Page 26 of Heavy Shot

“Yes. I told him I’d really fucked you over before and I didn’t want to try to use you for publicity.”

“You did really fuck me over,” she agreed with him.

“I know. And I’m sorry. And I would never ask you to do that. I wouldn’t use you like that.”

“Why not? You did before.”

Kline winced at the truth in the words. “Can we get out of here? I’ll drive you home.”

“Fine,” Jill said, rising, tidily pushing her chair back in.

“Fine,” he agreed. Out of habit repeated every time he had a woman as company, he put a hand in the small of her back to guide her out, nodding at a few people who waved as they passed, surprised by the bank of flashbulbs that met them on the way to the valet. Fucking Roland, Kline thought. He had to have alerted the swarm of photographers who were calling Kline’s name, trying to get a reaction from him.

Jill gave a hard shiver beside him, but by the time he looked down to gauge her level of discomfort, she had pulled a bland smile over her face and found her light and an angle to lean into to make the most of the candid photos being snapped just feet away from her face. When Kline’s car came around, he helped her into the passenger side, using his body to shield her from any upskirt photography, then he flicked off the pack of paparazzi as he slung himself into the driver seat.

She was full-on gaping at him as they drove away. “Is it always like this for you?” she asked, stunned.

“More often than not, these days. I got into a scrap with one of them a little while ago and now they’re all trying to get me to react.” He shifted gears and asked, “What’s your address again?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her thumb through her phone. She gave him the address, which he set in his nav system, and she dropped the phone back into her bag. “I need to learn this, I guess.”

Shifting again, Kline grunted his agreement. After a few moments of silence he said, “I was young and stupid, you know? Back then. I wasn’t trying to use you for connections–not blatantly anyway. I thought it was nice to get to know someone who had them, and that maybe it would work out for me that way, but I wasn’t trying to trick you.”

She sighed. “Water under the bridge. I’ve been married. You’ve been married. You have a child. I have a…”

“Gus. You have a Gus,” Kline told her, grinning as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “What’s that all about anyway?”

“I adore Gus, you know that. I think he’s still a little in love with me. I try to keep him at arms-length because, well, I’m a little afraid he would subsume me.”

“He’d lock you in a tower like Rapunzel.”

“That’s the last thing I need. But I do love him to pieces and he’s my only friend out here.”

“What about me? I’m out here.”

She fixed him with a narrow gaze that made him glad he had to keep his eyes on the road so he could avoid looking directly at her. “Are you my friend?”

“I’m not your enemy,” he said. “I’d like to be friends, at least.”

“At least?”

He glanced over and grinned his most winning smile. “I mean, you look great, Jill.”

“You’re disgusting,” she laughed, shaking her head. Then she said with a reluctant sigh. “You look good, too.”

“I say two people as good-looking as us have to be at least friends. Otherwise, it’s like Zeus and Hera clashing.”

“Zeus and Hera?”

“Ares and Aphrodite?”

“Heracles and Deanira more like.”

“I don’t know that one,” Kline frowned.

“Brush up on your Sophocles,” she said lightly. “Friends. We can be friends.”

“At least?”

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