“Nothing. I paid her to walk up and hand it to me. Its sole purpose was for you to be jealous so that you’d be forced to say yes.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“Most of the time, maybe. But not on this.”

I roll my eyes even though he can’t see it and shake my head ever so slightly. “Wait. Say yes to what?” Exasperation and good humor tinge the edges of my tone.

“Look something up for me.”

My first thought is, don’t tell me what to do. My second is, “Why?”

“Because it will make you believe me when I tell you I know how to fix your problem.”

“You don’t even know my problem.”

“I know you need money. Customers. New business. Is that not enough?”

I’m already not liking this topic despite enjoying this conversation. Or more along the lines of, I’m liking who I’m having it with. “Okay. I’ll play your game.” I wipe my hand on my hand towel and move over to my computer. “What am I looking up?”

“The name Jase Gizmodo.”

“Uh—”

“G-I-Z-M-O-D-O or Gizmo for short with a hard G.”

I laugh at that. “Noted. Hard G.”

“I was teased way too many times by kids who chose to use a soft G.”

“I bet—OH,” I gasp as my screen populates and picture after picture of the man I met earlier, the man whose voice is in my ear, fill the screen in front of me.

Holy.

Shit.

The man from Josie’s Java with the ice-blue eyes, the undeniable charm, and the roguish smirk is the drummer of one of the most popular rock bands on this planet—BENT.

Words escape me. I wish they would have escaped me earlier when I told him to have more dignity for allowing women to assume he was someone special. Different. Famous.

He’s famous all right.

And if I spent any iota of time wondering what those hinted tattoos looked like, my next scroll down gives me an answer in living color. Images of them on a shirtless Jase—or Gizmo, who the world knows him as. In the image staring back at me, he’s standing with his arms out, his muscles defined on broad shoulders and toned arms, with an array of varying tattoos on his arms and chest. The image cuts off at his lower waist but gives the image’s intended audience exactly what they’re hoping for—the indentations and the deep V just before his hips.

My cheeks flush, and it’s Jase clearing his throat on the other end of the connection that reminds me he’s there while I’m ogling his body.

“Jase, huh?” I state.

“If I had told you my name was Gizmo—”

“With a hard G.”

“Yes, with a hard G”—he chuckles—“would that have made a difference? Would you have known who I was?”