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She met his eyes. Hopefully he couldn’t see the way her pulse had become erratic just thinking about taking a trip with him. She waited for him to say that he wanted to take Morgan instead. He didn’t.
“Okay,” he said.
That didn’t tell her whether he meant okay, they were going to go to L.A. together or okay, she had given a satisfactory answer. Reese didn’t want to ask. She realized it was because she would be disappointed if he didn’t say he was planning to take her with him.
“I also wanted you to know that I wasn’t sleeping with Morgan. I meant what I said. I offered her my bed for a nap because her back was hurting.”
“Okay,” Reese said, feeling a small satisfaction that she was giving him the same frustrating non-answer that he had just given her.
“I didn’t want you to think that it was something that it wasn’t.”
“Sterling, who you have in your bed is not my business. I’m here for a job. I work for you. What you choose to do personally isn’t something I need to worry about unless it impacts your public image.”
These words were all true. Reese should have stopped with this. But her hurt forced out more words that she immediately wished she could reel back into her mouth.
“Anyway, she does seem to be more your type.”
A tension flooded the room almost immediately. His jaw clenched as he stood, crossing the room to the door. Reese did not look up at him.
“Thanks for clearing that up and reminding me of my place. See you later.”
As he closed the door behind him, leaving her alone in the lounge, a heaviness descended in Reese’s chest and her eyes burned.
What she said was a good reminder to herself as much as it was to him. So why did she feel so incredibly sad and guilty?
Chapter Thirteen
Sterling shut himself off as much as possible for the next three shows, at least on the tour bus and in the hotels. On stage he was still channeling the same magnetism and connection that he had in Atlanta. That surprised him, because he fully believed that Reese helped bring that out of him. And after their brief conversation on the back of the bus where she made it very clear she wasn’t interested in a relationship with him, he had hardly said anything to her. Reese talked to Morgan about anything important and then Morgan talked to him.
Reese’s words shouldn’t have mattered that much. Sterling hadn’t even told her he was interested before she shot him down. She was being presumptuous. This is what Sterling told himself, though he knew he wasn’t being fully honest. Maybe he hadn’t told Reese in words that he was interested, but he had flirted. He had done small things, like put his foot on top of hers under the table while they were working. Most people wouldn’t consider that something. It sounded stupid. Like something you might do in junior high. For a rock star who had engaged in way too many meaningless physical relationships over the years, that was laughable.
But it meant something when he did it. He knew it. Reese knew it. He had seen it in the way she chewed on the inside of her cheek and flushed a little, trying to avoid eye contact.
Then she hugged him on the balcony and told him that she would come with him to May’s intervention. It felt like things shifted and that they had taken a few giant leaps forward towards something real. He bought two first-class tickets that same night, feeling hopeful about the future and even about his trip home. Now he didn’t know how to ask her again or mention that he had the tickets.
Something about Reese made him feel stronger and more sure of himself. He wanted to live up to the way that she saw him and the things she said about him when they were doing that social media thing. She had called him talented. Strong. Tender.
It was totally stupid how far he had fallen when they barely knew each other. He had been vulnerable, something that she said showed strength. It had challenged him to take down some of his walls for her. But maybe she didn’t know how hard that was for him to do.
Now he felt like that had simply come back to bite him. He had a plane ticket with her name on it when she clearly didn’t want to be alone with him. All because Morgan had taken a nap in his bed?
Sterling did understand, though. When Morgan asked, bending over and holding a hand to her spine like she had been in pain, he had felt distinctly uncomfortable. He hadn’t shared his bed with any woman in any way in at least two years. Not that he napped with her, but still. There was something intimate about sharing your bed with someone else. That was probably the furthest thing anyone would expect for a rock star to say, but the more distance he had from his past casual physical relationships, the more the thought bothered him. He didn’t want to throw away any part of himself like it was that easily discarded.
It wasn’t necessarily that he wanted to be celibate like Moby accused him of being, but he wanted change. If he was going to have a relationship, he wanted something full and real. If that was even possible, which he had seriously doubted. Until Reese and whatever it was about her that pulled him toward her. He had found himself agreeing when she mentioned that she wanted to get married. To wake up every morning with the same person and to be glad about it. He wanted that too.
And when she talked about that, for just a moment, Sterling could imagine that person he woke up to every morning being Reese. She was smart and kind and willing to be vulnerable and open. He loved the way she sometimes seemed to lose control of her words, letting them spill out and then looking horrified. She made him laugh. And she was there in the best way possible after he had talked to his mother about the intervention.
Did she feel something like that for him? Sure, she had joked about wanting to marry Sterling James the rock star when she was younger. Did the real person live up to the hype? He knew that he was moody and difficult sometimes. He had snapped at her and been rude more than once. If she still liked him, it would be shocking. But he thought maybe she might return similar feelings … until she saw Morgan in his bed.
He could see how that would have given Reese the wrong idea. He had tried to imagine what it would be like if he had walked by and seen Moby in Reese’s bunk. The thought made him so angry that he had to hit up the hotel fitness center and do a punishing workout as soon as the bus stopped in New Orleans. He got it. He just didn’t know what to do about it.
Reese probably felt betrayed and hurt, but he knew that she meant the words she said. It was like that moment woke her up and reminded her of what she was doing on the tour. She worked for Sterling. Things needed to stay professional. He didn’t want to make her lose her job. Maybe after the tour something could happen? Which left him now in a painful, confusing limbo. And with two tickets to LA, one in her name.
Which now he didn’t know what to do with. He would probably just go alone. Or he could get the name changed and take Morgan. No. Morgan might have been one of his oldest friends, but the thought of letting her into this painful part of his life didn’t sit well with him. He wasn’t exactly sure why. She was trustworthy. It wasn’t that. This part of his life had been closed off completely from everyone for so long that the idea of letting anyone in gave him a physical, visceral reaction.
Why had it been different with Reese?
Sterling’s mind kept turning this over as they did the sound check in Dallas at the Dos Equis Pavilion. The tour was a summer one, though technically it was still late spring. A lot of the venues were outdoor amphitheaters like this. It had been fine in Atlanta, but already it was getting hot. He had done two shirt changes in Houston, which he hated doing. It made him feel like a diva. But he also hated performing in a shirt that was completely drenched in his own sweat. He hoped as they moved west and rolled into the summer that they had more venues indoors. With air conditioning.
