Page 27

Cherry

“Miss Brenner?”

A melodic voice taps into my dreams and I push it away. I’m in the middle of a wonderful dream and do not want to be disturbed.

“Miss Brenner, we need you to get back in your seat. We’ll be landing in Montreal shortly.”

What is this person saying? I’m asleep in a bed. I won’t be landing anywhere soon.

“You have ten minutes.”

Fine. I open my eyes and take stock of the situation. The bed I’m in is the most comfortable I’ve ever had the pleasure of sleeping in, but I’m not in a hotel, or Nicky’s place— Nicky!

I look at the empty spot next to me, the spot where I’d last seen him before I’d closed my eyes and vowed there was no way I was going to sleep.

“How long ago was that?” I squint at my watch and gasp. I’ve been asleep for almost six hours.

How many of those hours did he sleep next to me ?

Knowing that it was probably none, that he must have jumped out of bed the minute I’d drifted off to sleep, I force myself to get moving. Princess-Jasmine-air-hostess-lady said I had ten minutes to get into my seat, and I think I’ve wasted a good five minutes figuring out where I am.

Rushing now, I get dressed back into my jeans and splash some water on my face. When I emerge from the bedroom, I find Nicky asleep in a chair, the dark shadows under his eyes taunting me.

He was the one who needed to sleep on this flight. Not me.

I slip into the seat next to him and accept the cup of coffee offered to me by Jasmine (as I know her now).

“Thanks,” I whisper, trying not to wake the sleeping giant next to me. “How long until we land?”

She looks at her watch. “We’ll be starting our descent now.”

“Okay.” I look around the plane to get my bearings. James is still in the seat where we’d left him, like a statue who hasn’t moved a muscle. The rest of the team is scattered around the plane, all still working to various degrees.

I take a sip of coffee as Nicky snores softly next to me, a deep sense of guilt eating away at me.

“He really doesn’t need that much sleep,” James says, his sharp eyes seeing everything.

I bite my lip. “Are you sure? He has a big weekend ahead of him.”

“Believe me. There was no way he’d have been able to rest at all if he wasn’t sure you were sleeping in there.”

Warmth spreads through me and I gaze out of the window playing his words over in my mind. Nicky has always been this way with me; always willing to put my needs above his own .

The plane drops suddenly and rocks, and I grip my armrest, all thoughts of sleep and Nicky and anything else coherent blanking from my mind. We’re all going to die!

“Relax.” Nicky takes my nearest hand in his right hand, using the other to turn my head away from the window where I’m looking to see the moment we hit the ground. “It’s going to be fine.”

I watch his lips as they form the words and release a shallow exhale.

“That’s it, just breathe.”

I do as he says, focusing on my breathing and the feeling of his hand holding mine.

“See? Everything is fine.”

Blinking, I glance out of the window to see we’ve landed safely on the tarmac and not into a fiery inferno as I’d expected.

“I’m going to need to send you more articles to help with this fear of flying, it seems,” he whispers into my ear. I turn to look at him, our lips within inches of each other.

“And I’m going to send you some articles about how to follow instructions.”

His brow furrows and I tilt my head towards the bedroom. “What happened? The last I remember, we were going to share.”

A muscle in his cheek bounces and he shifts away from me. “Plans changed.”

He stands up, signalling the end of the discussion, and gathers up my things.

“I can do that,” I elbow him out of the way, annoyed about the whole thing. It shouldn’t hurt that Nicky didn’t want to share a bed with me, but it does. For reasons I’m not willing to dissect at this moment.

“You ready? ”

The plane has emptied of everyone but us, and I give him a stiff nod, walking ahead of him and exiting the plane. To continue the extravagance of travelling on a private plane, a black Bentley SUV is waiting for us on the tarmac.

“Wow,” I whisper, slipping into the back seat, running my hands along the buttery leather. “Fancy.”

Nicky laughs. “You’ve been in fancy cars before.”

“But not like this one.” I point to the row of seats facing us. “This is like a non-tacky limo.”

The door next to me opens and Frieda takes one of the empty seats opposite us. “Did you have a pleasant sleep?” she asks with a sweet smile.

Is she being friendly or was that a dig? It’s hard to tell with her. She’s the definition of unreadable.

I shrug and smile back at her. “Yes, thank you. I’m feeling refreshed and ready for the weekend ahead.”

“It’s an important one,” she replies, giving the man next to me a meaningful look. “You’ve got a decent lead in the Championship, but Nathan is gaining on you. You need to keep your eye on the prize.”

