Thanks for being straight with me. Someday I’ll rock your world.
I hoped not. I don’t know if there are defenses strong enough to resist an Oakley Ford determined to rock a girl’s world. I wanted to text back, Please don’t. I can’t handle that.
Instead, I texted
We’ll see.
Which, in hindsight, might’ve been worse. It sounded superflirty, especially when Oak’s reply was
Challenge accepted.
And it was worse the following day when the only text I received was an ice cream cone pic along with the message
Went back. Ice cream didn’t taste as good this time. Just FYI.
I wanted to Tweet out to the world of fangirls who message me on Twitter daily that FYI, Oakley Ford is too charming for his own good and I need someone to save me from myself.
Keeping an emotional distance from a guy you have to pretend to be dating is the realest struggle ever. And it’s not helped by the fact that I’m currently lying next to his muscled frame on a cozy sofa, his arm cushioning my head and his famous green eyes sweeping my face.
“You don’t like having our first Valentine’s Day as a couple being recorded by—” he squints at the group hovering at the end of his giant sectional “—five individuals?”
“I think that’s five too many.”
The muscle under my head bunches. “I agree.”
I gulp, and a knowing smile tips up the corners of his lips. His head dips lower and his body shifts so that he’s all but shielding me from the others in the room. I know what’s coming and I remind myself it’s all for show, but the gleam in his eyes tells a different story.
“Don’t touch her!”
Oak closes his eyes in frustration and then slumps against the cushion. Suddenly, I’m in love with Belinda. She saved me from what I know would’ve been a toe-curling, butterfly-rousing kiss that I would be thinking about for far too long.
When Claudia called me this morning to inform me we would be taking a romantic Valentine’s Day photo for social media, I had no idea it was going to be one so…personal. She declared it was time for Oakley to make a public declaration. It wasn’t enough that I’d been photographed eating lunch with his mom or that there were numerous grainy photos of Oakley at the beach with my family.
Oakley needs to make a statement. And that statement requires us to be together, legs tangled up, faces close.
“The lighting is too bright,” Claudia complains. “We want this picture to say ‘late night watching a movie together’ and not ‘just woke up in bed.’”
“You can get all that with lighting?”
Oakley props his head up on his hand and peers down. “You’d be amazed at what people read into one photograph. I remember when I was on a break from the Ford tour. I went to a club in Germany with my friend, Trevor David, you know, the drummer from Twenty Four Seven?”
I nod. Twenty Four Seven is an older rock band that’s been around for probably a decade. I’ve never loved their stuff.
“Anyway, he was dating this Vic’s Secret model from London. She had some weird name. Biblical name. Ezrah? Hezbollah—”
“Bathsheba?”
“Yeah, that’s it. So we were all at this club and someone bumps into her. I put my arm around her to make sure she doesn’t fall. In the process, a schmuck takes about five shots and sells them to a German tabloid. Those five shots made it seem like I’d been hugging her all night, and the next morning the headlines were that she was cheating on her man with one of his best friends. Trevor’s standing right next to her. In one of the photos, you can even see the edge of his arm.” He shakes his head. “They cropped him out.”
“That really sucks.”
“It does.”
“What about…” I trail off.
“What about what?” he prompts.
Oh, heck, I might as well ask. “What about the Brazilian supermodel?”
He grins. “Which one?”
I reach up and pinch his side.
He yelps and catches my hand. And doesn’t let it go. And for once, I don’t pull away. He pulls me closer.
“You mean Izabella Duarte? You do stalk me.”
I look down at our clasped hands, more than a little embarrassed. “I may, at one time, have been tremendously interested in all celebrity things,” I hedge. The Izzy/April scandal was what put me off Oakley, and then my parents died. I think my emotions were frozen at that point.
“This is why publicists drum up fake relationships. You wouldn’t have been half as interested in me if I was single. Relationships make the world go ’round.”
“Maybe, but I’m no April Showers.”
“No, you’re Vaughn Bennett. I like Vaughn Bennett.”
My heart flutters wildly. To cover up my feelings, I bring up April again. “Don’t you ever get jealous when you see her on the cover of a magazine?” April is on a cover every other month.
“You do realize she doesn’t look like that in real life, right? Those pictures are airbrushed and Photoshopped so much that I think it’s hard for her own mother to recognize her.”
“So is that a yes?”
“If you’re asking me if I’m pining over her, then no. April and I were two teenagers whose handlers thought a relationship like ours would spur more publicity, and they were right. It did help, but it wasn’t anything more on my part than a media thing. So, yeah, I might’ve had some fun with Izzy, but she never got my phone number.” His voice drops low. “I’m not a cheater, if that’s what you’re asking. If April and I had a real relationship, I wouldn’t have looked twice at another girl. I’m a one-woman man, babe.”
I swallow hard. He has no idea what it does to me when he calls me babe.
“Come to the studio with me today,” he says.
And because I can’t talk, I nod. He smiles brilliantly at me, and I almost miss Belinda ordering me to move.
“Let’s switch it up. Let’s put Oak’s head in her lap,” Belinda suggests.
I heave a sigh of relief and sit up immediately. Oakley takes a bit longer to uncurl his body from mine. We move into position, but having his head in my lap doesn’t make it easier on me. My fingers itch to brush the hair away from his forehead. I shudder a tiny bit, but Oak catches it.
His eyes sparkle as he asks, “Cold?”
Belinda hears him and snaps her fingers. “A blanket. That would be perfect.”
Someone runs to find a blanket.
“Relax,” he murmurs.
How can I? I don’t think anyone could relax in this position.
“Darla, smudge the eyeliner under her eyes. It looks too precise,” Belinda orders. The makeup artist leans over with a brush and dabs under my eyes.
“A lot of work for these pictures.”
“One. Singular,” Oak says.
“Who knows. We might do a collage,” Claudia suggests. Beside her, Belinda’s blue hair bobs in agreement. “Oak, reach up and touch her neck.”
His long fingers curve around my neck, lightly pressing against my skin, reminding me of the way he pressed the frets of his guitar. He has beautiful, talented fingers that are capable of pulling so much emotion from six little metal strings.
“I’m never going to believe another thing I see on the internet,” I whisper.
His thumb brushes my cheek. “This isn’t the internet.”
Once the photos are finally taken, Oak whisks me into his SUV before Belinda can suggest another pose. Claudia and her assistants are arguing about the caption as we’re leaving. I have no idea what they settle on, although it seemed they’d narrowed it down to either just a heart emoji or the hashtag “feels”.
In the backseat, Oakley reaches into his pocket. His hand emerges with something, but I can’t tell what. The look on his face is weirdly awkward, though.
“Are you okay?” I ask, raising a brow.
“Yeah. Uh. I got you something.”
My other eyebrow shoots up to join its pair. “Like, a present?”
He gives an adorable little shrug. “It’s Valentine’s Day. Figured I should get you something. But I didn’t want to give it to you in front of the PR peeps, otherwise they would’ve tried to incorporate it into the pictures, and, ah, I didn’t want that.”