The Fake Girlfriend

Chapter 35

Nick and I spent the entirety of the weekend in Seattle.

Scarlett used the birthday party to her advantage for Nick to do a few solo interviews at local radio stations while we visited. I rode along- although no one would probably recognize my presence- and sat quietly in the clothed chair in the recording rooms as Nick spoke into the microphone. I used my boredom to let myself notice the way his headset was firmly placed on his ears. Or the way his crossed arms accented his muscled biceps. I even let myself admire the strands of his shirt sleeves and how they were so trustworthy. Regardless of the strain of his arms within them, they oddly never broke-

"Good afternoon, this is K-Dog at twelve and today we have Nick Jonas and his lovely girlfriend, Rayne Stephanie, joining us."

My head jerked up so quick that I thought for a second I had broken my neck. Simultaneously, Nick's eyes sent the DJ a glare and then flicked to mine to asess my state of panic.

"Someone grab her a headset!" the radio show employee ran through the room to hand me the headphones. Good,  I'm glad I wasn't the only one panicking.

The host continued, "Rayne, do you travel with Nick often?"

I set the headphones over my ears- I was really trying not to mess my hair up, it was humid today.

There were a thousand of things I could have said. A million combinations of sentence structures. Unfortunately for me, all that came out of my mouth was. "Yeah."

I could feel Nick inwardly grimace. 

But... he was trained for this. "Since she's a writer for Cosmopolitan," Nick smoothly inserted himself into my awkwardness. "it's easy for her to travel. Lucky for me, that means she's able to join me on a lot of press jobs." He sealed the sentence with a light chuckle.

He was brilliant.

I forced my own laugh to follow his. It was easy for me to travel with him because it was paying my bills.

The host wasted no time on his next question. "So would you say that it's getting serious? There have been rumors of an engagement."

If I had been eating something, I would have choked. Of course people were going to talk... but engagement? I couldn't even maintain a healthy relationship for nine months of my life.

Nick jumped in before I had a chance to stutter. "That's the first time I've heard of that myself," he said coolly. "Rayne and I are just enjoying our time together right now. Maybe in the future but we definitely love where we're at right now."

Do we?

K-Dog concluded the conversation and transitioned the show to a song. My hands were still shaking in my lap. I know I had only said one word, but couldn't a girl get a warning before she was asked a question over a radio show?

The red-light on the wall had just darkened when Nick yanked his headphones off. "What the hell?" his voice shot across the table to the host. "You never mentioned Rayne speaking. That wasn't in the agreement."

I shrunk in my chair. It wasn't a usual thing for Nick to be mad in public. It was startling.

The host shrugged. "Twitter mentioned they wanted to hear from her."

A malicious eyebrow arched at that and I honestly felt bad for the man who was on the receiving end of that glare. "We're leaving," Nick said sternly, leaving no room for questions. "you'll be hearing from my lawyers."

Before I could process the storm around me, Nick had grabbed my hand and pulled me with him out of the recording room. No one dared to follow as they had been just as taken back with the situation and were trying to process that severity of what their coworker had just done.