Page 57 of Just Not That Into Billionaires

“Or maybe it’s something incredibly endearing…like Toys for Tots donations,” Noelle says.

“Or a product that got discontinued,” Antonio suggests. “Invite me over and I’ll get it out of him. I’ll be sneaky.”

“Antonio, don’t even think it!” I say, laughing. Antonio is an amazing model and friend, but not the best actor. Though he is the best over-actor.

Jada turns to me. “Benny said that you can’t set foot in there, but a friend could. You could stand in the doorway and a friend could look through the boxes.”

“No way!” I say. I forbid anybody looking in Benny’s boxes and the conversation rolls on to Tabitha’s style storefront empire as we like to call it. I listen, loving my friends extra hard.

But she’s given me an idea: I promised Benny that I wouldn’t ever go in that room, but I could stand in the doorway and teach, couldn’t I? And Kelsey and the girls could be in there. Nobody would have to touch the boxes. There’s enough room in there to rehearse without having to go near the boxes. It’s such a brilliant idea!

I text Mac, instructing him to arrange it, complete with a link to the parents-and-guardian contact info on Dropbox. He can always say “no.”

Rex arrives and kisses Tabitha and proceeds to order several baskets of deep-fried tater tots for the group. Tabitha is just beaming, because that’s how much she loves them—almost as much as she loves Rex.

“I understand congratulations are in order,” Rex says to me.

“Uh! Don’t get me started!” I say. “But I couldn’t be more excited about the tots!”

I don’t eat that kind of thing while in rehearsal mode—I have to worry about weigh-ins and bloating and keeping my energy level up, but I allow myself to have a few when the baskets arrive. And then a few more, because they are so delicious, they blow my mind.

And then a few more.

Eventually, I force myself out of my chair and excuse myself to go to the restroom to stop myself from consuming the whole basket. In-town performances start soon, and I have to be good.

I get in line behind a couple, thinking about the boxes, and suddenly I’m replaying the kiss, snapping back to the fierce gravitational force of the scene, every deliciously sexy, edgy, exciting moment of it.

I work the stuffing out of my assets.

I breathe in the memory of it, filling myself with the goodness of it.

And I know I think wishfully, but it really seemed like he was into the kiss for a while there. And for that matter, I still think he remembers “Alejandro.” There’s no way he doesn’t, considering his amazing memory and how many times we all heard the song. Why would he lie about it? It’s one of my favorite memories of him.

Argh!

I send a text to Benny.

Me: You’re such a liar. You totally know ‘Alejandro’ still!

Which comes out as “Yours such a life” thanks to autocorrect and predictive text and me hitting the send button early.

Me: Scratch that.

Which comes out as “such that” due to those same factors.

I amend the text yet again with similar results, and suddenly my phone is ringing.

And naturally my attempt to send his call to voicemail ends with his voice saying, “Francine? Is that you? Where are you?”

I press the thing to my ear. “Screw you, you know that you still know ‘Alejandro.’ And so do I. We both know that you know ‘Alejandro.’ We both know that song perfectly well, that’s all I’m saying.”

I’m all about getting off the line, but he wants to know where I am and if I’m okay and with friends.

“Yes to all of the above. Your asset is well and good!” With that I hang up.

Why did I contact him? Why would I do that? How embarrassing is it that I’m acting like a besotted schoolgirl?

Several minutes later, I’m back with the gang. They’ve left a last tater tot for me, and it makes me feel weepy, so touched and tipsy am I. “You guys are the best. The absolute best. You would never think I’m an asset!”

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