“That’s a yes,” Ethan muttered and Hannah affectionately stroked her thumb over his jaw. Catching her wrist, he planted a kiss on her palm.
Jo’s chest ached at the display of casual intimacy. All of her friends had found their person and were barreling headfirst towards their happily ever after and she was—what? Playing house with the guy she picked up while bartending? Scraping together side jobs to pay her rent for another few months with no real plan for what came next? Flitting from thing to thing like she was still nineteen and had all the time in the world?
If her modeling jobs drying up over the last year had taught her anything it was that time was not an infinite resource. No matter how much she liked to dance on bars and act like she didn’t care, her friends were moving on, growing up… and leaving her behind.
“When do we get to meet him?” Sabrina asked.
“You’re not—it’s not like that,” Jo stammered, pulling her thoughts back to their conversation, but the words felt wrong in her mouth. “This is a vacation fling.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t a vacation because you’re working,” Tessa said with a knowing smirk.
“Fine. It’s a work fling. Either way, it’s just for this trip. When it’s over…”
Caleb shook his head, hiding a snort by taking a sip of his drink. “Molly and I know all about work flings that are supposed to end when the trip is over.”
“Lay off, guys. She’s flustered,” Kyla said.
“I am not.” Jo shot to her feet, suddenly needing to move. “I have to get back toworkon myworktrip.”
They shouted their goodbyes and she disconnected the call, more than a little angry with herself for actually being flustered. She was Joelle Fucking Baker, goddammit, and she did not get flustered talking about men. Especially not rich, important, boss-type men who couldn’t have been clearer that there was a time limit on their arrangement—even if he did look at her like—
Do not finish that thought.
She paused her pacing and turned one way and then the other, not sure what to do next andhatingthe nervous energy suddenly bubbling up inside her.
“Jooooooooooo,” Annie wailed from her room down the hall. “What do you wear to a dance party?”
She sighed, shaking the last of her nerves out of her hands. “Don’t worry, kid. I’ve got you.”
Figuring out what exactly she was feeling about her whole fuck-buddies-with-her-sort-of-boss situation? Screw that. She didn’t have time to obsess over the way he looked at her. She had an outfit to put together.
It looked like someone had taken Annie’s suitcase and shaken it out, clothing flung all across her bedroom. “Annie? Jo?” Derek called.
“In here!” Jo and Annie chorused from the en suite off Annie’shotel room.
Annie sat on the counter, completely still except for the nervous flutter of her fingers in her lap as Jo twisted sections of her hair and pinned them in place, a mouthful of bobby pins held between Jo’s lips. She slid the last section of hair into the twisty, twirly hairstyle, loose ends sticking out at odd angles that gave his daughter a sort of wild look that somehow matched the chaotic energy of the seven year-old. Jo removed the rest of the bobby pins from between her lips and set them on the counter.
“There.” She held up a hand mirror so Annie could see the reflection of the back of her hair in the mirror mounted on the wall. “What do you think?”
Annie flung her arms around Jo’s neck. “Thank you, thank you! It’s perfect!”
Jo smiled, gently folding Annie into a hug and pressing a kiss to the crown of her head, and suddenly Derek couldn’t breathe. He leaned against the doorway and forced air into his lungs as a vision filled his mind of what it would be like to find them like this all the time. For Jo to help Annie get ready for special occasions, to come home from work to the two of them hatching plans and creating chaos in the best way. The kind of chaos that felt like happiness.
He watched them whisper to each other until Annie burst into giggles. The sound unlocked something in his chest, loosening the bands that had been constricting his airflow, her joy somehow making it okay for him to let in his own.
“That’s a pretty dress,” Derek said to his daughter. “I don’t recognize it.”
“It’s Jo’s. She said I could borrow it.”
Derek blinked back his surprise. The dress fell to below Annie’s knees, but on Jo it would have barely covered her ass. It was a simple shape with short sleeves and a crew neck like a t-shirt but completely covered in iridescent sequins. A length of silky black fabric that looked suspiciously like one of his neckties had been looped around her waist and tied in a bow at her lower back, cinching in the material.
Annie slid off the counter and gave him an absent-minded squeeze around his waist on her way into her hotel room. He arched a questioning eyebrow at Jo, who simply shrugged and set about cleaning the counter of the scattered bobby pins and tubes of lip gloss.
“She wanted to dress up for the dance party,” she said.
“She’ll be the sparkliest one in the room.”
“Nothing wrong with a little sparkle.” Jo leaned back against the counter, bringing them face to face. Electricity crackled between them. “Fair warning, though,” she added, wetting her lips. “She’ll be finding glitter in strange places for weeks.”