Page 39 of Can't Take My Eyes Off You

‘No,’ she says pulling down the sleeves of her jacket. ‘I did not get a tattoo.’

‘Then what is that?’ I ask, reaching for her hand and lifting her sleeve. ‘Al-ex Don-o-van?’ I read it out loud slowly as I push up her sleeve. My brows squish together and my face is doing everything I don’t want it to do. Why does she have his name on her arm?

‘It’s Sharpie marker, not a tattoo. Liv, Gunner and I went to a game yesterday. He was signing autographs, Gunner is fan, and I didn’t have any paper so since I didn’t want his name across my chest, like Liv, he signed my arm?’ she asks like she’s not sure of any of it. Explaining herself in a way that says she’s afraid of my reaction.

‘That’s cool,’ I say, pretending my heart’s not on fire right now at the thought of her with Alex Donovan. ‘Is it serious?’

‘Serious? Nope. Nothing serious about an autograph I’ll have to buy product to get off before I work on Monday.’ She grabs the hydrogen peroxide and a bottle of rubbing alcohol, then breezes by me towards the checkouts.

‘Berkley, we can’t even talk for a minute?’ I ask, following behind her.

She stops suddenly, turning towards me, causing me to nearly mow her over, but I save it by grabbing her shoulders and holding her up, and we’re close. Way closer than we’ve been in the last year. Her vanilla shampoo clouds my head.

‘Fine,’ she blurts. ‘He asked me out, but it’s nothingserious,’ she says, speaking quickly, nervously. ‘I don’t know why it’s a big deal when you havetwomore years of Danika. Congratulations, by the way. On both the new extended contract and your new lady friend. You two seem to have clicked.’

‘Well, the show is heavily edited so—’

‘Let’s go, little bro, we got the goods! We grabbed a box of child-sized rubbers for you—’ He stops in his tracks when he spots her in front of me. ‘Oh. My. God.’

Berkley steps away from me. She probably wishes she could step right in a new life right now and I don’t blame her.

‘Where you been, girl?’ Mike asks Berkley like they’re old friends. ‘Sometimes I hear Will in his room trying to call you when he’s slopping drunk to get a piece but you never answer. You got a back line?’ He and Finn laugh at this.

‘Just check out,’ I say, shoving him away from us and towards the register.

‘Where’s Jonah?’ Berkley asks. ‘Shouldn’t you three have a camera up your ass?’

I laugh. There she is, my spitfire Berkley, pretending she has no heart.

‘He’s around here somewhere. Guy’s gotten pretty sneaky over the years.’

‘I’ve noticed. Every time I turn on my TV there’s an image of you and Miss Frost and I don’t know about all the other fans but pass the ice pick, please, I need to shove it into my eyes.’

God, even pissed, she’s adorable. I wish I could fix this.

‘Youwantedto move on and I’ve no doubt Alex will attempt to be your knight in shining armor soon enough.’

‘And Danika will be your princess,’ she snaps back.

‘Let’s go, Willy or we’ll leave your ass here,’ Mike yells on his way out of the store. We can’t go anywhere and not alert the whole damn place that we’re there. How would people adore him? The ‘king’ of Portland. Ugh.

‘Sounds like your ride’s leaving,’ Berkley says, walking away from me towards the front counter.

‘Call me sometime,’ I say into her ear as I head to the door, touching her back as I do and feeling her stiffen up at me being so close to her.

‘No thanks,’ she says, never looking at me as I leave.

‘Hey,’ I say, stopping in the doors.

Finally, our eyes meet and I do the one thing she can’t unsee. The one thing I know to do that can say what my heart wants to scream but shouldn’t because it breaks all her rules. I touch my chest, then point her way. Immediately her shoulders drop and she sucks in a breath.

HOOONNNKKK. HONK. HONK. HONK.

That’s my cue. If I don’t leave now, Mikey’ll have a press conference in the parking lot about his purchases and then publicly beg to be the face of their companies.

I get into the back of Mikey’s SUV next to Jonah, who’s apparently filmed our entire encounter. Great. They shouldn’t use it but the show’s become a little ‘sin now, apologize later’. I’ve got zero privacy and of course that’d be when I ran into her for the first time in a long time.

What did I even just accomplish doing what I did back there? It’s not like she’s going to ever take me back. I signed asecondcontract.

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