Page 70 of Trip Me Up

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SAM

Stewingin the back seat of the town car idling in front of the television studio, I pried my fists open so I could phone a friend.

“Oh. My. God,” I said as soon as Marlee answered my video call.

“What is it?” When she moved with the phone, I spotted a bare, muscled shoulder and bedsheets behind her. Bilbo Baggins, nestled close to me in the town car, cocked his head at the sound of her voice.

“Shit, I forgot about the time difference. Did I wake you up?” I put a hand over my eyes.

“My alarm would’ve gone off in a few minutes. Don’t worry about it. And you can open your eyes. I’m wearing a nightgown. Are you okay?” She flicked on a light and sat down at her kitchen table. A coffeemaker grumbled in the background.

“I—” Suddenly, the rage that’d made me phone my friend waned to a dull pain in my lungs. “I guess I was having some feelings, and I wanted to see a friendly face.”

“Feelings about…?”

I could’ve said anything. Travel. My Ph.D. But what came out was the truth. “About Niall.”

“Your hottie tour partner?” Her eyes widened. “Heisyour OTP!”

“What? No.” I fumbled my earbuds into my ears.

“But, Sam, you said you had feelings. You haven’t had any feelings for anyone you’ve—wait! Did you guys sleep together?”

I covered my face, glad Marlee was coming through my headphones and not my phone’s speaker. What we’d done on my bed hardly counted since I was the only one who’d gotten off. And then after, when I’d have returned the favor, he’d turned me down. “Sort of?”

“Sweet, sweet Stephen Hawking. And was it…?”

“Yes, of course.” My cheeks burned. “Farmboy magic,” I mumbled.

“Then what—?”

“Feelings suck.” I lowered my voice so the driver didn’t have to pretend so hard not to hear me. “He did an interview this morning on one of the talk shows, and—”

“Which one?”

I told her the name, and she glanced offscreen, typing something into a laptop. I’d felt the same way as when I’d gone into his room and Gabi was there. A roiling in my stomach and the need to strike, to incinerate the icky feeling with a punch of kinetic energy. I’d jammed the off button on the TV remote so hard it’d stuck in its slot.

I smoothed Bilbo Baggins’ fur. “Anyway, the interviewer was all flirty and…and simpering, and he ate it up, and then I got heartburn and had to eat, like, a million antacids.”

“Brandi Brewer. Yeah, she’s pretty. But he’s sleeping withyou.”

I winced, remembering how he’d turned me down the night before. “Not exactly.”

“Oh.Oh.”Her eyes went all soft and melty, like caramel. “But you want to.”

“Just—just for the sex.”

Marlee shook her head. “If you wanted him just for sex, you wouldn’t care if he flirted with Brandi Brewer. You’re in it now.”

“In what now?”

“In love.” And she gave an honest-to-God happy sigh. She looked up, and her fiancé, Tyler, kissed her lips. Then he shuffled out of frame.

“I can one hundred percent tell you I am not in love with Niall Flynn.” Though what would it be like to have someone kiss me in the morning like that? To set a cup of coffee at my right hand? I blinked to lubricate my prickling eyes. Sure, it’d be nice. But I was good at computer science, not relationships. Stephen had proven that.

“But—”

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