Page 37 of Flirting with Trouble

I had amazing sex with Wells, and now I can’t stop flirting with him and it’s really messing with my head. Other than that, I’m great. “Good. Busy as always. I’m in LA until tomorrow.”

“You are? Great party town,” Noah says. “Are you going to hit up some clubs tonight? Get a little badaboom badabing?”

I laugh. “Not everyone comes to LA looking for badaboom badabing.”

“You’ve got to get out there sometime,” Noah urges. “It’s not like a great guy is going to come knocking at your hotel room door.”

“Noah,” I warn, and hear a phone ringing in the background.

“I need to get that call,” Noah says. “I’ll talk to you Saturday for Gram’s birthday. Love you.”

“You too, Noah.” We try to get together for birthdays, but our grandfather is a retired archaeologist and paleontologist who doesn’t know what the word retired means. He and our grandmother are currently on a dig in Alaska, which is why we’ve scheduled a family video call.

“I took you off speaker,” Clay says. “You know he just doesn’t want you to be lonely.”

“I know.”

“There’s nothing wrong with getting back out there. Wait. Scratch that. I’m a selfish bastard, and if I die, I’ll haunt Pepper for life. I don’t want another man touching her. So you do you, and if I kick off, don’t you dare tell my wife to get back out there.”

“There’s the competitive guy I know and love. How are things there? How’s Noah really doing?”

“Things here are good. The business is booming, and the camp is great. Noah’s as wild as ever. You know he’ll never change.”

I laugh. “How quickly you forget that you were once a wild boy, too.”

“I don’t miss that time of my life.” He pauses, and then his tone turns serious. “As much as I love to joke around, if something happened to me, I wouldn’t want Pep to spend the rest of her life alone. I love her too much, and I doubt Harvey would want you to, either. So maybe take Noah’s advice and have a little fun.”

“I’ll take that under consideration. Is there another reason you called, or did you guys just feel like giving me life advice?”

He chuckles. “Yeah, there is a reason. I’m hoping you can hook me up with a few celebs who get migraines.”

“Now, that’s a request I don’t get often. Have you looked in the mirror lately? Few people are a bigger deal than you, and you get migraines.”

“I know, but this is to promote the migraine device Pepper is developing. Other celebrity sponsors would go a long way.”

“Well, I have no idea which of our clients get migraines, if any, but I’m happy to put out a few feelers and get back to you.”

“That would be great.”

We talk for a little while longer, and when I end the call, a text from Wells pops up.

Wells: Busy?

Me: Not really. Why? Want to play another game, or…?

Wells: That depends what the…consists of.

I laugh softly.

Me: Keep it in your pants, boy toy.

I snap a picture of the water and send it to him.

Wells: Lucky you. Are you alone? Can you talk?

My thumbs hover over the screen. I tell myself I should take a breather from him and let this growing affection calm down, but my thumbs don’t get the message, and I type, Sure.

The phone rings a second later. “Hey, beautiful. How’s it going?”