The #5Star Affair (Love Hashtagged Book 1) (2 page)

Over the years Jaycie had worked with guys like Ethan—confident, arrogant game developers—she’d learned it was smart to hide most of what she was thinking. Showing that kind of weakness only spurred them on.

But she’d never met a guy who knew when to back off, and still came off as confident. That, smattered with a sprinkling of not-taking-himself-too-seriously, screamed sexy as much as his dark hair, and the brown eyes she could sink into.

Then she discovered where he worked. Even worse, now he knew who she was, and he was staring at her, very obviously not believing her denial about being J-Dub.

She hopped from her stool, avoiding his eyes and the questions buried within them. “Look, it was great meeting you, and drinks or whatever you want are on me—well, Gwen, really—but this arrangement isn’t going to work for us. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

“Wait.” He grabbed her wrist.

A jolt of heat and desire surged through her at the skin-on-skin contact, and she sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. That felt better than she wanted it to. No reason to mistake a physical response for something more.

He let go. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Had he really backed down twice in since he’d walked in? It was true she’d only known him for a few minutes, but gamer guys didn’t do things like admit they made mistakes. “It’s okay.” Her imagination was already tripping several steps ahead, with images of that firm grip pinning her arms about her head while he pressed her against the wall with his solid frame. Fantasy was fine, if that’s all it was. Right?

“What did I say wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Wow, Gwen was right. She was a horrible liar. “I just don’t think we’re compatible.”

“You’re him, then.” There was no question in Ethan’s voice.

She knew the assumption about her gender would be there. That was why she used the pen name, but for some reason it still stung to hear him refer to her pseudonym as male. “No, I’m not
him
.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, and he raked his gaze over her in that way that heated her blood and made her wonder if she was the main course. “No, you’re definitely not. You are her, though. You know, if you moved in, it was going to come out eventually.”

It wasn’t that she had a secret identity. Well, kind of. When she published her first few reviews, her editor told her people would take her more seriously, if they didn’t realize she was female. She’d just wanted to work in the industry, so agreeing to take on the pseudonym was an easy decision.  Seeing how some guys, including her ex-boyfriend, Nick, and his friends, treated other women in her field, having no idea she was one of them, reinforced her decision to keep her identity secret.

Besides, she knew what was going in the next issue of
Console Power
, and Ethan wouldn’t be so friendly once he read it.

She needed to focus on the conversation. Not let him see the effect he had on her
.
“It’s true. Probably sooner, rather than later. But it wouldn’t have mattered, if you were in some line of work other than the one I review for a living.”

“So you are J-Dub.”

Hadn’t they already covered that? She leaned into the counter without sitting again. ”You can’t tell anyone. As in, not a single soul.” Especially not any of his colleagues. Nick’s friends—one in particular—terrified her. Kent’s actions had shown her some internet trolls were willing to make the shit-talking real.

Ethan’s brows scrunched together, and he gave her a puzzled look. “People know who you are.”

“No. Gwen knows who I am. The people who sign my paychecks know who I am.” Nick was happy to assume she wrote recipes or something.  “To everyone else, J-Dub is some guy who talks about video games.”

“So girls can’t talk about video games?”

She rolled her eyes at the feigned naiveté, but she couldn’t ignore the happy spark inside that her gender and job didn’t seem to matter to him. “You tell me.”

His lips drew into a thin line, and he seemed to consider his words before replying. “So if I promise to keep your top secret identity a top secret, can we continue talking like normal people?”

She should end the conversation—put a stop to the roommate negotiation—before this went further. It didn’t matter what he said today, his opinion would change. Part of the reason he liked her was because she’d said glowing things about his game. Few people had bigger egos than game developers. Except, logic and experience aside, she enjoyed his company was and reluctant to cut things short. “On one condition.”

“One more?” He winked. “I already promised to keep your secret. But sure.”

“I do this for a living, and it pays the bills…sort of. I don’t do it because I’m mean or spiteful, or have a chip on my shoulder, or wish I could write games as well as the masters. I don’t do it because I hate game creators—you guys are so incredibly talented and make my life more fun, and I adore that. I do it because I like to play, and I like to share my opinion of what I play. So any review I’ve already written has nothing to do with you personally, or any of your colleagues. And if we do decide to do this roommate thing, I won’t touch anything else from Digital Media after today.” That was going to hurt. They were such a huge chunk of the market. But there was no other way. “Someone else at one of the magazines I sell to might, but I won’t have any part of it.”

His gaze never left her face, but he didn’t say anything. He drummed his fingers on the counter. Took a sip of his drink. “Is there more?” There was no irritation in his question, just amusement.

She laughed. “Smart ass.” She
had
gone on for a little bit. “That’s all.”

“Okay. I agree. Does that mean you want to see the place?”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions.” Not that she minded. She was enjoying the back and forth.

“You’re still here. I’m having fun, you don’t seem to be miserable, and it’s not like we’re getting married. Just sharing an apartment. Are you in?”

She made sure to maintain her tone teasing when she said, “I’m in. Just remember, if Gwen doesn’t see me on FaceTime in thirty minutes, and back here tonight, she’s calling the cops.”

He pulled a black nylon tri-fold from his back pocket, and plucked out two business cards. He set one on the counter, and handed the other to her. “I think that’s fair. She can send them to this address. Meet me there? ”

She glanced at the address long enough to commit it to memory, then stuffed the card in the purse dangling from her wrist. She fell into step next to him. “These don’t say Digital Media on them.”

