“What’d he say?” Jeremy asked when Reg hung up the phone.
“Do you really want to know?” Reg brushed his fingers through Jeremy’s hair.
“No.” He rubbed Reg’s chest through his shirt. “All I want to do is sing and play my guitar. The rest of it can fall off a cliff for all I care.” He sighed. “But if I want to do one, I’m stuck with the other.”
“Not anymore.”
It seemed almost too good to be true. But that was the case for so many things with Reg. The man himself was too good to be true, and yet here he was.
“Thank you.” Jeremy kissed Reg’s chin. “You’ll tell me if it’s important, yeah?”
“’Course I will.”
“Okay.” He flung one leg over Reg’s thigh and closed his eyes. “I’m beat.”
“Sleep.” Reg kissed his head. “I’ll wake you up when we get there.”
With a slow nod, Jeremy started drifting off, smiling at the image of big, burly Reggie Moore as barely over five feet, slender Yoko Ono. But then the thought shifted into something else Reg had said, something as exhilarating as it was terrifying: Reggie Moore as a rock star’s wife, or in this case, husband. His husband.
“I CAN’T even tell you how excited I am to meet you!” a diminutive woman with a blonde ponytail gushed as soon as Jeremy opened his dressing room door.
He knew this must be Becky Parks because Reg had prescreened her for evil. Those had been his exact words, and somehow, they’d made Jeremy laugh even though he was stuck waiting to do interviews at the end of yet another long day.
“Hey, Becky.” Reg walked up from behind him, draped his arm over his shoulders, and kissed the side of his head. “Great show, right?”
“Oh my gosh, yes! I hope Bill lets me stay on your file so I can watch you perform for the last six weeks of your tour. Jeremy Jameson! I can’t believe it!”
“See?” Reg said to Jeremy as he turned him around and led him back into the room. “I told you she was a fan.”
“You didn’t tell me she was a teenager,” Jeremy whispered under his breath.
“Hey, Becks,” Reg said as he sat on the small love seat in the corner and pulled Jeremy onto his lap.
It figured Reg would already be on a nickname basis with the new publicist. Jeremy wasn’t surprised. He’d never met someone easier to get along with than Reg. It was a testament to Francis’s asshattery that Reg had never fully warmed up to him.
“Yes?” Her blue eyes got huge, and she rushed closer. “Do you need something?”
“Tell JJ a little about yourself.” Reg stretched to the side and pulled a chair over. “Like, where you went to school and your work experience.”
“Oh, sure thing.” She sat in the chair and crossed her hands in her lap. “I went to Stanford for undergrad and Harvard for my graduate degree in marketing. Then I worked for a few different advertising firms in New York before moving to San Francisco and helping some dot-coms get off the ground. I had shares, and I did really well when we went public, so I took some time off, but I’m not really good with time off, and then I heard about this job and you’re my favorite musician.” She reached out and took Jeremy’s hand in hers. “My favorite! And I couldn’t turn it down.”
The entire bio was given in what felt like thirty seconds. Jeremy’s brain was reeling. “How old are you?” he asked, trying to assimilate all that life experience with the woman in front of him.
“I’m twenty-nine.” Her ponytail swayed from side to side even though she was sitting perfectly still. “Why?”
“You look much younger.”
“Oh! Aren’t you sweet for saying that!” She cupped her cheeks. “I have great moisturizer. SPF 30.” She leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “Do you want me to get you a bottle? It’s pricey, but, oh my gosh, so worth it.”
“I don’t, uh.” Jeremy looked at Reg, but all he got in return was a knowing smile. “Sure,” he said to Becky. “That’d be great.”
“Okay!” She bounced out of her seat. “So, listen, Francis already had three interviews scheduled for you tonight, which is crazy, right? I mean, after how hard you worked on stage.” She shook her head. “But I didn’t want to cancel because that’d be, like, totally rude.”
Jeremy nodded, already knowing where the conversation was going. It’d be fine. He’d do the interviews and then go back to the hotel with Reg. Just the two of them. Alone in a room with a bed. That thought alone was enough to have him firming up down below.
“So I came up with a great plan!” Becky was still talking. “I’ll bring the three people doing interviews in here when you’re ready. Each of them can ask two questions. That means they’ll hear the answers to six questions total, which is good enough. Then they’ll leave.” She wiped her hands together. “Done and doner! What do you think?”