Practice Makes Perfect (When in Rome, #2)(21)

James laughs again, and their camaraderie is making me feel a little ill.

“We’ll see,” James says before winking at Annie in a blatantly Matthew McConaughey kind of way. And now I want to run him over with his own truck.

Am I jealous? No, I’m never jealous. You can’t have a series of nostrings-attached hookups with women for your entire adult life and be the jealous type. It’s impossible. And yet, as I see Annie eyeing James in an assessing way and coming to some sort of conclusion, I realize I am absolutely jealous.

“Hey, James?” she begins thoughtfully. “I have sort of a random question to ask you. And feel free to say no, but would you—”

“I’ll do it,” I say quickly, cutting Annie off.

She whips her head in my direction and stares up at me. “You will? But you just said—”

“I know. I changed my mind. I want to do it.” She blinks and smiles up at me, and my heart fills with something that feels like lava. “But I have one condition.”

“Name it.”

I grin. “I get to walk out of here today with your book.”

“My book?” she asks, hoping she heard me wrong.

“The book.” I smile as I watch two pink splotches hit the apples of her cheeks.

For a beat, there’s nothing but silence. Painful, thick silence. And then slowly Annie’s sweet smile tilts ever so slightly into a devious grin, and I realize I just got epically played. “You’ve got a deal, bodyguard.”

“Executive protection agent.”

James clears his throat. “Why do I feel like I just missed out on an important opportunity?”

Because you did. Now, get lost, she’s mine.





CHAPTER NINE


Annie





I dramatically throw open the door to Amelia’s studio and then lunge to catch the handle before it slams against the wall. The point was to make a shocking entrance—not a hole in the wall.

Amelia whirls around on the piano bench, wide-eyed.

I hold up the letter. “This was unacceptable, you little…” She leans closer to see if this will actually be the moment I say something cutting. “Meddler! Beautiful meddler actually, because you’re honestly glowing today—but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m mad at you!”

Amelia smiles. “You are looking beautiful today too.”

“Don’t try to butter me up. You’re in trouble. You Funny-Faced me!”

“Yeah, I did!” Her smile grows. “What was his answer?”

I move to sit on the little couch against the wall and run my hand back and forth over the soft green velvet of the armrest. “You don’t get to know. Meddlers don’t get rewards.”

“You agreed last night to let me come up with a plan, remember? You said you wanted someone to swoop in and teach you how to get good at dating, like Fred taught Audrey to be the Quality woman. So I found your Fred.”

“But you weren’t supposed to present the plan to me in front of Fred!” I shake my head. “I mean, Will—where he would bodily wrestle me for the friggin’ thing.”

Amelia takes in a happy gulp of air. “He said yes, didn’t he?”

I fold my arms, eyeing the space around me and choosing to let her dangle a little in uncertainty. It’s the best form of torture I can think of at the moment. “The studio turned out nicely. Are you liking it?”

Her studio really is adorable. It’s one room with an attached bathroom. Amelia said she didn’t want anything too fancy, just a quiet space with natural light to work on her music when she’s home. There’s a piano, a few guitars, and a desk with equipment for recording in the corner. But my favorite part of the space is this little cozy lounging area composed of a green velvet couch and a few floor poufs scattered around for extra seating. Above the couch there’s a giant poster of our queen—Audrey Hepburn—standing in a cream-colored dress in front of a wall of pink flowers.

“Yeah, yeah, the studio is great. Tell me what Will said.”

I squint at various parts of the room. “You need more plants in here. I think a fiddle-leaf fig in the corner over there would be nice.”

“Annie…”

“And a succulent on your piano.”

Amelia stands up from the piano bench and launches herself onto the couch with me. She tackles me in a hug. “Don’t be mad at me, Annie! I can’t take your polite chitchat. It’s worse than a cold shoulder.”

I resist her hug, tucking my arms tightly against my sides. Must resist the affection. She hugs even harder. Squeezing the daylights out of me. When I can’t stand it any longer, I blurt, “Fine! I give. Will said yes,” and then I return her hug, because not many people understand this about me, but I love affection.

Amelia squeaks, squeezes one more time, and then jumps up to do a quick happy dance—or maybe victory dance?—and then shoots finger guns at me. “I knew it! I knew he would.”

“Whoa! Careful, there.” I reach forward and pretend to carefully remove her finger guns, turning on the safety and then putting them away under the couch. “You’re dangerous when you’re gloating.”

Laughing and slightly out of breath, she sits back down beside me. “So when do you guys start?”