I spread my fingers apart, peeking at her as she shoved her cell phone screen at me.
“Just watch it.”
“I don’t want to,” I whined.
“And why not? Walker Rhodes brought you onstage. And he sang to you. He sang to you like he was in love with you. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She paused to catch a breath before continuing. “Actually, he did a lot of things tonight I’d never seen before. He was pretty awesome. Didn’t you think?” She turned toward me and waited for a response.
“He puts on a great show,” I admitted, my tone as unenthusiastic as I could muster.
“That’s it? He puts on a great show?” she mimicked before shaking her head at me. “What happened, anyway? You were having a great time at the show before you got pulled onstage. And even when you were up there, you looked like you might pass out, but you—” She snapped her fingers in the air between us. “Ugh. What’s the right word? You…”
I watched as she struggled, knowing exactly what she was trying to say. I simply wanted to avoid the conversation altogether. Because if I knew Keri, and I did, she wouldn’t let this go so easily.
“You know what I mean, so just answer me!” she howled, exasperated.
I turned my gaze toward the window and watched the city lights rush by in a blur. “He told me to leave my phone number with his security guard,” I said softly.
“He what?” Keri squealed.
My gaze remained fixed, but I raised my voice. “He told me to leave my number and it pissed me off.”
She slapped a hand on my thigh to force my attention in her direction, so I turned toward her slowly. “You didn’t leave it for him, did you?” It was a sarcastic assumption more than an actual question.
I shook my head.
“Well, why the hell not?” She threw her hands up in the air as if I were the most frustrating person on the planet.
“Because I didn’t want to, okay?” I shouted. “Because he probably asks every single girl he sings to every night to leave her number. I wasn’t trying to be his Tuesday night fuck. And I didn’t want to be one of many.”
Keri sucked in a breath. “That’s the real reason!” She pointed an accusatory finger at me.
“What is?” I snarled, the heat in my face rising along with my temper.
“You didn’t want to be one of many. I know you, Madison Myers. You’d never date a guy who made you feel like you were replaceable. I get it.”
I lowered my head. I couldn’t hide anything from her; Keri knew my dating history. It wasn’t like I lived like a nun, I had dated here and there, but my job was demanding and it came first. Besides, no one…
Stop it. Don’t go there. What’s past is past, and you can’t change it.
Defeated, I huffed out a long breath. “It was so insane up there with him at first, you know? When he touched me, sparks tore through the very fiber of my being. The fiber of my being, Keri!” I exaggerated. “It was intense. I knew it didn’t mean anything, but when he asked me for my number, it made me feel che
ap. Like a whore.”
“Why would you be the whore? He’s the whore,” she snapped.
“I just felt…” I hesitated. “Cheapened. Disrespected maybe? Which doesn’t make any sense, I know, because I don’t even know the guy, but that’s still how it felt. Like he took something magical and dipped it in shit at the end.”
Keri burst out laughing. “You’re fucking nuts. I love you.”
“I love you too. But we are kind of avoiding the real question here,” I added.
Her eyebrows pulled together. “And what question is that?”
“Why the hell did he pick me?”
I arrived at work the next morning both emotionally and physically spent. Who knew that kind of excitement could take so much out of you? Tossing my purse into my desk drawer, I turned on my computer, grabbed my notepad, and poked my head into my boss’s office.
“Morning, Jayson. Can I get you anything?” I stared at his messy dark hair. He already looked completely stressed out, and it wasn’t even nine a.m.