Covered: Part One Read Online Free Page A

parrot, just repeating his words back to him, seemingly nothing going on in my head.
    “Do you need help with this?” he asked and pointed at the swag and banners set up behind my table.
    “I should be okay,” I said.
    “You’re always okay, aren’t you Sarai?” he said, his smile gone. In its place was a look of tender concern. If the smile wasn’t enough to melt my heart and my panties, this look was. He could snap his fingers and I would probably tear my own clothes off for him, right then and there.
    “I really am,” I assured him.
    “Well, I won’t take no for an answer,” he said and placed his hand on my arm. “Guys, let’s help this lovely young lady pack her things up.” He did snap his fingers then, and the two bodyguards jumped straight to it, dismantling my banners and getting everything into a few boxes.
    And that is how my life changed. How I ended up walking to my shitty little car chatting with the hottest man in the world, and slowly falling in love.

Chapter Four
     
    “Are you fucking kidding me?” Jenny shrieked when she found out about my visitor, “do you think he came looking for me?”
    “He said he wanted to see how I was doing, he was worried about me,” I replied and stared pointedly at her. She didn’t seem to suffer the same problem, she hadn’t thought about my fall since it happened, even though she had been the source.
    “Huh,” she said and stared at me in the mirror as if seeing me for the first time. “Well, I guess we’ll see him in an hour or so. He did say he’s going to the mingle thing, right?”
    “Yeah, he mentioned it.”
    We were freshening up in the hotel bathroom. Since we lived in the city, we didn’t need to get a room, but it would have been nice to redo make up and apply deodorant somewhere more private. I ignored her scrutiny and attempted to smoky my eyes like she’d taught me.
    “Are you the one who talked to Gavin James?” a girl asked from behind us.
    Jenny and I turned in unison and replied, “Yes,” at exactly the same time.
    “I mean you,” the girl said and pointed at me, “I have it on my phone. Ohmigod what was it like? I would have died, but you looked so composed. How did you manage that? How did you not faint right there?”
    “It was pretty surreal,” I said and avoided looking at Jenny although I could see her twisted annoyed face out of the corner of my eye. “He’s really quite a nice guy though.”
    “Of course he goes for the hot librarian type,” the girl’s friend said and rolled her eyes. She looked at herself in the mirror; she was a gorgeous girl-next-door type herself, with thick wavy honey blonde hair and bright blue eyes. “Ugh, I should just kill myself now.”
    “Shut up ! You’re gorgeous and you know it,” the first girl said and they both left the bathroom, laughing and talking about what they’d do to Gavin if they got five minutes alone with him. It felt strange to hear them saying such vulgar things about Gavin, the man who I’d chatted with as we’d loaded my book event stuff into my car. Even more so, it was odd to hear girls like that with envy in their voices.
    “Who was she talking about?” I asked Jenny, not sure I was the one they meant.
    “ You , dummy,” she replied, “although I wouldn’t call you hot . You’re cute, and the glasses give you that sexy look that’s so in right now. Let me try them on.”
    I handed them to her and watched her make faces in front of the mirror, most of them essentially looking like blue steel from that Zoolander movie.
    “They look good on you,” I offered, hoping to quell her rising annoyance. I felt like I’d done something to piss her off, but didn’t quite know what.
    “Meh,” she shrugged and took them off, “I don’t think the whole nerd look is really for me.” She handed them back to me, I used my shirt to wipe the greasy fingerprints off the lenses and put them back on. “I didn’t realize how blind you were though, how do