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The bottle erases all that shit.
Fuck. This is not the time to get mawkish. Cassie is right. I also need this opportunity. And the cash. This contract has the potential to pay my rent for the next five to ten years.
Hell, I probably need the babysitter too.
I just don't know how the fuck I'm going to manage any of it. The fake love or the real songwriting.
At least that's a problem for tomorrow. I push it aside as Cassie leads me through another set of fake boyfriend/ girlfriend photos.
A neck down shot on the couch (obviously for her spank bank). A mysterious silhouette in the backyard. And then the image that really captures Cassie Steele. A picture of her notebook and pen next to my guitar.
Because she is in it for the music.
Because that's where she wants the guy to feel jealous first. As an artist, not a boyfriend.
Is that how he felt? Did he stray because she stopped seeing him as a man, a lover, a friend?
It's no excuse. I do hate the motherfucker. He's even smugger than Cassie. And, sure, yeah, he's a good-looking guy, but he's a bore.
He can't dig deeper the way she can. He's afraid of it.
Not that I can talk at the moment. I'm sitting here on the couch, watching Cassie stare at her phone, trying desperately to think of the baggage in her life instead of the baggage in mine.
I guess that makes our fake relationship more plausible. I'm her type. Another smug musician who refuses to face the music.
Ironic.
The kind of clever line she'd write.
No. It's not witty enough for her. But at least I realize that. Her douchebag ex doesn't even appreciate her intellect or her sense of humor.
Cassie gets a text from Daphne, says goodbye, fixes coffee in the kitchen.
When my sister arrives, she and Cassie revert to their high school selves. They cozy up on the couch, watch The Matrix for the ten millionth time, and they talk about whatever the hell girls talk about on their own.
Makeup. Fashion. Guys. Sex.
Not that either of them has much to say on any subject. They're both single, and they're both married to the styles they adopted in high school. My sister wears the same pair of jeans and sneakers all year. When it's really hot, she trades the long pants for shorts and ditches the sweater, but she sticks to the same neutral palette.
Cassie still dresses like the rock 'n' roll babe she is. Converse or combat boots. Dark jeans. Band t-shirts and tight tank tops. Leather jacket. Black dresses.
Okay, maybe I have one too many mental images of Cassie in that satin dress. Maybe I wonder if she wears silk under her clothes too. If she matches her bra and panties—
I guess, as her fake boyfriend, I should have some idea what she wears under her clothes. At the very least, I need a vision in my head. As an actor.
Check.
Cassie, in only a scrap of black lace and combat boots, eyes lined with the same dark grey, lips wine-red, attention on me.
Fuck, I'm already hard. I close my eyes and attempt to conjure another image, but all my parts refuse. Cassie hates me, and she's off-limits, and I'm playing with danger, kissing a woman I absolutely cannot touch.
Every single element of that is hotter than the last. Or maybe her hate is the hottest. My self-destructive brain isn't sure what comes out on top. As long as one of us does.
I want her any way I can have her. Every way I can have her.
Cassie, in only her combat boots, riding me on the cream leather couch.
Fuck me. I need to go upstairs and relieve this tension now. How is that even possible? I fucked myself three times yesterday. There's nothing else to do in this big, empty house.
It's only been, what, twelve hours, and I'm already raring to go. How the fuck am I supposed to kiss her and not touch her?
I do the indecent thing. I go to my room, close the shades, and I make myself comfortable. Then I hear my sister and Cassie laugh downstairs, and I can't do it.
No voluntary thoughts of Cassie naked. Not while I have my hand around my dick, at the very least. And absolutely, positively, no thoughts of Cassie's hands around my dick. Not to mention her lips or—
Fuck me twice. I'm hard enough to cut granite.
I open my laptop for a visual distraction. One that will keep my thoughts elsewhere, even if that means indulging in some really fake shit.
My hands take over for me.
For once, they do something smart. I type the artist's name into the search bar and pull up his last album.
Instead of fucking myself, literally or figuratively, I research the project. I listen to the artist's last album. I sketch a few notes on his musical style.
