My tank top and flannel pants didn’t seem nearly professional enough next to his tailored suit. I should have stayed in my dress.
“Good. Alcohol?” His gaze narrowed.
“None.”
“Drugs?”
“Zero.” This whole trip was starting to feel like less of a show and more like a report card for Nixon.
“Excellent. Women?”
“This question is getting old. My job is to keep Nixon sober, not monitor his love life. He deserves a little privacy.” Besides, the only person he was kissing was…well, me, and Ben was the last person on Earth I was going to discuss that with.
Ben arched a brow at me but continued. “Is he writing?”
“Some. Nothing that he wants to share yet, but he sits down to write every day.” I’d begun scheduling my work around his just so I could listen from the next room.
“He’s going to blow the deadline.” Ben’s posture stiffened.
“Like I told Harvey—move the deadline. You have to give him some time.”
“How much time?” He glanced at his Apple watch as a text rolled in, and for the first time in my career, I didn’t want to know what it was about.
“I can’t even begin to guess.” I didn’t want to know the details of Ben’s life, or how I could make it easier. I didn’t want to lessen his burdens or prove my worth by stepping in for his bands when he was called away. The last few weeks with Nixon had shown me I didn’t just want my own bands to manage, I was ready for them too.
“You can’t speed things along?” His jaw popped.
“You so much as try to rush Nixon and he’s going to go twice as slow just to show you he can. You know that. Quinn and Jonas are fine with the delay, so we back our clients, right?” I folded my arms across my chest. “That’s who we advocate for, go the extra mile for. Our clients.”
Ben blinked, then studied me. “Are you sleeping with him?”
“I’m sorry?” My mouth gaped for a moment. He’d never questioned my ethics, but I’d never given him a reason to either.
“Are. You. Sleeping. With. Nixon? Because I’d hardly consider that—”
“Be careful what you say next, Ben,” Nixon said casually from his doorway. Thank God he hadn’t come out shirtless after Ben had crossed that line, or he would have jumped to the conclusion anyway. “Because the only way to finish that sentence without me losing my shit is by adding the words, any of my business.”
Ben sighed, then glanced between the two of us, as if he were measuring something I couldn’t see. “Fine. But keep your dick in your pants with this one,” he said to Nixon. “She’s not some intern, and we all know what happened the last time you—”
“Fuck off.” Nixon’s eyes narrowed to slits, and his posture stiffened. “No one gave a shit who I was fucking when I was drunk, whether it was on the bus, in my dressing room, or in the lobby of a hotel. You didn’t care if it was a different woman or even two every night.”
I flinched, and my stomach turned over, flooding me with nausea at the thought.
“So again, unless I’m propositioning you for some action, Ben, it’s none of your business who I take to bed, and I don’t swing that way, so spoiler alert: it’s never your business. I’m fine. I’m sober. Unless there’s a contract we need to go over, get the fuck out so I can get some sleep.”
Ben appraised the situation and then nodded. “Fine. I’ll see you both tomorrow.” He let himself out, the door shutting loudly behind him.
“You didn’t tell him I kissed you.” Nixon leaned back against the wall.
“No.” I shook my head.
“You didn’t tell Quinn either.”
“Of course not.”
“Why not?” He turned those narrowed eyes on me, and my nausea grew tenfold. “Embarrassed?”
“That I kissed you? No. That I crossed a professional line I swore I never would? Absolutely. And what happens between us isn’t fodder for gossip, or anyone’s business but ours,” I snapped.
“Professional lines…because this is just business, right, Shannon? You’re just doing your job so you get whatever Ben promised in that little deal of yours.” He let his head fall back against the wall. “You’re only here because I need a babysitter, and I only let you stay so I don’t shit all over my friends’ lives.”
Something in my chest crumpled, and it hurt.
There was another knock at the door, and I took the easy way out and opened it, then signed