Siempre by Tessa Cárdenas Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t sleep well, but not all the time. It makes me jittery.”
    “And you slept really well last night, I’m sure.” Aleksandra smirked as she picked up her own mug of coffee and sat back to pretzel herself in the chair.

Chapter 5

     
    S EAN WAS loitering in the dressing room on Thursday almost three weeks later when Alana sauntered in after everyone else had left. It was the one day a week Jaime was in the city, and Sean’s schedule was easy enough that he wasn’t useless. The short time span meant they had to spend the time just hanging out and talking instead of hooking up. The previous week Alana had figured out how much he was looking forward to it and spent the entire day teasing him for being more excited about getting to know Jaime than having a sex marathon on the weekend.
    “Why are you pouty? Teasing you for being excited for your weekly sexless date night is not fun if you are not actually excited for it.” Alana wiped her hand over the nearest bench before deciding it was clean enough to lie down on her back. “Don’t worry. I’m not invading again. I wish I was. Travis is coming back to help me work on Steph’s piece. You might need to come back after the date to carry me home, though.”
    “Tell Travis if he kills you, it’s his job to carry you home,” Sean answered.
    “I did notice you ignored the other question. Why are you pouty? Did he cancel? Does he have something else to do and he said you can’t come with? Did he give you herpes?”
    “What?” Sean stopped tossing stuff in his bag to look at her.
    “You weren’t reacting to anything. I took a guess.”
    “And you guessed herpes?”
    “So it’s not herpes, then?” Alana asked, as though she actually deserved an answer. “Or it is herpes? Because Travis is really going to freak out if Jaime gave you herpes. Or did some other guy call and say he might have given you herpes, and now you have to tell Jaime the herpes is your fault?”
    “No. What is wrong with you? No one gave anyone else herpes!” This sentence, of course, would be Travis’s cue to show up.
    “Is there a story here I should be concerned about?” he asked.
    “No. Unless something personal has made your crazy adoptive daughter think about herpes too much.” Sean would have felt bad about the look Alana got from Travis if she hadn’t deserved it.
    “What? I don’t have herpes!” Alana cast him a glare before turning back to Travis. “Travis, I swear I did not do anything to get herpes. Sean is being pouty about his date. I merely guessed that maybe it was because he had herpes.”
    Travis looked back at her for a moment before sighing and raising his gaze to the ceiling. His lips moved in a silent count to ten before he looked back down and ignored Alana to look at Sean.
    “Right. So now that we’ve cleared that up, is there an actual problem here?”
    “Not really.” Sean glanced at his phone. He still had at least a few minutes before Jaime would text him and save him from this mess.
    “Not really, or just no, there is not a problem, and Alana just wanted an excuse to scare the shit out of me?” Travis’s face was already shifting from the exhausted look Alana often inspired in him to the concerned one that made Sean want to hide from him.
    “Not really, as in I’m making up a problem in my head that is not really a problem or anything I should be upset about, so you can drop the mother hen act before you start.” Sean sighed and rolled his eyes when Travis’s expression didn’t relax. “Really. It’s stupid, and I haven’t mentioned it to him at all. If you go after him, he will just be confused and possibly ask me why I didn’t just ask him myself, so please refrain from making me look stupid.”
    “In that case, this would be easier and more convincing if you’d tell me exactly what the issue is so I can just not worry about it, and Alana can stop acting like I don’t know she’s trying to shorten her rehearsal by getting you