“If that was even an option, do you think I would be standing here?” I tell him and see his eyes start to gradually change from the blue to a shade of gray, except for a little fleck of dark blue in his right eye. You would never see it if you weren’t this close, and now it’s all I can focus on.
“You get one chance,” he says quietly. “One fuckup and you’re out. I don’t give a shit if you have to walk home, even from thirty-thousand feet.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “I don’t know, Tyler, that kind of sounds like you are scared of me. What’s the matter, Tyler? Afraid I’ll uncover all those dirty little secrets you are hiding?”
He puts his head back and laughs, making me even more annoyed with him because it’s a good fucking laugh. “Even if I had secrets, you’re the last person I would tell them to.”
I put my hand on my chest. “My heart is broken.” I tilt my head to the side, and I’m about to say something else when I hear his assistant behind me.
“Jesus, can you give him space?” she says, and I turn to see Cassandra. “There are no questions until we land.” I roll my eyes at her. “Everyone is on board; we are leaving in ten.” She looks at him as she silently dismisses me. I don’t bother saying anything to him and instead walk back to my seat. On the way there, I see that everyone is buckled in and already typing away on their next story. I look around and see Yolanda and Yamina sitting together going over lists. There are a couple of production people who I know will be filming while we do this. I walk to the front and sit in the chair that has my purse in it. I look over and spot the backpack, finally looking at it and I groan inwardly when I realize whose fucking backpack it is. I close my eyes and then open them to look around and see if I can escape without much fanfare but come face to penis with Tyler. My head snaps up while he growls, stepping over me and moving his bag and sitting down. I tuck my bag under the seat in front of me and turn to see that Cassandra is standing next to me as though she is waiting for something.
“You aren’t really expecting me to get up to accommodate you, right? What’s the saying, ‘the early bird gets the worm.’ Oh, look who got the worm,” I tell her. Her eyes go to slits as she huffs and walks to the empty seat in back of us.
“You really need to get her medication.” I look over at Tyler, and if I didn’t know better, I would say he’s trying not to laugh.
Chapter Five
Tyler
Trading in angel wings for baby booties! Was football’s golden boy in the delivery room?
So this is what it’s like to travel with reporters, I think from my chair. Looking around the plane, I see them typing away on their laptop or their iPhone. As I look over at Jessica, she has her laptop open, and a Word document fills the screen. Her words, I assume, will be flowing in a flurry of keystrokes, but she isn’t stressed like the others. Nope. I do a double take as I see she’s playing Candy Crush on her phone. With her guard down, I take a minute to look at her out of the corner of my eye because she’s fucking hot. But that isn’t the problem. The problem is she’s also a pain in my fucking ass.
“I smell wood burning,” she says while still playing her game, her eyes never glancing over to look at me. We’ve been on this flight for about three hours; only ten more to go until we touch down in South Korea, which is the first leg of our tour stop. At least that’s what the daily itinerary tells us. Cassie knows the full itinerary, and although she has told me maybe five or six times, I can’t remember.
“What are you talking about?”’ I ask her; her eyes remain stuck on that game.
“You’ve been staring at me for the past ten minutes without saying a word. In that time, you’ve already read my article,” she says, and then finally she must have died or whatever the hell happens in Candy Crush because she looks up at me. I see that, unlike the rest of the women on this flight, she’s wearing practically no makeup. “You’ve also been thinking for the past ten minutes, hence wood burning, and I know you’re dying to ask me a question, so go ahead.”
I turn toward her, leaning on the side of the chair. “How do you know I want to ask you something?”
She mimics my posture, turning in the seat and putting one foot under her leg. “You started strumming your thumb on the tray table. So either you have a question to ask or you’re a nervous flyer.”
I don’t answer her right away. It’s not because I don’t have a snide comment but because I’m taken aback that she noticed the habit I have when I honestly want to ask a question, but I’m not sure if I should. I’m about to answer her when I look up and see Cassandra standing there. “They have your food ready for you,” she says, and I just nod at her.
