She turns this time, her mouth all screwed up. “Is Clare gonna be there?”

“Uh, well, yeah. She’s really not allowed to go anywhere alone these days. She’s gotta be with one of us at all times.”

“You look guilty, are you lying to me?”

“Gidget, I am nothing if not honest with you, babe. Seriously. Elise wants you to come, I swear.” That’s not a lie. Elise does want Rook to come. She has fully accepted the fact that I plan on marrying this girl as soon as she’s ready to commit.

It takes me another hour to get Rook up and ready and by that time Clare, Elise, and Antoine are already heading out to the restaurant where we’re gonna have lunch. “You look great, let’s go.” I jingle my truck keys at her from the front hallway, but she ignores me and just sits calmly on the couch and laces up some black work boots. Combined with her faded and ripped jeans, white t-shirt, and Shrike Bikes leather jacket, they make her look like a hot punk chick.

If we don’t get out of this f**king apartment soon I might have to jump her bones.

She catches my daydream and says, “I’m sore as shit, so stop with the I wanna f**k you looks.”

She walks over to me as she straightens out her jacket and I take her hand and lead her out the door and down the hallway. There’s some commotion downstairs in the studio and when we turn the corner at the stairs, Roger is messing with a large flat package. “What’s that?” I call down to him as we descend.

“That rush job for the GIDGET campaign.”

It takes me a second to figure out what he’s talking about and by that time it’s too late. He’s already ripped the brown paper off the frame and his head is tilting to the side a little as he critiques the image.

Busted.

“What the hell is that?” Rook asks in a huff.

She can clearly see what it is, a f**king life-sized picture of me sticking my tongue down Clare’s throat, but I usher her past in a hurry. “It’s an old photo the GIDGET people wanted to use for promo. We had it blown up so we can use it for the shoots this week.”

Even though she’s walking away from it, her eyes never leave the image. I whisk her into the stairwell and pull her out of range. “Hmmm…” is all she says.

I change the subject. “Hungry?”

“Yeah, actually I’m starving.”

She chats about lunch after that. Maybe the image is still on her mind and maybe it’s not, but she’s dropped it for now and that’s about as much as I can ask for.

The ride down to Cherry Creek Mall is uneventful beyond getting stuck in construction traffic, and by the time we make the sports bar at the mall, I’m starving as well. Antoine already got us a table and Elise is chowing down on fried cheese. Rook looks happy though, so maybe she’s gonna let the picture drop.

It’s not my fault, really. The image had to be used. I never told Rook this, but Clare was always my first pick for this contract. And we did a lot of promo stuff together to show them that I had a vision and could handle something this big on my own. That was almost a year ago now, and honestly, it never occurred to me that they’d want me to model for them. I’m the marketing manager for the campaign, I never signed anything saying I’d model. And they are certainly not paying me enough to f**k things up with Rook over some pictures. But this one was already a done deal. I had very little room since it was submitted with the project bid.

Luckily Antoine got us a table near the flat screen on the wall that’s blaring the game, so he and I concentrate on that while the girls chat. I look over at Rook a few times to see how she’s doing with Clare, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue.

Maybe I’ll get away with this f**k-up after all?

Chaper Twenty-Four - ROOK

“Adorable!” I squeal as Elise holds up a tiny blue onesie with light green sea turtles swimming across the front. It is cute but honestly, how many freaking onesies can you look at in one day and still get excited? She throws it into the waiting hands of the Gymboree sales person and continues sorting through racks of clothes. Clare is much better at this shopping stuff than I am. I’m not against shopping, I just prefer to do it online. Or have a set plan in mind when I go in. For me, shopping is more like a military exercise—get in, complete the mission, get out. Bam. Now you have the whole rest of your day to kiss your boyfriend, or eat, or watch movies.

“Hey, since we’re out, you guys wanna catch that new SF flick over at the Metroplex?”

Clare sneers at me.

I hate that bitch, I swear. I’m not really a hater, I mean I can typically find the good in just about anyone. And I’m definitely not a fighter. I prefer the whole cheek-turning thing over fists any day. But I tell you what, I’d like to slap the shit out of Clare. She is the biggest f**king kiss-ass on the planet. And she blatantly flirted with Ronin all through lunch and then had the nerve to insult my choice in food.

She called me a boring date because I always get the hamburger. So I like burgers? Just because she likes weird stuff like mushroom pecan fajitas doesn’t mean she’s not boring. Seriously, she can’t even go anywhere alone because the heroin might jump her ass and turn her back into a junkie…

OK, I went a little overboard on that one. But shit.

I huff out a long breath and busy myself shaking a baby rattle. “Hey, Elise? I’m gonna just pop over to the…” I squint out at the store across the way from Gymboree and read the sign. “Brookstone.” Yeah, that’s a much better store. They have cool shit in there. “I need some overpriced gadgets.”