I glance at Nicky, who’s got his eyes on me. Tilting my head in Frieda’s direction, I mentally tell him to pay attention. This stuff is important.

He sighs and turns to look out of the window. “I know all of this, Frieda. I can do the maths as well as you.”

She bares her teeth at him. “You just don’t need any distractions.”

I look between them, feeling like I’m missing something. What they’re saying sounds straightforward, but there’s a definite undercurrent of something unspoken between them.

Am I the distraction ?

I shake this thought from my mind— not everything is about you, Cherry! —choosing to let them deal with whatever it is they’re saying but not saying.

“So,” I drawl when I can stand the tension in the car no longer. “This is my first time in Canada. Is there anything I need to try or experience while I’m here?”

Frieda flicks her attention from Nicky back to me and her serious face softens. “You must try poutine. And of course, Canadian maple syrup.”

Both are on my list already, so I nod. “Thanks. I can’t wait to try them both.”

We fall into a silence that is only slightly more comfortable than before, and I divide my gaze between the stunning scenery outside my window and Nicky’s glorious profile. It’s a real toss-up which view I appreciate more.

We’ve been driving for almost thirty minutes when the unnerving quiet in the car is broken by a barrage of pinging notifications lighting up Frieda’s phone. I watch with a sense of foreboding as her face changes. Whatever she’s reading on her screen, it doesn’t look like good news.

“We have a problem.”

Nicky arches a brow.

“ TMZ is about to release a story about you,” she says.

Nicky motions for her to continue.

“And you,” Frieda adds, breaking eye contact with the screen to glance at me for the briefest of seconds.

I gulp and feel Nicky stiffen next to me.

“Me?” I squeak.

“Can you kill it?” he barks in a tone that has the hairs on my neck standing on edge .

She waves her phone at him, her flushed cheeks and eyes saying, ‘I warned you about this!’

“It’s too late,” she says. “They’ve got too much on you two to hold back.”

My eyes bounce between them like I’m watching a tennis match. They have too much about the what now?

“Send it to me,” Nicky instructs her.

A moment later, he looks down at his phone, his lips thinning at what he sees there.

“See what you can do.”

She nods and starts tapping on her screen, the click-clacking of her fingernails doing little to ease my anxiety.

“What’s going on?” My voice is wavering and I bite down on my lower lip to centre myself.

“You know how Frieda was concerned about all the gossip about us and we agreed to stay away from each other in public?”

I nod. Of course I remember. The online commentary that followed our dance-gate in Miami was still haunting me.

“Well, those articles we could write off as idle gossip,” he explains. “But now it seems TMZ believes they have enough to expose our relationship to the world.”

“But we aren’t in a relationship.”

His lips twist. “I know.”

“But…?”

He hands me his phone. “Here. This is what they are going to print.”

I look down at the press release on the screen in front of me, a wave of uneasiness rippling over me as I read the headline:

RACING TO LOVE

“What the—?”

“Just keep reading. ”

My stomach sinks to my feet as I read the article detailing our supposed secret relationship that has moved from casual dating to me living with him.

“They think we’re living together?” I gasp.

His lips twitch. “Well, we kinda are.”

“But they can’t know that for sure. And it’s not like that!”

My cheeks are on fire at the thought of the entire world (or those who pay attention to TMZ ), thinking we’re living together. Sleeping together. I close my eyes and say a small thank you that my parents have no desire to spend time on the world wide web.

“They have a ‘source’ who confirms you’re living in Nicky’s house,” Frieda speaks up, her eyes still glued to her phone. “And then there are the photos.”

Photos?

“Here.” Nicky takes back his phone, scrolls around and then hands it back to me. “They’re going to publish these as proof.”

I look at the grainy photos in front of me. They show us cuddled up on that bench next to the river in Imola. Nicky is wearing his cap and my face is in profile, but it is unmistakably us, and we look very much like a couple.

“We were careful,” he says, answering my unspoken protest that we hadn’t been reckless that day. We’d checked to make sure no one was watching. “I guess they were lurking somewhere sight unseen.”

My head spins and I feel sick at this invasion of our privacy. Not only had they intruded into a personal moment between two friends, but they’ve twisted it into something it’s not.

Yuck.

“Can we stop it? ”

We both look at Frieda who is frowning more deeply than before. “I’m sorry,” she sighs with a pained expression. “It’s too late. The story just broke.”