Page 101 of The Publicity Stunt

He laughs and leans back with me. “I’m always making fun of you, Chere. It’s literally my favorite thing to do.” His words reach into my chest and give my heart a tiny squeeze.

“Tell you what,” he follows up.

“Tell me what?”

“Finish up your work today and let’s do something fun tonight. Just the two of us.”

I straighten my spine. “Something fun?” Just the two of us?

“My shoot gets done by six. Text me when you get off and I’ll take care of the rest.”

ChapterTwenty-Three

Present Day

APRIL

Something fun.

It’s eleven p.m. and here we are. Standing in front of what looks like some sort of underground rave party. Muffled beats of the music pulsate through the walls and people are swarming up to the entrance like bees to honey.

“Why have you brought me to a cult?” I ask him.

He hooks his arm in between mine and pulls me toward the entrance. “Don’t be silly, Chere. The venue for that is two blocks down.”

A group of three women, all wearing multicolored suede tassel dresses, rushes past us and toward the keyhole entrance. My gaze follows them until they disappear into the glowing hue of lights.

Oh, don’t worry, the two of us are wearing equally ridiculous outfits.

Parker wears a white paisley shirt, unbuttoned halfway down his bare chest. And I’m dressed head to toe in a whimsical fringe dress with much more glitter than is socially acceptable. Parker bought it for me. Even laid it out on the bed, movie-style. Enclosed was a note that said,Meet me downstairs in ten minutes. P.S. My outfit is worse than yours.

Arm in arm, we head inside. If I thought the exterior of Boardner’s was jam-packed, I had a whole other thing coming. Because the dimly lit hobnob interior seems to be just as much, if not more.

A particularly unruly group of four men and two women, all seemingly in their early twenties, stumbles into me and Parker tightens his hold around my waist. “I got you.”

Two minutes and three almost-trips later, we reach a square wooden high-top with a steelReservedplate placed on its surface. “We have a reservation here?”

Parker sidesteps me and walks over to the table, sliding the sign aside. “Nothing but the best for April Moore.” He smiles, then follows it up with, “What do you want to drink?”

“I’ll come with you.”

Parker walks to my side and our hands barely graze each other. “Okay, but hurry up. We don’t have much time.”

Time for what? Parker tugs on my hand, pulling me through the swarm of fringe and glitter mixed with the musky notes of sweat, and toward the crummy bar six feet away. I lean against the blunt edge of the countertop and he lifts his arm in an attempt to flag down one of the bartenders who’s dressed as an off-the-rack Bob Dylan.

“Is this place a front?” I ask.

“No.”

“A murder house?”

“It’s just a bar,” Parker says with a soft, sweet smile forming across his lips.

“Where, for whatever reason, everyone seems to be dressed in bell-bottoms and tinted glasses.”

“And fringe,” he adds. “So much fringe.”

I go on staring at him, waiting for further clarification, but get none. Instead, his mouth twists into a smirk and his eyes flicker with a spark I don’t quite recognize. “So, shots?”