“Hell yeah!”I cheered, raising my glass in toast.
We clinked our glasses together, drank our free margaritas from our adoring public, and then stormed the stage.
Joe Whosit was a fucking moron.
Or at least that was what I tried to tell myself.
Chapter 13
Noah
“We need to talk about the next round of Win-A-Date applicants.”
I groaned.Ella had cornered me backstage before our show.Given I was looking through my wardrobe choices with Simone, I couldn’t exactly run away.
Even if it was exactly what I wanted to do.
“Pretty sure I only agreed to the one date.So I don’t know what we have to talk about.”I grabbed a ripped-up heather-gray tee off my rack and pawed through the jeans like it was the most fascinating thing ever.
“Come on, Noah.That date was an unmitigated disaster.You’re getting eviscerated on social media.So you have to do another date.Which means you need to pick one.Or more than one.You could go out with as many as you want.But you need to start picking.”Ella cocked a hip in front of me and gave me that look I was getting used to seeing from the women in my life.
I liked to call it annoyance mixed with a touch of disappointment.“How about you just pick for me again?”
“Pretty sure we proved that the only person who should be doing the picking is you.”
“You say that like this was my idea.I wasn’t the one who invited dozens of strangers to vie for my attention.”I picked a random pair of jeans off the rack.“You can thank your brother for this brilliant scheme.”
“Oh we’ve already had words.Believe me.I had to fix the website twice because it crashed.And I hate that stuff.”
“Fun times.I gotta get dressed.”
“Not in that.”Simone pulled the pants out of my hands and shoved a different pair at me.They looked the same to me, but what did I know?
All I knew was that I really enjoyed the look on Ella’s face as I escaped into the small dressing room in the corner.
But I should’ve known she wouldn’t give up that easily.
After I took too long to put on a tee and a pair of jeans, and once I thought she had to’ve wandered off to take pictures of something else, I exited the room and straight into Ella’s laptop screen.
“Pick.One.Or twelve.I don’t care.But we have to get this party moving.Your guys’ socials are getting insane.Ravenous.We don’t need to foster that kinda mentality from your fans.Sopick.”
Wow.
“Okay, okay.Calm your tits.”I took the laptop out of her hands before she embedded it into my skull.But I couldn’t make sense out of what I was staring at.Last time Ella had gone through and printed out what she thought were my five best bets.Ha.“But how do I pick?”
“Are you serious?Are you really going to pretend you haven’t been on a dating app?”Ella scoffed then her tone turned condescending as she went on, “You read the bios.You look at the pictures.And then you pick the one or more than one that gives you a certain feeling in yourspecial area.”
“Uh, I just meant I didn’t know how to navigate your database here.”I pointed at the screen.
“Shit.Sorry.”Ella winced.
“Not trying to get hit or anything, but maybe you should have something to eat.The baby is probably hungry.”
“What I really need is about twelve hours of sleep.That’s all my body wants to do lately, since it started making another human.I’m exhaustedallthe time.”
Given the shadows under her eyes that even her concealer couldn’t cover—and something I was too smart to point out—I wasn’t surprised.
With my arm around her, I guided Ella to the plush sofa in the middle of the room.I settled her at one end, placed her laptop at the other, then went to grab a donut and a water.Once Ella was happily munching on her snack with her legs slung over me so she could recline on the couch, she showed me how to navigate her database.
