Page 54 of That Secret Something

The sight made my anxiety dip for just a moment. Was this a glimpse into what we could have? He fell onto his back, and Rebecca rubbed his belly, cooing at him in a baby voice.

I cleared my throat, and she glanced up innocently. “What? You’re not jealous, are you?” she teased.

“Hmm…maybe a little bit.”

She gave Sausage one last tickle and stood up, pulling me into her chest. She grinned before swooping in to kiss me. At the last moment, she swerved my lips and kissed my neck instead.

I moaned as she paid extra attention to my sensitive spots. I knew exactly where this road was leading. Shivers rolled down my spine. My body wanted it, but my mind shut it down. We needed to talk. I had to distract her.

“Uh, what did Jackie do today, then?”

Rebecca brushed her lips along my jaw and planted a flurry of kisses on my mouth. God, how I’ve missed that mouth. I kissed her back, feeling the tug in my abdomen.

No. No. Focus, Jess. Focus.

But Rebecca pulled away and sighed. “So today, Kelsie fucks up the sound checks and spills Jackie’s coffee all over the microphones. I have to run like a madwoman to pick up some extras from the other end of the set.” She paced the floor in front of me. “I know how pissed Jackie gets when they can’t start filming on time, so I was really hauling my arse, and I get back, set up the mics, and she looks at me and says, ‘Hey, Roland, where’s my coffee?’” She snorted and shook her head. “I mean, do I look like a Roland to you?”

I wanted to give her a sassy response back, but my mind was stuck on ways to bring up what I actually wanted to talk about. The innocent look of sadness on her face made me pause. “You don’t look like a Roland, no. Though I don’t really know anyone called Roland.”

“Thank you.” She fell back on the sofa, her head sinking into the cushion.

I joined her and caressed my hand up her thigh. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know.” She groaned. “It’s just not what I thought it’d be. I thought it’d open all these doors for me to get in and show my portfolio or my showreel, but people speak to me like I’m nothing.”

“It’s still early days. It takes time to build connections. Don’t overthink it. Be your charming self for these next few weeks and see what happens. You’re going to do great, Rebecca, I just know it.”

She rolled her head to look at me. “I don’t know why you always have such confidence in me. No one else does.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. Mum thinks everything I do is pointless, that I have no direction, and Lily…well, if I don’t fuck something up in her eyes, it’s either luck or a fluke.”

I drew a lazy circle on her skin. “You still haven’t told them about the job, then?”

“No.”

“But why not?”

“It’s only a temporary position. They don’t understand. There’s no point.”

“How can you know that for sure?”

She groaned, pushing her head further back into the cushion. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“But I just want to help. If you tell me—”

“Jess. Just drop it,” she snapped. “You don’t understand.”

Her words cut through the air between us. My hand stopped circling her thigh, and I retracted it.

Rebecca sighed. “Don’t do that face, please. I’m sorry.” She smiled, pushing herself upright and leaning into me. “Enough about me moaning about work, anyway.” She kissed me softly, running her hands ran up my waist before tangling in my hair.

The snap of her voice echoed in my head. Instead of the usual pull in my stomach, the kiss felt suffocating, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. Did she think that sex would solve everything? Maybe that was the first and foremost rule of a casual arrangement. But I didn’t want just that. I wanted more.

I stopped kissing her, and Rebecca pulled back to look into my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I went on a date,” I blurted. “It was weird, but she kissed me, and then I had a panic attack, and now I don’t know what to do about it, but I wanted to tell you and talk about it.”

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