Friends with Benefits by Melody Mayer Read Free Book Online Page A

Platinum’s circular driveway and was cruising west on Sunset Boulevard, en route to the Pacific Coast Highway and Malibu. Weezer wailed on the sound system, the windows were cranked open to the evening air, but still Kiley hadn’t said a word.
    The night she’d run into Tom at the late-night showing of his movie, she’d somehow mustered the nerve to be flirty and confident. It had all been just so perfect, so spontaneous.
    This, by contrast, was planned. An actual date. That changed everything.
    Tom stopped the pickup at the light at the intersection of Sunset and Barrington. His face was quizzical. “You okay?”
    â€œI’m fine.”
    â€œYou’re just so quiet.”
    â€œUmm . . .” She cleared her throat. “I’m just thinking about how to handle an employer who gives me the shirt off her back—literally.” She gestured to the shirt Platinum had bestowed on her for the evening.
    He laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “That why she was undressed?”
    Okay, this was better.
    â€œExactly. I was gonna wear my dad’s bowling shirt.” Kiley fingered a wisp of gauzy silk material. “I have to admit, it’s a lot nicer than anything I own. Besides, if I’d said no, I would have gotten fired.”
    â€œKinda high-strung, huh?”
    â€œTo put it mildly.”
    The traffic started to move; it was pretty heavy, even for a Sunday night. Tom’s eyes flicked to her again, then back to the road. “Well, it looks great. She was pretty toasted, huh? Platinum, I mean.”
    â€œYeah.” Kiley was ready to elaborate—the insanity of working for Platinum was a subject on which she could babble for hours. She knew, however, that she shouldn’t. One of the conditions of her employment had been for Kiley never to discuss Platinum’s private life—Kiley had to sign a legal document where she swore under penalty of penury never to be a source, even off the record, for a reporter. As for a tell-all book, forget it. Platinum had simply alluded to a close relationship with the Los Angeles chapter of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club. Kiley needed no further convincing.
    â€œShe can’t be as crazy as your tour was. How’d it go?”
    â€œTruth is, after a while it was pretty boring. We basically had to say the same things over and over, to every TV talk show host from here to New York and back again. ‘People are going to love the flick.’ ‘We loved working together, it was like a family.’ ” He shook his head.
    â€œYou mean it wasn’t fun?”
    Tom stopped for a light. “Yeah, I guess. My little sister Raina is completely starstruck. She wanted to come for the premiere, but my parents said she had to show her pigs for 4-H at the county fair. I just think they don’t want to fill her head with nonsense.”
    â€œSome pig,” Kiley joked, citing a favorite line from
Charlotte’s
Web.
    Tom smiled. “Good book. Templeton the rat was my hero. Just kidding!”
    Damn. How could this guy look like . . . well, like this guy, and be nice and sweet and make jokes about characters in
Charlotte’s Web
? If only he would be a little less perfect, she could concentrate on his flaws, and not spiral into a needy place where every atom of her body yearned for him.
    She gazed out the window, not wanting to fall in love with a guy so obviously out of her league. It would feel hopeless and helpless and out of control. That was way too much like how her mom felt most of the time.
    â€œIt must be weird,” Kiley mused aloud. “Six months ago you were working on your family’s farm, and now . . . all this.”
    â€œYeah, the media loves the hayseed thing. They think anyone who lives between L.A. and Manhattan is barefoot and illiterate. My dad went to Drake. My mom graduated from Iowa State. Ever see
Field of Dreams
? That’s them.”
    Kiley