Sidecar Crush

“So when are you coming over to remake my wardrobe?” Scarlett asked.

I laughed. “Anytime.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” she said. “Tell you what, that’s payment for dragging my poor quiet brother into the media with you.”

She smiled and winked at me, and I knew she was kidding. But I still felt bad.

“I feel awful for what they’ve put him through,” I said.

“Yeah,” Scarlett said. “This kind of thing is hard on Jameson. When the rest of the town found out about Callie’s sweater turning up at Dad’s place, he pretty much disappeared. I think he came into town for groceries once, but that was about it. It was almost impossible to get him to come out of hiding.”

“Wow, I didn’t realize,” I said.

“He’s never liked it when attention is on him,” she said. “If he could find a way to be invisible, I think he’d do it. He tends to withdraw, even from people he loves.”

I remembered how scared Jameson used to get when we’d have to go up in front of the class when we were kids in school together. I could still see him, putting his head down on his desk, like he hoped the teacher would forget he was there. As soon as she’d call on him, he’d get this stricken look on his face—broke my heart, even then.

We’d had a system back then. If he got called up in front of the class, I’d give him a special signal—tug my ear twice and wink. It was such a silly thing, but each and every time I’d done it for him, the terrified look in his eyes had melted away, and he’d given me that sweet little boy grin.

But I knew all too well how much Jameson hated the very sort of attention he was being subjected to right now. I’d been worrying about it since the first article with his name in it had come out. Although he’d assured me it was okay, I wondered if he was just telling me what I wanted to hear.

Eventually, the media attention would die down. But I was pretty certain it was going to get worse before it got better. I still had to fly out to L.A. for the end-of-season media event and party. That would have me back in front of cameras, and would probably breathe one last gasp of life into the Leah Larkin gossip mill.

Once that was over, the stories and attention would wane. Some new scandal would pop up to take its place. I no longer wanted to pursue a career in the entertainment industry, so it wouldn’t be long before my name faded from the public’s memory.

In the meantime, I wondered if Jameson would decide I was no longer worth all this hassle. If he’d withdraw from me, too.

Scarlett’s phone blared the chorus of a country song, and she picked it up to answer the call.

“Hey, sexy,” she said. “How’s poker night?”

She was quiet for a moment and I could hear Devlin’s muffled voice.

“They’re what?” she asked, her voice a half-screech, half-laugh. “You’re kidding, right? You’re not kidding? They are? Oh my god. Okay, we’ll be right over.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Apparently the menfolk are little out of hand at poker night,” she said. “I think we should go over there and help sort it out.”

That didn’t sound good. “Sort it out?”

She shook her head. “I can’t even explain. We’ll just have to go over there and see what’s what.”

27

JAMESON

With Leah Mae at the spa with my sister, I spent the afternoon in my shop. My deadline was looming, and I still didn’t know how to finish the piece.

Dee had told me in the beginning that the client loved my style, and he’d prefer to let me use my creativity, rather than him dictating what he wanted. I had the front elevation of the building—a drawing that showed what the façade was going to look like—and the location he’d reserved for my sculpture. But aside from that, I didn’t have any direction.

I’d been excited by that in the beginning. It meant I could take any direction I wanted. And at first, I’d planned to create something that echoed the lines of the building. But what I’d actually sculpted was completely different than anything I’d done before.