27
“Sleep well last night?” Nick whispered into Emma’s ear after having slid up behind her silently.She startled and pushed him away while backing away from him. When she realized it was Nick she let out a sigh and ran her fingers through her hair. “Sorry…”
Nick chuckled somewhat uncomfortably and shook his head, “I didn’t mean to scare you like that… I’m sorry.”
Emma inwardly cursed the venue they were in for being smoke free and she picked up a box of merchandise to keep her shaking hands busy. She prepared their most popular items putting the best sellers right where she needed them. Selling concert merchandise had its own science to it, and she’d figured it out to the smallest detail. “I’m not real big on people surprising me… It’s okay, you didn’t know.”
Nick watched her and noticed her trembling hands. He felt like dirt on shit for scaring her, it was the last thing he’d wanted to do. “Well I’m still sorry… That was stupid of me.”
She managed a smile and shook her head, “No it wasn’t… just don’t do it again unless you want to see me have a heart attack.”
He nodded, “Deal…”
She went back to sorting magnets by the picture on them and momentarily looked up at Nick, “I did… sleep well last night.”
He smiled at her as she looked back to her sorting, “Oh yeah?”
“Don’t let it go to your head…” she said with a smirk, never looking up at the grin on Nick’s face.
“Who me?” he laughed.
She smiled and rolled her eyes, “Don’t you have a job to do?”
“Not for another couple of hours… I thought I’d come by, bug you a bit… maybe ask you to have lunch with me.”
“I’ve already got a lunch date…”
“You’ve gotta be shitting me… How did he get to you so fast?”
Emma chuckled, “Well first of all, he doesn’t sleep as late as you do. And second, even if he’d slept in… he has my phone number.”
“Any chance I can get you to cancel on him?”
“Nope.”
“Oh come on, Emma… You hang out with AJ all the time. Give me a chance.”
“I’m not canceling my plans with him to appease you.”
“Then have dinner with me after the concert tonight.”
“Busy…”
Nick groaned and Billy, his bodyguard who’d been standing nearby the whole time chuckled at him under his breath. Nick shot a look of death at Billy and then looked back to Emma, “Come on…”
Emma chuckled and smiled, “Just kidding. You can have dinner tonight, I suppose. Just don’t whine so much.”
A smile spread across Nick’s face that made his eyes seem to sparkle. Emma committed the image to memory hoping to sketch it to see if she could re-create that sparkle on paper. “Cool…”
She nodded and looked at the magnet in her hand that just so happened to have Nick’s face on it smiling up at her. She chuckled at the ironic nature of it and then smiled at him, “Cool…” As she put the last of the magnets where she wanted them she had just one thought.
What the hell am I doing?
