Fly With Me | ✓

09

A hand grabbed Everleigh's forearm and, by God, she hoped it was someone trying to kidnap her and put her out of her fucking misery.

            Everleigh had had many, many gong show mornings. She'd had to carry a drunk and disorderly passenger out of a plane when they'd emergency landed in Guyana because he was a danger to other passengers on their flight to Chile. The thing was, as astronomically shitty and chaotic that morning had been, she'd take it a thousand times more over the fucking morning she'd had that day.

            "Oh, you have to tell me everything."

            "We didn't sleep together, we just slept together."

            "What in God's name does that mean?" Juno crossed her arms. "Come on, or I'll rat you out to all those cameramen."

            "No, you wouldn't." If she had planned on snitching, Juno wouldn't have brought her around a tight corner where nobody could really see them unless they looked a little too hard. They probably only had a couple minutes.

            "You're right, I wouldn't," Juno said. "Which is why you should spill. I'll never be anonymous source."

            Everleigh drew in a deep—deep—sigh. How in the world was she going to explain half of what had happened the night before to Juno was beyond her. How she was going to explain anything from the night before with the headache that bashed against her skull was even further away from her grasp.

            "We got really drunk. Instead of having some driver pick him up, he just stayed there. Nothing happened. I promise."

            "That's not what the paparazzi are framing it as. Pictures of him leaving your hotel look suspect, Leigh," Juno said. "And you were holding hands at the MARS concert."

            "No," Everleigh said, "he was taking me to our seats. That's different."

            "It doesn't look different."

            "Fuck, I know." Everleigh ran her hands through her bangs that she hadn't bothered to straighten until that moment.

            "You just got photographed on your way to work looking like—like..."

            "You can say it."

            "Well. Not good," Juno said. "Are you sure you won't be sick on the flight?"

            Everleigh shook her head. "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

            "What the hell happened?"

            "I'm too competitive for my own good. Especially when it comes to drinking. And we had this stupid fucking paper cups in the hotel room, meant for water, but we opened the mini fridge and there was this nice tequila..."

            "Oh, Leigh."

            "And I might've been a little high."

            "Shit."

            "I think I'm going to be sick."

            "Okay, come on. I'll get you past them." Juno shrugged her jacket off her shoulders and wrapped it around Everleigh, who understood the intention immediately. Everleigh raised her hands so the jacket surrounded her head—all they needed was for her to hold it long enough to make it to the worker changerooms. Everleigh could put there without fear of questions about whether she was pregnant with Maverick's kid that would just make her feel shittier than she already did about how she looked.