Friends Don't Fall in Love(56)
CRAIG: And before you ask, we’re just getting BBQ. Nothing fancy.
LORELAI: At that little shack outside town you keep going on about? FINALLY. I’ve been waiting for-the-fuck-ever for you to take me!
LORELAI: Speaking of taking me … I have this fantasy about you, me, and that bike and a deserted back road …
I groan, dropping my phone on my desk and burying my face in my hands, working to dispel the image that’s instantaneously and inconveniently branded on my brain.
“Everything okay, boss?”
I scoot closer to my desk, making sure any evidence of my reaction to her text is hidden, but Arlo is already sauntering over to the incriminating phone still lit with her message.
“I’m gonna need to you to explain your litmus test to Lorelai. She seems blurry on the details.”
Arlo’s reach halts inches from the phone and he throws his head back with a whoop of ringing laughter. “I’ll schedule her in for a one-on-one next time she’s in to record.”
* * *
Just before I’m about to leave for the day, my Mac pings with an alert that I’ve received an email from the agent of the pop princess looking to go country whom I’ve been in the early contract stages with. She’s decided to pull out over “a difference of visions,” but attached to the email is an article from some industry insider magazine reporting on Lorelai’s “disastrous” (their words, not mine) apology tour that wasn’t.
I skim through the article, out of morbid curiosity, but it’s the same old shit-for-brains nonsense as all the others. I read the email again, gauging my response. Honestly, I’m not surprised, nor am I really that upset. I mean, I don’t want to lose business, especially only a few years in, but I get it. If she was trying to make the transition to pop, it might be different, but if she’s trying to get on the good side of the industry and worm her way in, aligning with On the Floor Records is probably not the way to do it.
“Knock knock!”
I look up and see Lorelai in a tiny flowy skirt, a denim jacket, and her cowboy boots. “Hey, gorgeous … er, friend.”
She raises an eyebrow, amused. “You okay?”
I close the lid of my laptop with a slap and get to my feet, stretching. “Yeah. Long day, but I’m much better now,” I assure her. “Let me just grab my helmet. Did you walk?”
Lorelai holds up her helmet that I somehow missed. “Yeah. I didn’t get my run in this morning, so I took a meandering stroll.”
“Hey, boss, did you see that email from Star Olympia’s agent? Can’t say I’m shocked they backed out, but that commission would have been—” Arlo’s voice echoes through the hallway until he leans around the doorjamb. “Oh. Hey, Lorelai! I didn’t realize you were here.”
“I let myself in. You looked busy. What’s this about Star Olympia?”
I wave a hand, purposely casual while throwing Arlo a meaningful look. He takes my cue and blows a loud raspberry. “Eh. Nothing. She was maybe considering recording a country album with us, but honestly, it was barely a thing. You know pop stars. Flighty as fuck. Good riddance if you ask me. Who wants ’em or their money. Not us!”
Okay, so he might have laid it on a little too thick. I throw him an exasperated glare before Lorelai turns to me, looking worried. “She backed out?”
“No. She never had a contract. We met once to consult.” After which she was ready to sign the papers and hand us total control, but I figure that part’s best kept to myself. I grab my helmet and start to shuffle everyone toward the door. The sooner we get to my bike, the sooner it will be too loud for Lorelai to ask me any more probing questions.
“It was because of me, wasn’t it?”
“No, darlin’. It was because of me.”
“Huck. It’s because you’re working with me.”
“Can you lock up behind us, Arlo?”
“For sure. Have fun, you two!”
We make it out the door and around the back of the building, where I’d parked my bike in the shade earlier this morning. I straddle the bike and look expectantly over my shoulder at Lorelai. “I don’t have a sidecar, Jones. You’re gonna have to hop on and hold tight.”
She presses her lips together and I know she wants to ask me more questions but there’s no point. I’m more stubborn than she is. Eventually she relents, pulling her helmet on and getting on behind me. She wraps her arms around my waist extra tight and we get out of town.
* * *
One of the perks of not dating, I suppose, is that no one feels the need to wait for romance and flowers and soft music to get naked. No arbitrary third-date deadline to keep things proper. Just sex. When you stop by her place to drop off work and she’s dressed for a run and you suddenly realize you have a previously unexplored interest in the slippery thin material of athletic wear, sex. When you’re pulling together an album at work, and she comments on the convenient height of your desk and how hot you look in reading glasses, sex. When you watch the video of her telling off the douchey radio deejay for the fifteenth time and need her to know how amazing she is, sex. When she sends a quick “hopping in the shower” text followed by “left my front door unlocked better hurry before someone kidnaps me,” shower sex.