brother. I find I especially like you when you owe me so much.
Me: Oh yeah. It’s one of my favorite things too.
Glancing up from my phone just in time to see Brooke’s current interviewer get up to leave, I tuck my cell into my pocket and wave down her attention.
She holds up a finger and smiles at the next journalist before stepping around all the wires and lights and walking over to me quickly.
I hold out her phone to explain. “Sorry to interrupt, but you got a Facebook message, and I thought you might want to see it.”
She snatches it eagerly and scans the screen, her smile growing with every devoured word. “Oh my God,” she whisper-yells, reaching out to grab my hand and squeezing it before letting it go. I miss the contact instantly.
“Remember the thing I was looking for in the Facebook group that you couldn’t see on my screen in the car that day?”
I nod. Amazingly, I do, in fact, remember. But I tend to remember just about everything about Brooke.
“Well, I got a lead from someone and sent a message, and I just got a message back!” she explains excitedly. “It’s really happening! I found the thing I was looking for,” she adds cryptically, widening her eyes and tilting her head toward Benji. “You know, the thing.”
I’m still not entirely sure I understand what’s going on, but I’m happy for her, nonetheless.
And my current full-toothed smile at her joy undoubtedly shows that.
She searches my face, and her eyes shift from excited to something else that reminds me of the way she looked when we were dancing in that Vegas nightclub…right before I kissed her.
Without thought or planning, our bodies gravitate toward each other. She digs her teeth into her bottom lip, and it’s this sexy little move that does nothing for the tight control I’m trying to maintain.
Fuck, I’m looking forward to being alone with her again tonight.
“I really can’t wait for these interviews to be done,” she whispers to me, and I lift my hand to discreetly place it at her waist to give it a squeeze.
“Me too.”
Her cheeks turn rosy, and she starts to open her mouth to say something I’m unquestionably riveted to hear, but a disruption in the form of someone else stops her.
“Sorry to interrupt,” a voice says from right beside us, startling both Brooke and me out of an intense stare. I clear my throat, and Brooke tucks a piece of loose hair behind her ear while she turns her head to a woman by the name of Rhonda—who just happens to be the Netflix executive in charge of this whole deal.