“I’ll be there in a second,” I tell her, and she looks at me and then leers at Jessica, who meets her leer with a megawatt bite-me smile. Cassie just nods and walks back to the front where the tables are.
“Is she going to cut your food for you and feed you, too? Maybe tie your bib so you don’t dribble?” Jessica says, trying not to laugh at her own joke.
“She’s my assistant,” I inform her. “That’s what she does.”
“You’re thirty-five years old. If you don’t know how to eat by yourself, we have bigger issues,” she says, and her phone beeps. She looks down at it, and I see the professional journalist in her come out. Her back goes straight, she looks back, and her fingers fly over the keyboard. When she presses send, I hear all the other phones ping and beep simultaneously.
“Fuck.” I hear the three blond journalists shriek from beside me, and then I hear Jim and Jake laugh out loud.
“Well done, Jess!” they yell from the back, and she raises both her hands in the air.
“What just happened?” I ask her, not even sure what the fuck is going on. I look around and see that everyone is now going nuts typing on their own laptop.
“I’ll tell you what just happened,” she says, closing her computer. She holds it in her hand while she closes the tray table and stores it in the armrest. She grabs her Louis and slides the computer in it. “I got the scoop before everyone else.” I watch her, her back still straight, her leg now crossed over the other. “You can say and think what you want about me, and you can swear and curse that I’m on this tour, but I’m here for one simple reason. I’m the best at this.” Even though I roll my eyes at her, she doesn’t stop talking, but she does unbuckle her seat belt. “Even you can’t deny it. Here are the facts.” She leans in. “No one gives a shit if you spend six months working out; they care about what you do when you’re not working out. Who you do; who you don’t do. What pisses you off, and what doesn’t. The rest of the bullshit is just the proverbial icing on the cake. They want the juicy tidbits, the lies you tell, the sweet nothings you whisper. The dirty little secrets sell; you and I both know that.”
“And you think it gives you the right to invade someone’s privacy?” I ask her the simple question, my one foot starting to move up and down, and her eyes fly right to it. “You think because I do this job, it gives you the right to dissect my life and everything that goes on in it?” I shake my head. “It’s no one’s fucking business if I go home and play bongos naked.”
Her eyebrows shoot up when I say that. “You play the bongos naked?”
“That is beside the point and off the record,” I say, unsnapping my seat belt now. “I’m open to answering questions, but what I’m not open to is giving everything that I am to the vultures.” She shakes her head, rolling her eyes. “Do you even care about the other people who you involve in whatever salacious gossip you spread?” I ask her honestly, and then the buildup that’s been brewing since I heard she was going on this tour overtakes me. I lose my temper, knowing I should just shut up and go. “You tried to run a fucking story about me fucking my best friend’s girl.”
She sits up straighter now. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re going to blame me because you can’t keep your dick in your pants and know when a woman is off-limits?” Her voice is low, so I know only the two of us
can hear the conversation, and even if it was louder, the others are still trying to get whatever big story that just came out. “Incredible. I’m a vulture because you got caught with your dick out.” She shakes her head, and I see she’s pissed when she starts bouncing her own foot.
“You didn’t even ask.” I point out. “Didn’t even try to contact me for a statement. You were just going to run the story, not even caring whose life you were playing with.”
“Again, I’m not the bad guy,” she points out. “If I don’t do it, someone else will. You were with her on a yacht hugging her while your face was buried in her neck.”
“Not that it matters now,” I tell her, “but I wasn’t sleeping with her. She had just found out that he was going into rehab, and I was consoling her.” Her eyes go big, and her mouth opens. “We had just spent the night talking him off the fucking ledge and watching him try to go cold turkey. And why that’s any of the fucking world’s business is beyond me. You just made shit up to sell a few rags and get a few clicks. I get it; selling your soul to the devil comes with a hefty price tag.” I’m beyond ready to explode right now, but in the back of my mind, I know that will only cause more tongues to wag in this confined space, so I tamper down my anger.
