Page 73 of Spin Control

“If you want to say terrible things about Freddie, I won’t stop you.”

I feel him laugh against me before I hear it. “I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to stop me, Jacobs.”

“I already told you, bad press keeps me in a job.”

Wes gives me another squeeze before releasing his hold on me. “I could really go into the active tornado that is the press pen and talk shit about Freddie?”

I shrug. “You probably shouldn’t since I just told David that you’ll be taking Freddie and some other drivers to play padel together and then will post a video of all of you being chummy. But if you want to loudly blame Freddie, we can pivot.”

Wes’s mouth hooks up into a grin. “You’re really something else, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told,” I say. “You ready?”

He takes a deep breath. “No. But I want to get this over with.”

In the press area, I watch in awe as Wes answers every question with humility and tact—and doesn’t say a single bad word about his asshole teammate.

Two hours later, I’m hitting send on my report for this weekend when there’s a knock on the conference room door.

“I’m packing up, I promise,” I say, closing my laptop. A woman on the cleaning crew already checked in once and asked when I’d be done. I can’t blame her for being impatient with me.

But then there’s a low laugh that makes my blood simmer and a smile tug at my lips. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you rush to do anything,” Wes says, leaning against the doorframe. “What an enlightening experience.”

“What do you want, Grant,” I force myself to ask flatly, making him laugh again.

“I’ve had a terrible day, Jacobs,” he says. “Can you cut me some slack this one time?”

I sling my bag on my shoulder and make my way toward him. “Probably not.”

“That sounds about right,” he says. But there’s a teasing tone in his voice and a glint of amusement in his eyes. “What are you doing tonight?”

The smart answer would be to find Chalondra at an after-party to learn what insider gossip she’s soaked up this weekend and then to once again check in with my army of contacts to find out if anyone knows where in the world Stas Dubinsky is.

But I don’t want to be smart about this anymore. Not after tonight. So I look at Wes and say, “No plans.”

“Really?” he asks, sounding genuinely surprised. “I figured you’d rattle off a to-do list as long as my…” he trails off and gives me a little smirk. “Arm.”

I make it a point to look entirely unimpressed, but I’m working hard to hold back a smile. “And I figured you’d be relaxing in your luxury RV by now.”

“About that,” he says, the teasing humor suddenly gone, his volume dropping to sotto voce. “The idea of being there alone is pretty unbearable.”

If he had said that sentence any other way, I would have scoffed. But when he sounds like that, it’s hard not to melt. Still, I say, “How many times has that line worked for you?”

Wes smiles boyishly as he breathes a laugh. “Does it matter?”

And no. It really doesn’t.

“What do you need, Wes?”

He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing before his gaze meets mine. “Company.”

“Is that all?”

“I don’t want to sleep alone tonight,” he says quietly. “But I don’t expect anything. I’m not in the mood for sex. That might be the first time I’ve ever said that.”

I grin up at him. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“That’s a relief,” he says. “Can’t have people thinking I’m losing my edge.”