Page 101 of Wingwoman
“Right.” The ruse. The bet.
I was nothing more than a job to her… which is exactly how it needed to be.
I tried to smile back at her, but it was forced. Tight.
“Right,” she repeated. If I wasn’t mistaken, her own smile wobbled at that. “We’ll convince them all that what we have is special and once your album is out, I’ll run away. Sink into the background of society once more.” Something dark blazed in her eyes as she spoke. Like lighting flash paper on fire—it ignited, hot and bright, then vanished in a breath, turning cloudy, smoky.
“Speaking of running away…” I glanced up into her bright eyes. “What happened to you last night? Why’d you run off?” A spark of bright hope flashed through me. One second we were a team, fending off those obnoxious fans together. And next thing I knew, she was gone. Right as I was smoothing it over so the headlines tomorrow wouldn’t readAsshole Country Singer Snubs Fans.
Ink black lashes fanned over the tops of her warming cheekbones with her slow blink. “You seemedoccupiedwith your fans,” she said, her voice suddenly lacking the same warmth that heated her cheeks to a mauve color. “And I know you need to give them your time and all, but I just couldn’t watch it. I couldn’t watch them fawn all over you. Been there, done that. But I also knew I couldn’t ask you to leave, so—”
A sudden awareness filled me, thick like fog and a slow grin spread on my face. “You werejealous,” I said.
“What?No.”
“Youwere. Admit it. You were jealous that I was giving my fans attention.”
“Hardly.” She rolled her eyes.
“Then what was it?” I asked. “If it wasn’t jealousy, then what about me taking selfies with fans bothered you so much you had to leave?”
I waited, watching her in the silence as she nibbled her bottom lip in thought. “Okay, fine, it wassort ofjealousy.”
“Aha!”
“But,” she continued before I could take my full victory lap, “not in the way you’re thinking.”
“Oh yeah? What am I thinking then?”
“You’re thinking I’m so infatuated with your handsomeness and talent that the thought of you batting your ridiculously beautiful baby blues at anyone other than me will make me fly off into a jealous rage.”
I lifted my brows instead of answering her right away.
“Then what was it if it wasn’t your average day-to-day jealousy over my ridiculouslybeautiful baby blues?” I emphasized the phrase she used to describe my eyes, a smile threatening to take over my face.
She thought my eyes were beautiful? I relished in how much it must have pained her to have admitted that.
She took a deep breath. “My ex… the Broadway star… he’d get bombarded with fans too. Not to the level you do, of course. But if we were out at the bars after one of his shows, he got swarmed by people who knew Broadway.”
“I don’t mean to sound like a dick, but are there people who recognize Broadway actors?”
“You’d be surprised. In New York they do. And it was like he intentionally chose to go to the places where theater goers also attended in the hopes that people would recognize him. He loved the attention.”
“I stopped going out with him after the shows because it inevitably turned into an ego strokefest for him where he’d spend an hour signing Playbills and taking selfies while I drank alone in the corner. After a while, it was easier not to join him at all.”
“So it makes you feel forgotten?” I asked. I knew some of this already, of course. But she hadn’t opened up with this much detail to me ever before. Her vulnerability was refreshingly beautiful.
Her lips thinned. “Yes, but it’s not just that. After I stopped joining him after his shows, there was one night he met a woman. She was a Broadway actress too. A several-Tony-Award-winning blah, blah, blah. And she offered to ‘mentor’ him even though he was already a star in his own right. Her mentee, he started calling himself. One thing led to another and… well, now they’re engaged. He proposed to her only months after ending our engagement withmyengagement ring.”
“Wait… what? He proposed withyourring?”
“He sure did.”
“What a tool. No, he’s not just a tool, he’s the whole damn box. A whole fucking toolbox of an excuse for a man.”
She gave a sad chuckle. “So anyway, I really do understand why you need to give your fans attention, but it’s never going to be easy for me.”
“Hope.” I reached out and took her hand, trying to comfort her, but all she did was shake her head.
