Like Real People Do

Red Bell Pepper

"Yeah, well I'm not interested in being set up on dates," he replied stubbornly.

"Why not?" Amy sighed in frustration, "She's a supermodel, for fuck's sake."

Jaxon shrugged, apparently not feeling the need to elaborate. "Just drop it, Amy. Please."

"Fine." Amy replied after a moment of consideration. Jaxon nodded his thanks and turned his attention to his kids, stepping around me to plop down on the floor in the midst of their construction zone. Once he was safely occupied, Amy pulled me to the side and lowered the volume of her voice, speaking to me as though she were revealing trade secrets. "Hey, maybe you can change his mind."

What a ridiculous suggestion. Surely there were about ten thousand better people for that job. "Why me?"

"He trusts you," she said simply.

"If that's the qualification you're looking for, why don't you ask one of the guys to do it?" I countered. They were Jaxon's best friends, after all. He'd more likely listen to them than to me, especially when it came to his personal life. That topic was a bit of a minefield, and seeing as I'd only recently safely navigated myself out of a sticky situation, I wasn't exactly eager to head back in.

Amy scrunched up her nose in annoyance. "Because their tactic is gonna be to say he should go for it because she's super-hot."

"Isn't that what you just did, though?" My gaze narrowed suspiciously, wondering what she thought I would bring to the conversation that Jaxon's best friends in the entire world couldn't.

"And look how well that turned out," she replied pointedly, releasing the tension in her shoulders and speaking softly, "Look, if I could, I'd set her up with one of the other guys, but she specifically asked for Jaxon, which means she's probably gonna back out if I try to switch musicians on her. And this is a really good opportunity to get the band's name out there more so than it already is. With all the rumors that they're on the verge of a breakup, we need all the positive publicity we can get."

That made much more sense. The whole 'it'll help the tour' angle seemed a little weak, but the public thinking that the band was about to split was definitely a crisis. But there was still something I didn't understand. "And how does Jaxon dating a supermodel prove that the band is staying together?"

"It shows that he's happy," she explained. "All the rumors are saying that Jaxon wants to leave and live a normal life, and if he's dating a supermodel, that's kind of exactly the opposite, isn't it."

"Gotcha," I nodded, figuring that much was true. I mean, dating a supermodel was like, every twenty-something year old's dream, right? "Are the rumors true?" I asked before I could stop myself and was given a swift response of a stern glare and absolutely no vocalization, much like the first time I'd asked Amy to divulge information on Jaxon's personal life. "Right, that's none of my business."

"Will you help?" she asked hopefully.

"What's in it for me?" I countered, though to be fair, keeping the band's public image positive did benefit me in the sense that good publicity meant they were more likely to stay together and I wasn't going to lose my job anytime soon.

"You get to show Jaxon that you're way over that almost kiss thing," she offered.

"Right." Encouraging Jaxon to date would give the impression that I was totally cool with the fact that our relationship had gone back to being strictly professional after the almost kiss debacle two weeks ago. Which I was. Completely. "Fine, I'll do it."

I turned to where Jaxon had been sitting just moments ago, determined to get this over with as soon as possible, because the longer I had to think about it, the more likely I'd be able to talk myself out of it, only to find that he had vanished and his spot in the middle of the twins' Lego city was filled by Peter.