“Your ass had better be awake,” Clara’s voice called out, and then I heard the front door close.
I stepped out of the bathtub and wrapped a towel around myself.
“Seriously! I have to tell you something, and you want to hear it!” she said, her voice coming closer.
I walked into my bedroom just as Clara entered through the hallway entrance.
“Good. You’re awake,” she said, looking relieved. “I was probably going to wake you up if you weren’t.”
I hadn’t expected her back here tonight. After leaving her with Dean to wash dishes, I figured they’d end up together. Maybe they had, and she was coming to give me details. Although I hadn’t been gone that long, so it couldn’t be a lot of details. Either way, I didn’t want to hear about it. There were some things we wouldn’t share. Dean Finlay sex details were one of them.
“You didn’t leave with Dean?” I asked, trying to sound as if I didn’t care. Because I shouldn’t care. It was dangerous to care.
She plopped down on the edge of my bed. “No, I didn’t leave with Dean. You’re the only female that man wanted to leave with. Jesus, Brielle, did you not see the way he was watching you? Like, he watched your every move. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
I didn’t want to believe that because doing so would mess with my head.
“He’s old,” was my reply. It was a stupid response and something I didn’t care about. Age was just a number—or at least, that was what someone had told me once.
“Shut up. He’s Dean fucking Finlay. He will be hot when he’s seventy. Besides, fifty-three is not old. It’s just seasoned,” Clara replied.
I shrugged because I didn’t have the energy to argue against something I agreed with.
“He thinks Cam is your boyfriend, or you’re in some relationship with him,” she said, grinning brightly, as if this were the best news ever.
“I know,” I replied.
Her smile fell. “You do?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yep. He walked in on me talking to Cam on the phone. He assumed I was talking to some guy I was dating. Cam hadn’t called me during his drive to camp. I had told him to check in every two hours. I was panicking. Dean made a snide comment about my being controlling or something. It annoyed me. I disliked him on sight.”
Clara was staring at me like I was crazy. “Okay, wait. First off, you’ve known about Dean Finlay living in this building since the day Cam went to camp, and you didn’t tell me? And why didn’t you tell him who Cam was?”
I shrugged and walked over to my dresser to get a nightgown. “I didn’t know he was living here that day. He had a meeting at the college. And, no, I didn’t see a reason to explain my phone call to him.”
“Okay, we will get back to that wholemeeting Dean Finlay and not telling mebit. But for now, let’s focus on the important stuff. I see a reason to tell him about Cam. The man is into you. He’s not sure if he likes how you’re treating your boyfriend, but he’s almost to the point that he doesn’t care. He wants your hot ass. I can see it all over his face.”
I took out one of my favorite nightgowns and slipped it over my head. “You’re reading way more into this than is there. He’s Dean Finlay. He can have any woman on earth he wants. I am a college admissions assistant. There’s nothing special about me. He does not want me.”
Clara growled in frustration and stood up, throwing her hands in the air. “For the love of all that is holy! Would you listen to me when I tell you that you’re gorgeous, smart, thoughtful, kind, tough, the best mom I know, and you’ve got a fantastic personality? Why wouldn’t he want you?”
I walked over and hugged her tightly. “I love you too,” I said, then let her go. “But right now, I want to get in bed. I have work tomorrow and a date with Gavin tomorrow night. I called him right after I got off the phone with Cam. I decided I needed to date someone this summer. You’re right about that.” Because I was fantasizing about Dean Finlay, and that was a slippery slope.
“You’re going out with a cute construction worker when a hot rock star is interested in you? Seriously? Is this real life?” She seemed so deflated.
“You go out with Dean Finlay if you think he’s so great,” I told her. Even if, deep down, I didn’t necessarily mean it. Because then I’d have to hear about it, and I wasn’t sure I could do that.
“Oh, I went at it full force. I used all my skills. I thought he was just hard to get until we walked into the kitchen and I realized the man was interested—just not in me. He’d been smart enough to lock in on my hot best friend,” Clara told me.
“You’re wrong. Doesn’t matter anyway. Now, I need sleep. Go home,” I told her gently.
She sighed loudly, stood up, then turned and headed to the door. “Fine. All my dreams of being the best friend of Dean Finlay’s girlfriend are dashed. You’ve taken them from me. You should be ashamed. I am but a broken woman now. Shattered beyond repair,” she said dramatically as she walked into the hallway.
“Tomorrow is another day,” I told her. “Perhaps you can make friends with some other rock star’s girlfriend.”
I started to mention that Kiro Manning visited Dean sometimes or that he had the one time I went up to his penthouse. However, I decided that was a bad idea. She was just now soaking in that Dean lived here. I would do that another day.
“Do you have ice cream in your freezer?” she asked me.