Page 18 of Camera Shy

“Take my car.”

Her big eyes grow even larger. “What? And leave you stranded here?”

I waltz past her to fetch my keys from my purse. I lay them on the counter and pull up Google Maps on my phone. “You’ve got at least an eight-hour drive, and that’s if traffic behaves. Go. Hell, your suitcase is still in the car. It was meant to be.”

“Aves, I…”

I wink at her. “I know. You can call me from the road to tell me how amazing I am. But seriously, go. This is your moment, Palmer. Finally. I really believe it and I believe in you. Just drive safe. Do not try to read lines on the highway.”

She nods, her smile growing. “Okay.” She grabs the keys from where I placed them and wraps her arm around my neck, pulling me into one more quick hug. “Do you need anything out of the car?” she asks as she fetches her purse from the other side of the kitchen island.

“Nope. I brought everything of mine in.”

“Okay,” she says again, blowing out a quick breath. Spinning on her heel, she hustles toward the front door. “Thank you, Aves,” she calls without turning around.

“Oh wait, only eighty-seven and up for the Jeep,” I call after her. “Don’t put cheap gas in—”

Bang.

The front door slams and she’s out of earshot.

* * *

Thirteen days.

Thirteen days is how long it takes for my self-restraint to crumble and for me to go to Edge Fitness’s website and find Maura Montoya. Suspicions confirmed—she’s a total fucking knockout. This woman outshines even Palmer, and that’s really hard to do. Her body is flawless. She’s muscular, yet with feminine curves. Her stomach is so flat that if she lay down, you could set a wine glass on it without worrying it’d spill. Her shoulder-length hair is a richer shade of brown than mine and she’s at least three shades tanner than me. She looks sun-kissed, like she’s not afraid to show off her body on the beach. But enough rambling…

A simpler way to sum up Maura is that she is quite literally my polar opposite.

I dove head first into the rabbit hole. Within twenty minutes, I found Maura’s Facebook page, Instagram profile, and watched several of her videos on TikTok about proper form when deadlifting. I really want to hate her, but what did she do wrong besides exist?

It’s been nearly two weeks…

I wonder if Mason has asked her out yet.

It’d be a little easier if she had resting bitch face, but not only is she stunning, she’s also charming. I bet her client list is booked solid. I teach the business owners, Dex included, about this effect. Charisma. When you market a great personality, you could sell salt to a slug with ease. People want personable, relatable, and authentic. Those are the three magic ingredients to brand loyalty.

As if his ears are burning, an incoming phone call from Mason halts my social media stalking. I could send him to voicemail, but seeing as I’ve already been internet stalking his potential new girlfriend, I’m embracing my current masochist mentality.

“What?” I answer in the flattest monotone I can muster.

“You answered,” Mason says, sounding surprised.

“You called,” I snap.

He huffs through the phone, encouraging my frustration. “Avery, can we please be civil? We have a business together. Remember when people told us not to start a fifty-fifty LLC together? Remember how we told them we worked really well together and we would never let our relationship interfere with what we created?”

Remember when I thought you loved me and we were going to be together forever?

But he’s right.

We do work well together, and the only relationship I had that rivaled mine and Mason’s was my relationship with work. I’ll be damned if I lose both this year.

My chest rises high, then falls. Is this allowed? Can we just be civil? “What’s going on, Mason?”

“Maynard Realty referred us for a major contract. Major. I didn’t even want to entertain the idea without talking to you first.”

Maynard Commercial Realty is our biggest client, not to mention the best-paying. But the research is devastatingly boring. Real estate is a lot of basic design and antiquated marketing strategies. It’s simple color schemes, basic fonts, polished, professional, pristine, and absolutely no creativity. I’m not sure if I want to take on their referral. It’s mind-numbing work.

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