Even though I’m the assistant, Kendra actually organized everything. Ava, Sam, Kendra, Blaire, Beckett’s assistant Kelsey, and I are all sitting at a high top table in tiny dresses sipping expensive cocktails.
The revelation that Mason and I are together came about when Blaire started scoping the place out for hot guys for Kelsey and me.
But Kendra stopped her, clueing her in to my budding relationship with Mason.
I shrug, still staring at the pink drink in a martini glass with a sugar coated rim in front of me. “It’s still pretty new. We haven’t really talked about anything other than work stuff lately.”
She digs her elbow into my side. “That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard. You didn’t even try to bring it up!”
Laughing, I hold up my hands. “What did you want me to say? ‘Hey, Blaire. I’ve now filled your shoes completely, and I’m screwing one of the band members.’”
She tilts her head from side to side. “There are worse things. I’m awesome, so if you’re following in my footsteps, that’s not a bad thing. Be aware, though, that Chad’s not going anywhere, so you’ll be stuck as the PA forever if you stay with Cataclysm.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I say dryly.
She sips her drink, looking me over. “Seriously, though, that’s not why you’re with Mason, is it? Some weird attempt to be like me?”
I shove her shoulder. “Are you serious right now? No. That’s not why I’m with Mason.”
Shrugging, she takes another sip. “Just checking. How did that happen anyway? Last I heard he was being a dick to you.”
“Now he’s giving her dick,” quips Kendra, making us all giggle like thirteen-year-olds.
Blaire keeps her attention focused on me, though, not letting Kendra’s joke distract her. I shrug, uncomfortable being the center of attention. Because it’s not just Blaire waiting for the answer to that question. It’s everyone.
“He stopped being a dick a while ago,” I say, hoping that will be enough. Being the center of attention is uncomfortable. But I’m not surprised when they all just keep staring at me, waiting for me to say more.
“Uh-huh. And …?” prompts Blaire. Again, everyone’s eyes are on me, eyebrows raised, faces expectant. It’s like Blaire is their mouthpiece and they’re all telepathically connected.
I look around at all of them, getting more flustered as the seconds stretch out, my mouth open but no words coming out. “You guys were there,” I say to the others, not sure how to put everything that’s happened between Mason and me into words. Not sure if I even want to try. It’s private. “You’ve seen how he’s changed.”
Kendra’s eyes narrow, Ava tilts her head to the side like she’s considering what I just said, and Sam shakes her head. “Not really,” Sam says. She motions between her and Ava with one finger. “We’re pretty wrapped up in mom life, so we’re not that observant. Keeping tiny people from killing themselves or each other is a lot of work. There’s not a lot of attention to spare for the details of someone else’s love life. All I know is that a few weeks ago, you started letting Mason sit next to you. I figured you’d worked out whatever tension was between you at the start. But I never really knew what that tension was from.”
Kendra laughs and snorts and covers her mouth with one hand while she chokes on her drink. When she recovers, her eyes watering and the occasional cough still spluttering out, she plops an elbow on the table and points one perfectly manicured finger at me. “Mason thought she was a groupie the night she started. She went to his dressing room to introduce herself, and he kissed her and stuck his hand down her pants.”
“He did not!” Well, he did, but not the way she’s making it sound.
All eyes swivel to me. Kendra props her chin on her closed fist. “Oh? That was the story I heard. What did he do, then?”
I slouch down a little. I should’ve let Kendra just tell the story with whatever embellishments she felt like adding. It would’ve been better than this. “You make it sound like he tried to finger-fuck me. That’s not what it was. He grabbed my ass. And yeah, okay, he went down the back of my pants to do it, but that was all.”
“But he kissed you?” Blaire asks.
I nod.
“What did you do?”
With a sigh, I resign myself to telling them the whole story, starting with that night. The kiss. The ass grab. Me pushing him away. The piece of ass comment. The animosity. Him calling me every V name except Viola and making more work for me on purpose. The apology. Our uneasy truce where he’d stare at me and call me V as some kind of weird compromise, but how it turned into more of a private nickname and how I actually like it that he calls me V, because he’s the only one who calls me that and how he called me Viola the first night he kissed me for real.
“Hold up, hold up.” That’s Ava. “Kissed you for real? What does that mean?”
I shrug. “I don’t count the kiss that first night. It wasn’t real. He wasn’t kissing me. He was just trying to hook up with a groupie. But that night, when he used my real name and kissed me and …” My cheeks heat as I wave a hand to fill in the blank. “Well, I wasn’t just some nameless, faceless body who didn’t matter at that point.”
When I trail off, they’re all staring at me again, but not expectantly anymore. Considering, perhaps. And I think there’s even a touch of pity in Blaire’s face.
“What?” I ask, unable to keep the defensiveness out of my tone.
Blaire shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says slowly, but in the way that means something. She bites