“I didn’t know,” she says softly. When I stand, she moves her feet so I can pass and I leave her there, her mouth hanging open. I shouldn’t have fucking told her that. I shouldn’t have given her the fucking satisfaction of knowing why we were hugging or what was going on in my life, but she fucking pushed me. When I enter the dining area and see that Cassie is sitting down at a table eating, I sit across from her, and she looks up from her phone. She takes one look at me and knows.
“What happened to you?” she asks with a grin, knowing full well what happened to me. “What did the bitch do this time?” And although I’ve called her a bitch many times before, it bothers me that Cassie is calling her one now. “We should just get her kicked off the tour. If you give me the word, I will make it happen.”
I don’t bother answering her. Instead, I look down at my grilled chicken and cut into it. “What time do we land in South Korea?” I try to get her out of my mind.
“We land at five p.m. local time,” she says, looking at me after checking something in her phone. “It’s going to be four a.m. for us.”
“What’s the plan?” I ask her, wondering how much downtime I will have before I have to be “on” again.
“Nothing until the next day. Nine a.m. is press photos. The journalists on this plane will be there as well. Ryan sent a video crew to document all the backstage things. He will also meet us there.”
I chew the chicken, thinking this whole thing is a fucking circus. “What is the purpose of the journalists coming with us if we have a video crew following us?” She just shrugs her shoulders, not really answering. I finish my meal and sit back in the seat. Looking out the window, I see the clouds and the blue skies trying to come through. “I want my parents to come to the Paris screening.”
She nods her head. “I’ll take care of it.” I don’t have to think twice about it or remind her because I know she will have everything set up for them. “I know your father hates wearing suits, but I’ll have a couple sent to him to try on.”
“Get the glam stuff for my mother,” I tell her, thinking back to when she went as my date to the Oscars this year. She was all into being “queen” for the day. Watching her eyes light up when I had Harry Winston bring her the diamond necklace that she was wearing for the event had her feeling like she was a girl going to prom. She walked that red carpet and owned it. Luckily, there were no cameras on her face when I told her that the necklace’s worth was between five and seven million dollars and that the guy sitting next to her in the car was accompanying us to make sure she didn’t lose said necklace.
“Ryan wants to give each journalist a day where they spend it one-on-one with you.” I cock my head to the side, waiting for her to explain this shit to me. “So it’s basically each journalist on this trip walks the red carpet with you, taking notes and asking you questions. You get ready together, or you get dressed and they meet you in the lobby, and you start the day.”
I roll my eyes again. “What are the chances I get out of that bullshit?” I ask her honestly.
“I say this isn’t something you should fight him for, especially if your goal is to get a certain journalist tossed from this tour. Also, I already told him you won’t be giving her, her own day either.”
I should be happy she has my back, and I should be happy she took my side, knowing I wouldn’t have to deal with it. I nod my head at her, though, and don’t say anything. When I finally get up and walk back to my seat to face the woman I just reamed out, I see that Jessica isn’t in her seat and her purse and computer are gone also. I look around to see if maybe she moved seats, but I can’t find her.
I can’t look too hard for her without drawing the eyes of the others. I’m literally standing in a lion’s den with the reporters surrounding me. When I walk out of the second room, I see one of the pod’s curtains pulled, so I know someone is in there. I walk past, and I see a glimpse of Jessica on her side with a blanket covering her and tucked under her chin. Her eyes are closed as the movie she had been watching continues to play. Whatever. One day down, twenty-nine more to go. I head to the back of the plane and enter my private oasis; the only place that apparently these fucking reporters won’t be allowed to invade. A full queen bed and private bathroom all to myself. I kick off my shoes and throw myself onto the bed, turning the television on and starting a movie. Feeling unsettled, and pissed off, and irritated really annoys me because I have no idea why I’m feeling any of these things. It has to be the length of this tour, and the requirements of it, and the lack of privacy that have me in a funk. I can’t pinpoint what it is, but that has to be it. Shutting my mind off, I focus on the mindless movie, and it doesn’t take any time before my eyes close, and I fall asleep also.
