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The bestie of my bestie is my bestie in-law.Maybe not the most logical of thoughts but it had made sense in her gut.
He’d gotten her away, taken her someplace safe. And now he was coming back into the room with bags of food.
She spread out a bath towel on the King-sized bed for their late-night picnic. Catching her reflection in the mirror above the dresser, she snorted.
“Looking good, Z,” she muttered to herself, getting closer to the glass. She leaned forward and dabbed at the puffiness under her eyes. Her hair looked like it had experienced a back alley mugging with no winners.
Her gaze drifted to a book sitting on the dresser.Return of the Kingby J. R. R. Tolkien. She tapped the cover lightly with her fingertips.“‘A chance for Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality,’”she muttered.
All those times in the studio they’d never spoken. Never chatted. Just half smiles and head nods. She hadn’t even tried to get to know him.
Looking back, she recalled her reasons. She tried not to make friends with many men. It made Logan suspect the worst and the tabloids to accuse it outright.
Immediately she was angry with herself.
How many times had she adjusted her life and her actions to accommodate the unreasonable demands of others?
Asa didn’t have to step in. They had no connection save through Nikki. No friendship of their own for him to feel any sense of duty or obligation.
And yet, if he hadn’t, she’d still be caught in the storm, with no allies in sight.
She faced Asa and watched him place the bags of food on the bed. He straightened and adjusted the glasses on his face.
“Thank you,” she said, wishing she could convey the sincerity of her gratitude.
His eyebrows dipped into a soft frown.
“For stepping in tonight,” she clarified. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He snorted. “Yes, I did.”
Oh. Well.
Why did that make her head feel fuzzy?
“Thank you,” she said again.
His mouth ticked up on one side and he nodded.
Maybe they hadn’t been friends before but maybe they could be now.
She let her gaze flick over his shirt and it made her smile again. While they’d waited for the food to be delivered, Asa had changed out of what was left of his tux into what looked like the softest pair of jeans she’d ever seen, and a white muscle shirt that said, “tattoos are stupid.”
The detailed artwork that adorned his arms from his wrists to his shoulders didn’t look stupid to her. They looked deliberate and beautiful and she wanted to look at them up close because she was nosey like that.
“This look okay?” he asked, gesturing to the bags of food on the center of the towel.
She nodded and climbed onto the bed. He joined her. They sat cross-legged, facing one another with the food between them.
“So, you were a rock star once?” she asked, taking the wrapped burger Asa passed to her.
Asa snorted at her question and handed over her vanilla shake. “Nikki tell you that?”
She nodded as she bit into her burger. Her vision flickered as the flavor took over all of her senses.Sooo, delicious. A noise came out of her that was somewhere between a moan and a growl and Asa chuckled.
“Good?” he asked.
She swallowed and took another huge bite. How long had it been since she’d had a burger?
