“He’s at the gym? Damn. I’m impressed.” My head felt like a snare drum. “I don’t know. Sit by the pool with a Bloody Mary? That sounds perfect to me.”
“I can do that.” Miles glanced at his phone, then he started laughing. “Hey, did you see this? Young just sent it to me.”
“I don’t even know where my phone is.”
“Probably in that girl’s purse.”
“Shut up.” I glanced around and found it had fallen out of my pocket when I was sleeping on the couch. It was on the carpet under the coffee table. I had several dozen notifications. “Why is my phone blowing up? I can’t deal with any of this right now.”
“Check this out.” Miles shoved his phone in my face and turned up the volume. It was a female news anchor behind the desk and in the corner was a picture of the coffee shop.
Oh, God, I knew where this was going.
“Raiders wide receiver JJ Beckett came to the aid of a young woman who fainted in a casino coffee shop this morning.” She continued talking as a video of me leaping over the counter appeared. “It happened at around five a.m. this morning, and wow, what quick thinking from the star player. It seems the employee in question is okay, but, ladies, let’s not all start fainting in JJ Beckett’s presence,” she said with a grin as the video showed me carrying Mia into the back room. “He can’t rescue us all.”
“You’re a damn hero,” Miles said. “Saving baristas in distress.”
“That’s Mia,” I told him. “Look closer.”
His eyebrows shot up, then he watched the video again. “What the hell? Why is the stripper maid and thief working at a Starbucks?”
“She’s not a stripper. I don’t think. Maybe she does that too on her night off.” She certainly had the body for it. “If she works all these jobs, would she really steal from me?”
He shifted his gaze from the phone to stare hard at me. “Maybe she stole from you because she has two jobs. She’s broke.”
“Maybe she stole because she’s desperate. Maybe she has stuff going on in her life that I don’t know about. She works her ass off, clearly.”
“Oh, hell, no,” Miles said. “You’re really going there? That is justification 101, Beckett.”
It was. But I had already gone there.
“And put some pants on, damn. I don’t need to see your hard dick.”
I did have a hard dick. It happened every time I thought about Mia. “Quit looking at my dick.”
“Gladly.”
Chapter Nine
Mia
“Really?” I asked the universe, as I stood on the sidewalk staring up at the building that I had run out of barefoot five months earlier. “This is just rubbing my face in the disaster my life is.”
It had been two weeks since I had sneaked out of James’ room in the early morning for the second time. The second time had been much less satisfying than the first. I had gotten a few hours of much needed sleep, which was more practical than sex, but the first time certainly had been more fun. I hadn’t heard from him since I’d left, which hadn’t surprised me. Arguably, I’d never given him my number. But that wouldn’t have stopped him if he’d really wanted to get in touch with me. He knew my name, had creeped on my social media in the past.
He had people. An agent, probably an assistant. Someone could have found me if he had wanted me to be found. But he hadn’t. Which was all for the best.
Nothing good could come out of seeing a man who had both lied and thought I was a liar, no matter how good the sex. Which was really good. The best sex maybe ever.
I’d never been identified in the video that had aired on the news. I was simply “coffee shop employee.” Also for the best. My manager, Dawn, hadn’t been thrilled with me for switching shifts and then passing out, but had been mollified when traffic at our location had picked up big-time by people thinking they might catch a glimpse of JJ Beckett. We’d had more twenty-two-year old women ordering frappes than I would have even thought possible. I didn’t even normally work the counter. I was a barista. But when I had changed shifts with Griffen, he’d been scheduled for the front, because he’d changed shifts with someone else, which I hadn’t known. I had my eye on being promoted to assistant manager and I didn’t need this to be the reason I didn’t get the position.
Aside from all of that, the video was embarrassing and a turn-on, all wrapped up in one. I had watched it approximately seventy-two times and couldn’t help but sigh every damn time at the commanding way James had leaped over that countertop to come to my assistance.
Not James. JJ.
I needed to remind myself of that repeatedly.
Now I was due to walk a dog for an owner who lived in the very same building where JJ had given me multiple orgasms. A dog named Mia. It was a horrible, horrible irony.
Normally, on the app I dog walked for, a job like this would have been snapped up instantly. The owner was an elderly woman named Essie. A luxury high-rise practically guaranteed a good tip, and normally you didn’t have to even enter the owner’s apartment. It was standard for a doorman to go up and retrieve the dog, which was reassuring to both dog owner and walker. But a fellow walker had given this job to me because he’d thought it was funny that the dog shared my name. Plus the dog was an adorable dachshund puppy who looked like a total cuddle bug.
I wanted to kiss her little face and bury my head in her fur.
It was the only tactile touch I was getting these days.
Not even Chrissy’s little boy, Kadin, who I relied on for hugs and cuddles, wanted anything to do with me lately. He was going through a cranky growth spurt where mostly he wanted to hit my leg and cry.
It would be nice to just be able to pop people on the leg and cry.
Taking a deep breath, I entered the lobby and approached the doorman. “Hi, I’m here with Paws, to walk the dachshund in apartment fourteen twelve.” I waved my phone to indicate the app. “I can show you the confirmation.”
“It’s not a problem, we were expecting you. I’ll have the dog brought down.”
“Thank you.” I tried not to pace as I waited, uncomfortable with my nerves at being in the building. I didn’t remember what floor James' friend's apartment had been on, but just being in the lobby had every minute of that night running through my head.
I wasn’t over James. JJ. Which was so stupid. It was one night.
It didn’t matter that he had been sweet to me after I had fainted. He’d been a total jerkface to me when he’d caught me in his hotel bed. Though thinking about that made me wince. How else was he supposed to react? I was half-naked in his bed. I wasn’t exactly sure he was in the wrong there.
None of which mattered. I wasn’t going to see him again. Damn it.
“Mia,” a man’s voice said. A sexy, warm, friendly voice.
Oh, God. That was James.
I turned quickly toward the sound and almost had an orgasm on the spot. James was standing in front of me, holding a long-haired dachshund puppy in his big hands. He had her tucked in the crook of his arm. He was in workout clothes. Basketball shorts, a sleeveless shirt that showed off those rock-solid biceps, and sneakers. He had a dog leash around his neck. It looked like he was en route to working out, not finished, because his clothes and hair were dry and I would have sworn his tank had been ironed. There wasn’t a wrinkle in sight.