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Her cheeks are flushed, and her red curls are bouncing as the ride amps up another degree, moving faster and faster. Her posture doesn’t change, her hips rocking in time with the motorized movements, but a grin appears on her face as the crowd around the ride begins to cheer for her.
And I’m imagining her moving the same way…above me.
My jeans tighten uncomfortably as thoughts I shouldn’t be having run wild in my head.
She’s here for her job. Part of an attempt that probably—hopefully—ended when I turned down Empire’s latest offer earlier.
They’re a big, powerful label. No matter how much money I’ve made them, they’ll move on at some point. They have plenty of other artists to focus attention on.
And Piper will get her promotion some other way. She deserves it, and if Empire doesn’t see that, then she should work somewhere else. She’ll go back to New York—to her big, law-abiding family and her roommates and herlife—and I’ll remain here, trying to figure out what mine is going to look like, going forward.
It stings for some reason. Like missing something I didn’t know I had.
It feels like a loss, watching Piper ride the mechanical bull like she’s done it a dozen times before.
This would be a hell of a lot easier if she were standing off to the side with her arms crossed, whining about how hot and dusty it was here. If she hadn’t agreed to come at all.
The bull stops moving. Piper slides off it, flashing a triumphant smile around once her feet hit the inflated plastic.
She tucks her hair over one shoulder as she walks over, giggling as the inflated ground shifts with her movements. Piper reaches Morgan and Julia first, who both jump around and congratulate her.
Then, she’s in front of me, one brow arched in challenge.
“You didn’t think I could do it,” she says, reading me right—I’m not sure when she gained that ability.
“I didn’t think youwoulddo it,” I correct.
Piper rolls her eyes, but her broad smile doesn’t dim at all. She looks happy and proud, and it twists something inside of me.
“Better than you could do,” she teases.
I grin. “Wanna bet?”
Her eyes scan my face, like she’s trying to decide if I’m serious. “Is this one of your stupid decisions?”
I grin before polishing off my water and tossing it into the nearby recycling bin. “We’ll see.”
I take off my hat and plop it on top of her curls, smirking at her shocked expression.
“I thought I wasn’t allowed to borrow your hat,” she says.
“Never said that. Besides, it looks better on you.”
Fuck. I’m flirting with her.
Piper’s blue eyes widen as she registers the same.
She looks good in anything. But wearing the beat-up hat I’ve had since high school?
She looks likemine.
I walk away before I can say anything else I shouldn’t, heading for the ring right as a guy who looks to be in his mid-thirties gets thrown off. His buddies jeer and boo as he gets to his feet, grimacing.
Thisisstupid.
I rode Ferdinand a lot when I was younger. And there was a bar with a loose carding policy and a mechanical bull a couple of towns over that I used to go to with the guys back in high school.
But that was a long time ago.
