jam with me, not even for fun. So I decided to work on things on my own. I started my own YouTube channel. I posted regular content. I was trying to build a fan base, catch someone’s attention, and get back to where we were.” His voice, though quiet, betrays his frustration. But the bitterness ratchets up a few decibels when he says, “And then Jonathan gets a viral video. He didn’t even try. He didn’t ask to be recorded. He was actually upset about it at first. And now he’s living the dream, and I got the privilege of being his gopher.”
Instinctively, I reach out and lay a comforting hand on his knee. And once again, I’m uncomfortably aware of his proximity. His heat. His size. Touching him calls to mind the way he touches me, the way he holds me and kisses me, even if it’s only for show.
I give his knee a little pat, hoping it doesn’t seem as patronizing to him as it feels to me, but I’m stuck and don’t know what else to do. Touching him is playing with fire, and I learned that lesson the hard way. I’ve been burned so bad I’m barely recognizable.
Clearing my throat, I put my hand back in my own lap. “Well. We’re here to fix that, aren’t we?”
Chapter Nine
Colt
Alexis yanks her hand back like I burned her. I sit frozen, still as a statue, my whole body lit up from such a simple touch.
Maybe I did burn her. Maybe I’m as hot to the touch as I feel inside.
“Alexis,” I breathe.
But she’s not having it. She looks all around the room. “So.” It’s a perfunctory word, a hard change of subject.
I force back the temptation to say La like she did just a minute ago. We’re beyond the ice-breaking powers of solfege syllables.
She straightens her shoulders and meets my eyes again, all the vulnerability and heat I saw there shuttered, hidden, gone. “You said you have a YouTube channel. Can I see it? I’ve seen some videos of your performances as a kid, but if you’re serious, it’d be good to see what you’ve got going on now.”
“Uh, yeah. Sure. Hang on.” That wasn’t where I was hoping to go with this. She has a point, but surely she felt the sparks, the electricity pulsing through our connection when she touched me. Or is she that good of an actor that she can fake the kind of hunger I felt in her kiss? This is our first opportunity to be alone together, and we’ve barely touched since we got here. I don’t know if she would welcome it. And the way she pulled away and changed the subject just now isn’t encouraging.
And maybe it’s not smart, but I want to explore the chemistry I feel between us. We’re together. We’re getting engaged. Even if this started out as a business agreement, what if it could be more?
But with her closed-off expression and stiff posture, now is clearly not the time to broach that subject. So I pull out my phone, navigate to my channel, and hand it over to her. Seconds later, the sound of my voice comes through the tinny phone speakers. It’s one of the tracks Brendan helped me with, and even though I’m most proud of those songs, sitting here while Alexis listens to it is about as pleasant as lying down on a fire ant mound.
Her expression never changes as she listens to the song. When it’s over, she finds another and listens to the opening before moving on to another one. She doesn’t bother to finish that one either. She stares at the phone for several seconds—seconds that drag by without her saying a word, without her even looking at me. Like she’s frozen. Paralyzed. I’ve stunned her into paralysis with my YouTube channel, and from her posture, I’m pretty sure that’s a bad thing.
Finally she sucks in a deep breath, the movement of her chest the first sign of life. She pushes the button on the side, and the screen goes black. She stares at it for a few more beats before passing it back to me. “Thanks for showing that to me,” she says at last, her voice carefully neutral.
I have to stop myself from yanking the phone out of her hand. “You hated it.”
She cocks her head to one side, her eyes looking anywhere but at me, her brows scrunched together as she considers her words. But it doesn’t