Chapter Six
Jessica
Sources spotted a huge engagement ring on this pop star’s new girlfriend. This comes just weeks after they started dating.
The plane finally touches down thirteen hours later in Seoul, and I can’t wait to get out of this tin can. After Tyler literally tossed shit in my face, I went from feeling bad for him to feeling sad to feeling fucking pissed in the span of a few minutes. How dare he judge me and my job? Okay fine, I sometimes do give him a reason to hate me, but most of the time, it really isn’t my fault.
I got up shortly after he did and made my way to one of the pods in the rear of the plane and spent the rest of the time in there, except for going to pee. Even when it was time to eat, I grabbed a sandwich and headed back to my pod. I just didn’t have the energy to be social with anyone.
I take a deep breath as I finally walk down the steps of the plane. The sun is shining in the sky, but my body is bone-ass tired. A huge bus waits for us, and I spot four people moving the luggage. I grab my phone out of my purse and see that I haven’t really missed anything, thankfully. I get on the bus and opt to sit in the first empty seat I come to. Slowly, the bus starts to fill. I’m surprised to see Tyler and Cassie get on the bus. Well, not that I’m looking up; I just hear them. I only raise my head when we get to the hotel. After I grab my key card from Yamina and Yolanda, I collect my luggage and make my way up to my room. Walking into the hotel, I notice the lighting isn’t necessary with the sun shining outside. The hotel is all windows, so it floods the atrium with natural lighting, providing a quaint setting. The reception desk looks like it’s all rock, and the marble floor takes you to the elevators. Looking down at the cardboard paper that my key is in, I see I’m on the fifteenth floor. I get in the elevator with a couple of other people, and slowly, we all get off. Knowing we are a group, the hotel will usually book us together, but no one gets off with me. I grab the key and enter it in the key slot, and when the light turns green, I hear a faint click. Pushing open the door, I see that the whole b
ack wall is floor-to-ceiling windows. I step in and realize how small the room is. Although the view makes it appear much larger. I take off my jacket and toss it on the bed when I’m startled by a knock on the door.
Opening it, I’m surprised to see that it’s Yamina. “Hey there, sorry but there has been a mix-up.” I look at her. “You see, they promised us that everyone would be on one floor, but you somehow got a different floor.”
I smile at her. “Oh, that is okay,” I tell her. “I really don’t mind, and besides, we are only here for three days, so it’s fine.”
“Are you sure?” she asks. “We don’t want you to feel like you’re the castaway.”
“Nope.” I smile at her. “Perfectly okay.”
“Great. See you tomorrow morning bright and early,” she says, turning around and walking away. I close the door and go to my purse, grabbing the itinerary that I’ve folded up in there and see we have to be in the lobby at eight forty-five for a photo op. Great. I pick up the phone and order room service. They tell me it should take thirty-five minutes. I wheel my luggage over, and throwing it on the floor, I open it and grab the outfit I’m going to wear for tomorrow along with my workout clothes for first thing in the morning. I grab my toiletries and my pajamas and head to the shower to wash away the grimy feeling of being on a plane for thirteen long hours.
My eyes burn with how tired they are, so by the time I’m done in the shower, I’m ready to fall asleep, but I’m forced to wait for the room service knock. Thankfully, it comes as soon as I sit on the bed. He comes in and leaves the tray on the table, an exhausted thank you escaping my lips as I hand him a tip. I try to sit down and eat, but my eyes just keep shutting, so I give up trying to eat and opt for the comfort of my bed instead of the comfort of food. I grab my phone and press the button on the bedside table and the shades slowly start rolling down. My God, I need this feature in my life. I shut off the television and plug in my phone.
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