Grounded (Up in the Air, #3)(78)

I wore a little white dress with silver accents. It was short enough to be Vegas appropriate, with a halter neck that I thought was flattering, though the back came up high enough to cover my new tattoo. Unlike James, I wasn’t trying to show it off to the world right off the bat.

Shiny red heels took all of the innocence out of the color of the dress, and James seemed a little dumbstruck when I walked out of the closet in the sexy getup. The look on his face told me I’d chosen just right.

The mood of this red carpet was actually a fun vibe, as opposed to the tenser one I’d attended before. People dressed up, but it was more sexy Las Vegas dress-up than stuffy ballroom. Even Frankie decided to forgo her usual half-shirt, cutoff shorts look and wore a tiny red dress that looked sinful.

It was Frankie’s night, and she’d been thoughtful enough to extend an invitation to Stephan and Javier. James had bought them their own custom tailored tuxes, and the two men were grinning from ear to ear as we all walked the red carpet together.

Frankie rushed to hug a stiff James as soon as she spotted us at the event.

“Will you at least talk to me about it? You can’t freeze me out forever, James,” she said into his cheek.

“Oh, we’ll talk,” he told her ominously.

She just smiled, seeming to take that as a good sign.

She greeted Stephan and Javier like they were all old friends, before moving to me. She pointedly didn’t try to hug me, just bending at the waist to give me a jaunty little bow. “Bianca, the lion tamer,” she said, grinning at James.

I put a hand on his arm, wishing he would just let it go. But James was James, and he would get there in his own time.

Frankie seemed to know him well enough to see that, and gave him space.

We ran into Tristan next. He was looking debonair in a black tux as he posed for one of the photo ops. The photographers seemed to be in a frenzy to get shots of him. I shot James a puzzled look.

“Is he famous or something?” I asked.

James grinned and then laughed. “Or something. He stars in the magic show at the Cavendish property, and he’s the lead singer in a band that had two hit singles last year. It doesn’t make me even a little bit sad that you aren’t a fan of his.”

Tristan turned to us the instant he finished with the shots. He grinned that wicked grin of his from ear to ear when he saw me.

He moved as though to hug me the second he got within our reach, but James was expecting that. James moved in between us, catching the other man in a bear hug and saying something that I couldn’t make out into his ear.

Tristan just threw his head back and laughed.

The two men were of the same height, but Tristan had James beat in bulk. Where James was ripped but elegant, Tristan looked like a linebacker in a suit.

James pulled away from the other man, and moved me very obviously into his body, shielding me. I thought it was ridiculous, but it still made me smile.

I gave Tristan a little wave.

He bent forward in a solicitous bow, but his wicked eyes never left my face, and his smile didn’t falter. He flashed one of his dangerous dimples my way.

“So no touching,” he said in his deep, rich voice. “Can I at least see her tattoo? I heard all about it. I heard her back was lovely, just like the rest of her.”

He was clearly baiting James, but he still got an unexpected giggle out of me. The man was outrageous.

James agreed with me, and he was not nearly as upset with the other man’s comments as I’d thought he’d be. “Outrageous bastard,” he muttered, but with little heat. Perhaps being deliberately baited had made him see how over the top possessive he was being. Or perhaps the two men were better friends than I’d realized. Who knew with Mr. Beautiful?

We introduced Tristan to Stephan and Javier. Of course, Stephan knew who he was. He was the media savvy of the two of us. I didn’t know how I’d been so clueless as to his identity. If he had a headlining show in Vegas, there must have been billboards for him everywhere. I made a note to keep an eye out for his ads.

My suspicion that James and Tristan were actually close friends was reaffirmed at the way the two men joked and generally gave each other shit for a solid twenty minutes amidst the red carpet chaos. Only good friends could give each other that much grief without any real low blows. Tristan had to know about the sex tape, everyone seemed to, but he never mentioned it. Most of his jabs involved talking about how pretty James was, which didn’t bother James at all.

And James never mentioned Danika, who I had discerned right away was Tristan’s own sore spot. Most of the jabs aimed Tristan’s way were comments about ‘singing magicians’, which only seemed to make Tristan smile.

At one point Tristan ran his hand through his hair, then pointedly checked his watch, which looked familiar. “Are you about done harassing me, pretty boy?” he asked.

James cursed, then held out his hand. “Give me my watch back,” he said.

Tristan waved the watch at him. “It’s almost my birthday. Can’t we just call it even?”

James shook his head, grinning. “I don’t like you that much.”

Tristan was handing it back to him when his expression became arrested, his eyes moving to look at something behind us. Something raw moved behind those golden depths that seemed impossibly sad for the charismatic man.

I glanced behind us.