Page 115 of The Hopelessly Bromantic Duet
Jude
Lucky me. After a long day shooting a cologne commercial, I get to come home to fresh yellowtail in the fridge and an American hunk in my bed.
Fine, he’s not covered in pancakes, or rice, or bread. But TJ still looks good enough to eat, even sound asleep.
I’m quiet as I brush my teeth, shed my clothes, and pad to the bed. If he happens to wake up, though, I won’t complain. I’ll reward him.
After I slide under the covers, I snuggle against this warm man.
“Hey,” he murmurs.
“Hey, you,” I whisper.
I wait to see if he’ll wake up. He’s quiet for several long seconds, then he slurs, “How was your day?”
“Good. Yours?”
More silence. “Good. Meeting. Stuff.”
I laugh to myself. Press a kiss to his shoulder. “See you in the morning,” I say, and I won’t even be upset that it’s our last morning before he returns to New York.
There will be more. I’m sure of it.
The sun blasts its get-the-fuck-out-of-bed rays at me. I rub my eyes and grab my phone. Ugh. It’s only nine.
I’m tempted to hit snooze and catch some more winks before it’s time to prep for my Webflix meeting.
But my notifications blink like mad red dots.
With a heavy sigh, I push up in bed and click on the text from TJ first. He’s out for a run but wants to talk to me when he returns, especially since he needs to catch his flight.
That sounds ominous, but sometimes he comes across that way because he doesn’t use emoticons and hates exclamation points. Weak writing, he’d say. Writing snob, I’d say.
I’m about to reply when I spot a text from Holly.Webflix meeting canceled. But don’t stress. We’ll sort it out. Call me!
I groan, then slump back in bed.
But wait.
Just because it’s canceled doesn’t mean it won’t be rescheduled. After all, meetings get changed all the time. Plus, Holly used exclamation points, so this must be just a blip.
After I turn on my ringer, the phone pings with a text from William:Does this mean I’ll be seeing more of you and your man in Los Angeles? Sweet! You guys are the best! And seriously, I KNEW he was here for business.
What?
Alarm bells begin to blare. William did say something the other night about TJ being here for business. But what the hell does that mean?
The next text is from Olivia.There better be a British character for you, or I’m suing the world.
My stomach curls with dread as I click on the link she sent.
It’s fromThe Hollywood Scoop, the insider gossip blog for the industry that’s pretty much never wrong.
With a knot in my throat, I read.
Word on the street is Webflix just acquired the film and TV rights to bestselling author TJ Hardman’s most recent romance,Top-Notch Boyfriend. You remember this one, right? The author was dumped on TV by a guy who runs a chicken café and was in a jealous lather over Hardman’s skyrocketing popularity. (For the record, I’m Team TJ.) The viral video took off, and so did the book. But that’s not why Webflix’s recently elevated Head of Acquisitions, Robert Walsh, inked the deal late last night after meeting Hardman and his LA agents at CTM yesterday. “It was a whirlwind romance with this book and the author. I fell in love with the story from the first page, and we’re thrilled to bring this fun, sexy, heartfelt queer romance to our millions of streaming viewers worldwide,” he told me when I called him this morning for a comment.
All my hackles rise. It turns out TJ wasn’t writing at a coffee shop during my shoot after all. He was off wooing the head of the world’s biggest streaming service. And he didn’t think to mention that when he was texting me about sushi.