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She’d gone so long without any dreams; she was ready to have too many for a while.
Logan’s beard tickled her neck as he angled his head forward. Against the small of her waist, his fingers ran in circles, tracing patterns with a feather-light touch that was causing all sorts of chaos to her insides.
His free hand reached over to page back through the images again. “Where’s the book cover with the hot chocolate?”
“Stanton thought it would be best to keep with a theme, since that one is a contemporary romance and the rest are classic literature.”
Logan made a surprised noise in the back of his throat.
“What?” Everly stepped out of his arms so she could see his expression.
“Stanton knows this stuff better than me. I just really loved that one. There’s so much atmosphere. I actually went out and bought it after seeing the cover in your apartment.”
Everly’s knees threatened to dump her on the floor. She dropped back onto the bed. “Are you serious?” She’d never thought her little pet projects could have that kind of impact.
Logan crossed to the closet and dug in one of the bags. When he faced her again, he was holding a copy of the sapphic holiday romance in his hand.
Everly swallowed. “I might need to add it back in the mix then.”
“Only if it makes sense.”
He followed the words with a dismissive shrug, but Everly caught the flash of softness in his expression.
As if he cared about her opinion every bit as much as she did his.
“What. The. Hell.”
Everly jabbed at the Pause button on the remote so hard she cracked a thumbnail.
“I didn’t say any of that.” On the screen, she was standing next to James, the two of them frozen in a laugh. “At least not in that context.”
In the episode, she’d just lamented how the show had made a big deal about her crush. It was something she’d ranted about in one of her car confessionals, not to James’s face. Yet here it was, spliced over a random shot of her and James in the conference room at Matten-Waverly. Then Sady had taken audio of James saying that they’d have to see where this goes and placed it in the clip as he turned his back to the camera, so no one could see his mouth wasn’t moving.
Not one element of that scene was real.
Logan’s warm hand settled against Everly’s knee. “Calm down. This isn’t—”
“Calmdown?” One of Everly’s least favorite phrases. It always had the exact opposite effect. Rather than taking a deep breath and relaxing, she itched to find another wreck-it room and smash something. “She’s making things up now. Forget misrepresenting me. This is fiction.”
She jumped to her feet and began pacing the tiny space between the beds. “Can she do that?”
Logan’s mouth was a tense line. “If she’s got the footage and audio, she can do whatever she wants with it.”
Everly raked her fingers through her hair. She’d been trying so hard to give Sady compelling footage, to steer her away from the need for a James plot. And yet here the showrunner was, concocting her ownnonsense instead. At this rate, how long before she began using body doubles to stage Everly in illicit moments? Sex sells, right?
Her steps quickened. Logan caught her hand, trying to still her. “I know it’s not exactly how things happened, but Sady’s just establishing some narrative. It’s nothing to worry about.”
Everly growled. It was the only accurate summary of her current state of mind. “Except it’s a narrative I told her I didn’t want.”
There’d been so much more focus on Logan in episodes three and four that she’d thought—she’d hoped—that if Sady was going to push a romance story on Everly’s part of the season, it would be with Logan. At least there’d be some truth to that.
But the arc was back to James. Back to everything Everly wanted to put behind her.
“What about that other thing I’d said?”You can like someone but not want to be with them. Sady had snuck that line in before James responded. It almost sounded like an apology, an attempt by Everly to explain away her feelings. “I never said that to James either. That was from Sunny’s. You said you stopped recording that day.” She yanked her hand out of Logan’s and backed away until her ass was pressed to the bureau. She needed some distance so she could think.
Logan was so loyal to Sady. They had so much history. And a month ago, there’d been nothing between him and Everly. It would have made total sense for him to pretend to turn off the camera to earn her trust. To get the good TV. That was his job, right?
“Whoa. Hey.” He held up his palms in surrender. “Of course I turned it off.” Everly wanted to believe him. He looked as confused as she was. Then his expression crumbled. “Shit.”
