Page 31 of Ashley & the A-Listers

She supposed these days there were ways around it, like toys and— wow, Ashley should really stop there.

Get a hold of yourself.

“Are you asking me to go easy on you?” she clarified.

Cam shook his head and Ashley’s grin was sharp.

“Good.”

7. SACRIFICE

RIVER

River sat beside Dylan on the plastic chairs and waited.

And watched.

And appreciated.

“Wow,” River murmured, and not for the first time, as Ashley led Cameron through a series ofveryintense stretches.

“Didn’t know he could bend like that, did you?” Dylan mused, and flipped a page in his book.

“Of course I did,” River answered, and shifted in his seat. “I just haven’t seen him do it in a while.”

Dylan offered little more than a hum, and River wanted to rip the book out of his hands. “That explains why you’re here. Booty call.”

“Am not,” River said, even though that was part of why he’d come. “I missed him,” he admitted a moment later. “We talked on the phone last night, and I certainly don’t have anything going on besides Zoom meetings and rewrites. What was stopping me from showing up?”

In fact, River had just submitted another round of corrections on the screenplay to the team, and wanted something to distract himself as he waited on their feedback.

Cameron was his favorite distraction.

“What a good little housewife you are,” Dylan teased.

River rolled his eyes. “What are you even reading? A self-help book? You need plenty of it.”

Dylan chuckled, and River hated that it was attractive, the way he could laugh off an insult. It wasn’t that River disliked Dylan—quite the opposite, actually, since he was there to protect River’s partner—he was just fun to annoy.

“Sure, let’s go with that.”

River yanked his attention away from Ashley and Cameron to stare at this alpha. “I don’t believe you,” he sang, and leaned forward in the chair, gripping the back so he wouldn’t fall off and make a fool of himself. He tilted his head to get a glimpse of the book title and almost fell out anyway.

“It’s a romance?” River asked, a little struck. That’snotwhat River thought this big alpha would be interested in.

“You have a problem?” he asked, finally lifting his gaze from the page.

River leaned back in his chair. “No, no problem. Just surprised, is all.”

Maybe there was a bit more to this alpha than River had thought.

Silence settled and River only heard the sound of Cameron’s heavy breathing, a few curses, and the flip of those damned pages.

“What’s it about?” River asked, finally cracking.

Dylan shrugged. “I picked it up because it was at the trending table of the bookshop. Ironically, it’s about a queen and her bodyguard.”

River snorted. “Of course it is.”

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