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Who was just trying to prove a point.

Well, point very well made, Silas.

At some point, the strength came back to my legs, I straightened myself up, located the paper clips, then made my way back out of the storage room.

I found myself pausing outside of Silas’s studio, and he turned to me, still speaking to his caller, and shot me the most devastatingly sexy, cocky little smirk.

I swear my legs wobbled again.

I dropped the paperclips on my desk.

Then walked myself home.

If Silas felt the need to, you know, make another point about it. Well, then I would just have to suffer those consequences.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

[ “DUDE, MAYBE RELATIONSHIPS are just road trips… but no one agreed on the destination”

— Bloods and Spuds - Episode 102]

Maggie

“I can’t believe you’re going on a road trip and I can’t come.” Tess pouted her glossy lips at me as I shoved the book Grum just gave me into the shopping bag that was overflowing with road snacks. Did I need so many? Probably not. But it was a seventeen-hour drive to Clout Circuit, and I hadn’t been on a car ride that long since I moved to Seattle. I wanted to take advantage of the excuse to eat junk.

“You’ll see me in three days.”

Tess and Margo were coming to Clout Circuit, but they had an important meeting with their agent, so they couldn’t come in the car that the station had rented for me. For who knew what reason, Mr. Lane wanted me in L.A. well ahead of the actual event. I tried to reason that the event venue wasn’t going to let me set up any earlier than anyone else, but he was insistent.

Besides, I figured it might be good for me to get away from the station—and a certain vampire inside it—for a few days.

Once the post-orgasm haze faded (and I wrote a scorching-hot sex scene for my book), that same little stab of guilt came back again.

I mean, I wasn’t doing anything bad, a part of me insisted. Calling in as Madison was for both our good. It was also something that I needed to keep doing, at least until after the convention. Still, it didn’t feel good to be dishonest. And I wasn’t sure there was a way to fess up to the whole ruse and not ruin everything.

This made me decide to put a pin in anything else physically with Silas until after Clout Circuit was over, and I could find a private moment or two with him to lay it all on the table.

Until then, I was keeping my hands to myself, no matter how difficult that was.

“I know. But, ugh, we’re both always working. A road trip would be so much fun.”

“Maybe in the fall. Things usually calm down around here in the fall.”

“Are you kidding? The witches and ghosts always go crazy in the fall.”

Okay, she wasn’t wrong about that.

Last year, there’d been a spell that went sideways, and pumpkin vines took over the whole station, climbing the walls, curving around door handles, locking people in their sound booths, and in one case, tying someone to their chair until another person came around and cut them loose.

But that witch wasn’t at the station anymore. So there was hope. Maybe.

“We will find the time,” I assured her. “I think that might be my ride.” A black SUV pulled up just outside the station doors, the wipers whipping the steadily falling rain off the windshield.

“Alright. Well, I’m just going to make sure your driver isn’t a psycho,” Tess said, taking one of my bags. “Put the fear of hellfire in him before I let him drive off with my best friend.”

It was pointless to object, so I started drafting up my apology to the driver in my mind.

She grabbed the two largest suitcases that were full of carefully packed merch for the event. Most of it had been sent ahead to the venue, but Mr. Lane had a last-minute idea for tote bags that meant I needed to get them printed, pick them up, and pack them for the trip before I even got myself prepared.