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booty
call from him and my rational brain clicks off.”
    “Pretty much.”
    “It wouldn’t be so bad if
I was just using him for sex, too. I really wish I could develop a
totally cavalier attitude about it, like he has.”
    “But that’s not you.”
    “It should be, though,”
Yosh said, pushing his hair back from his eyes as he turned to face
me in the hallway. “It’s stupid that I’ve gotten attached to him,
and it’s pathetic that I sit around waiting for him to text me,
especially because I know how it’ll turn out if he
does.”
    “And now here you are, at a party in
his apartment.”
    “But we’re only here so you can get in
the pants of your celebrity crush.”
    “If Jax even shows up, if
he’s gay, and if he finds me even remotely appealing. That’s a lot
of ifs. You and I would have been better off going to a club
tonight.”
    “ I’m so over the club
scene. I’ve been over it since I was twenty-five, and now I’m
thirty. Can we please just never go to a club again? I’m starting
to feel like a chaperone.”
    “Oh man, this is a sad, sad state of
affairs.”
    “What is?”
    “You feel old, I think I’m
about to have a midlife crisis because I’m turning thirty, we’re
both single, and we’re in the apartment of a total doucheberry so I
can try to hit on some celebrity I’ve had a crush on since I was a
teen,” I told Yosh. “At what point do we give up, buy a condo
together and spend the rest of our lives on the couch with a dozen
cats, watching reruns of the Golden Girls?”
    “Well, now we can never
give up, not if that’s what’s waiting for us!”
    “Really, though. This is all more than
a little discouraging.”
    “It doesn’t have to be,”
he said. “We can have fun tonight. I’ll find someone to hit on that
isn’t Miles, you’ll work your magic on Jax, and the cats and Bea
Arthur can get pushed to the back burner.”
    “Come on. I really need to
drink all of Harken’s liquor.”
    Miles had in all
likelihood told the bartenders to set up in that room simply to
show off the fact that he had a library. I was willing to bet he’d
never even read any of the books that lined the mahogany shelves.
When I whispered that to Yosh and he disagreed with me, I said,
“Watch.”
    I randomly pulled a copy
of Great Expectations off the shelf beside me and opened it. The
stiff, never-before-handled binding crackled in my hand and I
chuckled as I slid it back in place. “See? It’s a prop. His real
library is probably a stack of gossip magazines with his face on
the cover next to the shitter.”
    I felt a hand on my lower
back just then and a deep voice said, “I know for a fact that Miles
read the Cliff’s Notes for Great Expectations when he was up for
the role of Pip a few years back. He was already in his twenties by
that point, so it’s probably good he didn’t get the part.” I turned
to look into Jason Jax’s amused brown eyes, and my heart did a
flip-flop in my chest.
    “He usually does get cast
in much younger roles, though,” Yosh said as I tried to pull
together a shred of composure.
    “He does, and it’s weird.
I was only twelve years older than him when I played his dad on
Randall’s Ridge. Explain that one.” Jason was still looking at me,
and flashed a dazzling smile before adding, “I’m sorry to interrupt
you and your boyfriend, by the way. I just thought that was funny
with the book. I think we’re all meant to be impressed by this
library.”
    “Oh, he’s not my
boyfriend. We’re both single. And gay. Just FYI,” my friend
blurted. I shot him a look but Yosh ignored it. Just then the
people ahead of us at the bar cleared out, and my friend executed a
pivot and hip check worthy of an NBA player. It put him out of the
way and pushed me right up against Jason Jax, all in one smooth
move.
    “Can I buy you a free
drink?” Jason asked as I quickly stepped back from him.
    “Sure, thanks,” I mumbled.
    “What would you