closer to Angela, and posed as she pretended to snap a photo. She looked at me again and pointed rather enthusiastically behind me. “Take. A. Picture.”
I laughed. “No way.”
“Yes. When are you ever going to have a hot model in your bed again? Take a pic. It’s proof.”
I shook my head and hoped the bed wasn’t moving from my silent laughter.
Harper pursed her lips at me like she was mad, but she couldn’t get rid of the smile on her face.
She swiped her phone off the nightstand, hit the Home button, and stood.
“Smile,” she said right before she took a series of pictures.
Click, click, click, click, click.
“Harper,” I whispered as loudly as I could, but she ignored me.
“Those aren’t that good.” She held up her phone and took more.
“Stop it.”
She was still ignoring me as she studied her handiwork.
I stuck my foot out and tried to kick her, but she stepped back.
“I don’t know. These aren’t great either.”
“Harper.” I scooted closer to the edge of the bed. “Stop.”
I kicked my leg out again…and landed flat on the floor.
BOOM.
“Holy shit, what was that?” Angela yelled as I caught sight of her sitting up on the bed.
Harper’s mouth formed an O before she doubled over and began howling with laughter. “Oh my God, are you okay?” she barely managed to say.
I put my head on my arm. “Kill me now.”
Harper laughed harder.
I rolled onto my back to see Travis peeking over the edge of my bed.
“Is anything hurt?” he asked out of concern, but I could see he was trying not to laugh, too.
“Just my pride.”
Travis grinned.
“Go ahead. Laugh.”
And he did.
I looked over at the other bed where Angela was laughing.
“I’m so glad we met you. This has been the best book signing ever.”
About an hour later, Harper, Angela, Travis, my wounded pride, and I went down to the dinner that the event coordinators had set up for us. The dinner had different tables sponsored by various authors who had attended, and readers got to pick whose table they wanted to sit at.
I hadn’t sponsored a table and hadn’t picked an author to sit with, so Harper and I had to wait off to the side.
“We’re sitting at Marsha Hansen’s table,” Angela said. “We’ll see you two later.” She waved, and Travis smiled as they walked past us.
“Are you okay?” Harper asked.
I rubbed my hip where I’d landed. “Yes, I’ll be fine.”
“In that case, why couldn’t you have waited to fall until after I started taking pictures again, so I could’ve gotten some good action shots?”
I sarcastically laughed at her.
She put her arm around me. “I’m sorry, babe. It was just so funny. I wish you could have seen it.”
“I’m so embarrassed.”
She pulled away and studied my face. “Really? You didn’t act like it. Way to go.” She nodded. “I’m impressed.”
“It’s all those years I worked with difficult clients. I built up fake face, so they couldn’t see how frustrated I was with them.”
“Well, it worked.”
“I just can’t believe that I fell like that. In front of Travis of all people.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “I blame you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
Her mouth dropped open, but she was trying not to smile. “I really am. My goal wasn’t to embarrass you.”
“I know. But…” I looked around. We were in a room full of people, but they were all talking, and the acoustics weren’t great. I could barely hear what the people next to us were saying. I leaned toward her ear. “I know this is going to sound crazy—I mean, I know that a guy like Travis probably has tons of girls falling at his feet, beautiful girls—but I felt like we had this…chemistry.”
I drew back to look at Harper’s face, and she nodded in understanding.
She squeezed my forearm and leaned toward my ear. “If it makes you feel any better, I know exactly what you mean. I felt like I had chemistry with him, too. It must be part of his charm or whatever. He’s just one of those guys. Somehow, he’s magnetic.” She pulled back and smiled sympathetically.
I nodded. “Thanks. That does make me feel better.” Or at least, it should, but it really didn’t.
I hadn’t realized how much I wanted to feel special and that he liked me until Harper said that to me.
It was a crazy dream, but feelings were feelings, and attraction was attraction. The only thing that would help was time. There was no magic wand to make those emotions go away.
My phone buzzed in