about finances and his mother to blocking out every one of his issues for at least a few hours every day while he interacted with the only ray of sunshine he could have asked for.
Even when he wasn’t specifically talking to Jodi, he was always aware of where she was in the room and what she was doing. He did so partly because he felt responsible for her protection, but mostly he just liked being near her. He liked looking at her. He liked watching her laugh or frown or joke or have a serious conversation with a customer.
Jodi. Damn. He wanted her. He didn’t deserve her, and there was a good chance she wouldn’t survive the next twenty days waiting on him, but he prayed he might get lucky. If she thought things were crazy and intense so far when he was with Katia, she had no idea what the coming weeks would bring.
He didn’t really know either, but the stakes kept getting higher. There would be bigger fights on camera. Crazier makeups. More intensive fake interactions with his fake wife in his fake apartment.
Hell, he wasn’t sure he could weather the storm and come out of it breathing, let alone expect Jodi to. And she had to do it with no information. All she had was hope. She hadn’t known him long enough to put that much faith in him. Would it be enough?
Chapter 6
“Please tell me you’re not watching that YouTube shit again.”
Jodi jumped in her seat at the sound of her father’s voice, jerking her gaze from the computer screen to watch him walk across the kitchen toward the refrigerator. “Jesus, Dad. You nearly gave me a heart attack.” She pulled off her headset and set it next to her mouse. “And it’s not on YouTube. The show has its own app and website.”
He grunted as he grabbed the juice and came to the table. “Whatever. If you didn’t spend every waking hour engrossed in that stupidity, you would have heard me coming into the kitchen.”
“You’re exaggerating,” she lied. “Besides, I would think you’d want to know more about your newest employee too.”
He poured a glass of juice and lowered onto the chair opposite her. “We have several employees. I don’t ask any of them what they do when they’re not here. Liz, Jacob, Stan, Roxie… You following all of their social media religiously just in case they say or do something you don’t like while they’re off work?”
“This is different.”
“How?”
“It just is.” She was digging a deep hole here. Her dad was right. She was obsessed. It wasn’t healthy.
“Go for a jog. You used to run every morning until Tuck walked through the door.”
He was right about that too.
He sighed. “Look, I wasn’t born yesterday. I see the way you look at the man. I get it. You’re gaga over him. And I don’t blame you. He’s quite a package. But,” her dad lifted a finger to make his point. “No matter how real or fake that stupid show is, he’s still married. You watching a play-by-play of his daily interactions with his wife is going to give you an ulcer. He’s not yours.”
She took a deep breath. “I know that,” she murmured.
“He has two more weeks in his contract. I hate to see you spend all that time watching his every move on a stupid live feed. You can’t unsee that stuff. What if he does end up leaving her? How are you going to erase the visuals of the two of them together that will remain burned in your head forever?”
Jodi nodded. Why did her dad have to make so much sense?
“People have lots of relationships in their lives. Most of us don’t have the ability to watch a play-by-play of our partner’s previous relationships.” He shuddered. “It’s weird. I was married to your mother for forty years. I dated a few girls before we met. She dated a few guys. We didn’t discuss it. I never saw pictures of her previous boyfriends. I didn’t show her pictures of my previous girlfriends. I burned them after I met your mother. Thank God we didn’t have videos or internet or social media. Nothing was frozen in time. I can’t imagine how our relationship would have ever gotten off the ground if she had been able to sit all day and watch every detail of me with my old girlfriends. No one should be able to make those kinds of comparisons. It’s not natural.”
Jodi glanced