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She nodded, her eyes lighting up. “Yeah, sausage. That’s a great analogy.” She groaned. “Except in that analogy, I think that makes me and the job I do the sausage. I’m sausage.”
Sterling laughed. “I guess it does. Do you not like sausage?”
“I think it’s just the word itself. Or, the word applied to me. I don’t want to be sausage.”
“Kielbasa?”
Reese giggled. “Not much better.”
“Bratwurst?”
Now Reese laughed. “Definitely not. Bratwurst? As in brat? No way.”
Sterling grinned. “I don’t know. Brat seems like it might be a perfect nickname for you.”
She swatted at his arm. “You can’t call me that.”
“Aw, Brat, you don’t like your new nickname? Hits too close to home?”
Reese just rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to win this, am I?”
“Sorry, Brat. I think you might be stuck with it. I think it’s cute. If you actually were a brat, I couldn’t use it. But since you’re not … ”
“You think I’m cute?”
Sterling froze. He could tell that she didn’t mean to ask the question and that it just popped out. Her eyes grew wide. “I didn’t mean—I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry,” she breathed.
He let his eyes trace over her face slowly, starting at her eyes, moving over the apple of her cheek down to where she was biting her lower lip. He didn’t trust himself to pause too long there. Moving his gaze back up to her eyes, Sterling lifted his hand and traced a finger down the perfect slope of her nose, across her cheek, and along her jaw. Her breath hitched.
“Cute barely begins to cover what I think about you, Reese.” His voice was low and husky.
The intensity of this moment felt palpable, like he could cut through it or physically grab hold of what stretched between them. What was he doing? He felt reckless for the first time in a very long time. He was used to the constant back and forth of his emotions. Moody was the perfect word to describe him. He couldn’t deny it. But this felt like a whole new level of emotion. If his normal swings were like storms, this felt like a tsunami. It scared him, but he wasn’t going to back away.
Breaking the moment, Sterling bent down to his bag, pulling out two decks of cards. He held one out to Reese. Hesitating, she took it. “What is this?”
Sterling pulled down her tray table and then his. “We’re playing solitaire. Together.”
“How do you play solitaire together?”
He laughed. “Get with the program, Brat. You play solitaire on your tray. I play on mine. Solitaire together. The faster player wins.”
Reese sighed, but when he glanced at her, she was smiling as she pulled out the cards, starting a clumsy shuffle between her fingers. A peaceful calm settled between them for the next hours as they played a solo game beside one another, talking sometimes, laughing a lot. Solitaire, together.
Chapter Seventeen
Reese’s nerves started firing again as they took an Uber to the hotel. The driver clearly recognized Sterling. He hadn’t said anything yet but looked totally twitchy and kept glancing in the rearview mirror. What if he took a picture of the two of them together in the back seat? She made sure to sit as far away from Sterling as possible, not touching him. She felt overwhelmed by nervous worry. Sterling didn’t seem to notice.
Knowing that they were in L.A. made Reese feel much more paranoid. She was used to Nashville, where tons of celebrities lived and no one really cared. L.A. felt different. She could sense Sterling tensing up as well. But they were able to get out of a back entrance of the airport and didn’t see any paparazzi or other people taking photos. That was a relief. Hopefully she wouldn’t feel like she was watching over her shoulder the whole trip. The plane ride had been so enjoyable, playing solitaire—something she never would have thought of—and just talking to Sterling. Best plane ride ever, which had exactly zero to do with being in first class and everything to do with the company.
Sterling James, rock star. Her teenage crush. And now her very adult something-much-more-than-a-crush. Reese wouldn’t let herself consciously think about how much deeper her feelings ran than a simple crush. But they weren’t even comparable.
Now they were headed to a hotel. She hadn’t thought through the ramifications of this or the details of the travel, thinking maybe they would stay at his family’s house, where she’d be in a guest room or something and he would be in his childhood home. But a hotel. They’d have separate rooms, right? But that meant he was paying more. She couldn’t stay in the same room with him, but she didn’t want to have to ask him to pay more for a separate room if he hadn’t thought of that. He already bought her plane ticket too. First class plane ticket. She started going over the numbers in her head.
“So, hey, um about the cost of all this?”
Sterling waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. Seriously. Don’t think about it again. Everything is covered and it’s not a big deal.”
That was a relief, given her okay, but not particularly flexible income. “Okay. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t being—”