For the first time since he’d walked in, he hesitated. “I’m working on a side project. Something that’ll be hush-hush until I get things rolling faster.” He pushed out the front door and held it for her.

When she brushed past, the clean scent of body wash filled her head. He smelled incredible, too. Spicy and clean. That hardly seemed fair. Her gaze met his, and more fantasy tripped through her thoughts. Letting the door swing shut. Being pressed between him and the wall. Finding out how his lips tasted.

Her skin tingled, as she failed to push the idea aside. She finally dragged her attention back to the parking lot, but even that didn’t successfully snap the thread of desire running through her. She needed to stuff those thoughts aside until she was alone. Especially if she was going to agree to anything like moving in.

****

Even though Ethan gave Jaycie his address, he waited for her when they left Gwen’s diner, and made sure she was behind him on the short drive to his apartment. Trees lined the walkways from the parking lot to the buildings, green peeking out from the sleepy winter. Each structure was red brick with blue trim, giant letters distinguishing one from the next. Jaycie followed Ethan up the path.

Her phone vibrated through the strap dangling from her wrist, and she jumped. Irritation and nausea crawled through her when she saw the number, and she pressed ignore. Seconds later, a new text message from Nick buzzed through.
Plz talk to me?

Get the hint already. She deleted the note without hesitation, and pushed all the negativity his name summoned to the back of her mind. He wasn’t going to ruin her evening.

Ethan glanced at her. “Everything all right?”

She pasted a neutral expression in place. “Depends on what the place looks like.”

No reason to go in to intense detail about her past. As long as Nick didn’t know where she lived, he wouldn’t be an issue. It wasn’t that her ex was a threat. If he’d been anything but nice to her, she would have ended the relationship ages ago. It was his best friend, Kent, who terrified her.

When Kent had cornered her, during one of Nick’s gaming parties, and threatened her life a few days later, she’d decided walking away from the situation was in her best interest. Especially when Nick told her she was overreacting—Kent was just being a guy.

The clang of her and Ethan’s sneakers on the suspended steel stairs echoed off concrete, as they climbed to the second floor. He only fiddled with the deadbolt for a second, before pushing the door open and gesturing inside. “My castle.”

It wasn’t at all what she expected, especially from someone who needed help with rent. Instead of having walls lined with mostly-nude anime figurines, stacks of video games, and piles of DVD’s, the room was clean and open.

On their left, a blue sofa was boxed in by two matching chairs, all overstuffed and threadbare, but clean. A glass coffee table sat in the middle of it all, a large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall with a speaker on either side. No wires ran from them.

The kitchen was just as clean, and barren. A high counter surrounded by stools separated the table-less dining room from the linoleum. “I’m not real big on labeling food or not sharing,” he explained. “I hope that’s okay. Let me know if you use the last of anything, and I’ll do the same.”

What were the odds he had anything in the fridge besides beer and hot pockets? “Sounds fair to me.”

She followed him down a short hallway, as he continued his short tour narration. “There’s only one bathroom. I hope that’s not a problem. I don’t spend a lot of time primping though.”

“Your good looks are natural?” Her teasing came naturally with him. The last half hour or so had been too much fun to stop now.

“Damn straight.”

The empty counter in the bathroom and single blue towel on the rack backed up his claim. A stronger version of the clean musk he radiated drifted toward her as they moved toward the bedrooms, and she breathed deeply. She wasn’t going to mind that.

Two doors waited for them. One open enough for her to see a bed, a dresser, a desk, and all the other things she expected from someone who hadn’t just walked out of his life, leaving his past behind. With any luck, in a few months, her room would look almost lived in as well.

Once she’d decided to put some distance between herself and Nick, it was easier to leave it all behind than deal with the questions and being told how unreasonable she was. She’d even stopped visiting her old hang-outs. Switched out her routine to keep off Kent’s radar. A couple dressers she didn’t care about, and the bed she and Nick had shared were small losses, compared to hanging on to her sanity.

Jaycie shook the memories aside before they could wrap her in paranoia.

Ethan nodded toward the open room. “This is the spare. It’s wired for fiber. Connections are in the walls.” He pointed at a socket under the window across from them. “If you want to set up your desk somewhere else, I’ll run lines.”

She noted the casual way he shared the information. If he’d told her that before they met up, she might have taken the place sight unseen. “I didn’t think any apartment in the valley that cost less than a grand a month had fiber connections. Is the entire complex that way?”

He smirked. “I did the work. They let me because it makes the place easier to rent when I move out. Everyone wins. I needed it for my office, when it was in here.”

She stepped through the doorway, depressing past temporarily forgotten. “It’s amazing.” She turned his last comment over in her head. “Office? I thought you lived with someone else.” Unless he’d been lying. Not that she was dumping her entire history on him at once, but her holding back was as much a matter of personal safety as anything.

His spine stiffened before he forced an easy smile back into place. “So what do you think?”

She didn’t like having her question shrugged off, but his hesitation wasn’t setting off any warning bells, so she’d let it pass. “I work from home, being freelance and all. Is that a problem?” She didn’t know why it would be, but some people had weird hang-ups.

His posture relaxed. “Not an issue.”

The ease in which she fell into conversation with him was a bit scary. She wasn’t worried about looking weak in front of him; she was really having fun, joking with Ethan. It had been a long time since she felt like she could drop some of her mask. She had to know, though, was this all a front on his part, or was he really this laid back. “When I have my girlfriends over for slumber parties, can we have pillow fights in our underwear?”

“As long as I’m invited—”