“Cass, seriously, stop sewing and come to bed.”

I look up from the fabric in front of me at Justin’s mumbled words and see him leaning against the doorframe, rubbing his eyes. “What time is it?” I question, going back to the dress.

“Late. Come to bed.”

“I’m right in the middle of the hem. I want to finish. I’ll only be like an hour.”

A groan escapes him and when I look up again, he’s gone from the doorway. I briefly consider calling after him but quickly disregard the idea. He was the one who kept hinting that he wanted to sleep over and I warned him that I had to do some work. He shouldn’t be so surprised that he’s alone in there.

I don’t even know why he wanted to stay over in the first place. Well, okay, so maybe I slept over at his house last night but that was just because I was so tired and didn’t think I could make the drive back to my house. And I’ll admit, it was a pretty good sleep. I thought my bed was comfortable but his brings comfort to a whole new level. And when I woke up and Justin was laying beside me, snoring lightly, it felt pretty good.

Somehow that translated into tonight and now Justin is upstairs laying in my bed. A voice in my head is telling me I’m being pretty stupid sitting downstairs with my sewing machine when I could be with him, curled up in bed, but I really do need to get this dress done. The opening of my store is approaching quickly and I still have a few key pieces that I need to have done for the grand opening. And it’s going to involve some late nights in order to get everything finished.

My eyes stray back to the doorway and my hands still on the fabric. I know I’m almost done with the hem but it feels like it’s never going to be finished. I want to go upstairs. Justin looked pretty good standing there wearing only a t shirt and a pair of flannel pajama pants hanging low off his hips. I’ve come to the conclusion that he can make any article of clothing look good. He should have become a model. Any designer would love working with his body.

I give my head a shake and force myself to concentrate on the dress instead of Justin’s body. I’m never going to get anything done if I don’t focus on what’s in front of me. Still, even as I tell myself to concentrate on this hem, my thoughts wander back to the individual in the room above this.

I was a little wary about sleeping over at his house yesterday, not really knowing what that would entail. It’s been a month since we’ve started going out and I feel like I’m ready for all the physical aspects of our relationship to happen but last night I was so tired and really, I’m so girly at heart and I really just want the first time with Justin to be special not just because it’s convenient. I’ve never actually communicated this to him but I figure that since nothing really happened last night even though there was ample opportunity, he feels the same way. I’m really lucky to have found a guy like him.

I pull my bottom lip in between my teeth as I finish the last tricky part of the hem and a smile pulls on my lips. I love the feeling when I finish something I’ve been working on for so long. It’s such a satisfying feeling I can’t even describe it.

Standing, I stretch my body, cramped from leaning over the table for so long, and then slip the dress over a bustform in the corner of the room. The room’s a bit of a mess but I can deal with it tomorrow. Now that I’m finished, tiredness suddenly lands on me and I’m fighting to keep my eyes open. I’m surprised when I check my watch and find that it’s almost three in the morning. Oops. I hope Justin wasn’t actually expecting it to only take an hour when he came down at midnight.

I shut off the lights in my sewing room and then make my way upstairs as quietly as possible. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve been a night owl and I’ve become pretty good at moving around in the middle of the night without waking up anyone else in the house.

I find some pajamas and change in the bathroom and quickly wash my face and brush my teeth. When I reenter my bedroom, I’m faced with a problem I hadn’t expected. Justin had fallen asleep in my bed, completely in the center and was kind of sprawled out so there wasn’t really a lot of room for me. Standing at the edge of the bed, I try and decide the best way to get him to move would be.

My nose wrinkles a bit at the thought of disturbing his sleep but this morning I found out he’s a deadweight when he’s sleeping and I know I won’t be able to easily move him to one side of the bed.

Giving his shoulder a nudge, I whisper his name in the dark. With no response, I sigh and move the covers away from his body. There’s just enough room for me to slip in beside him. I can’t guarantee that I won’t fall out of bed in the middle of while I’m sleeping but I really don’t want to wake him up when he seems to be in such a deep sleep.

My thinking that he’s in a deep sleep dies when I slide in beside him and almost instantly his feet jerk a bit and his head rolls to the side. I look up at him and watch his eyes slowly open. He lets out a groan.

“What time is it?” he asks, starting to raise his upper body to see the alarm clock.

I pull him back down before he can see that it’s past three in the morning and how I’m two hours late to when I told him I’d be in bed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Your feet are freezing,” he mumbles, turning on his side.

I burrow my face into the soft cotton of his t shirt. “Sorry. It’s kind of cold downstairs.”

His one arm goes around me and his fingers lightly graze the skin of my back, under the camisole I’m wearing. “Did you get your hem finished?”

The question makes me smile knowing he honestly doesn’t care that much because only a fellow designer would have any interest involving a hem. “Mm hmm. One more dress done.” I shift a bit and can feel the edge of the bed impossibly close to me. “Can you move over? I’m right on the edge.”

He drags himself across the bed, pulling me with him. Once we’re both firmly situated, I let my eyes close again. It’s bad how good this feels to be laying here with him. If it feels this good, I’m never going to want to sleep alone again.

“So are you going to play hooky tomorrow and spend the day with me?”

I smile at his question. Every night I talk to him he asks me that. I don’t think he really ever expects me to say yes, but he asks anyways. “Not tomorrow.”

“What are tomorrow’s big plans?”

I yawn into his chest and tentatively move my feet towards his, hoping they’ve warmed up a bit. When they make contact with his feet and he doesn’t flinch or pull them away, I allow my legs to tangle with his. “I’m going shopping with Kyle for some furniture for the store.”

“I thought you were hiring an interior decorator for that.”

“That’s what Susan said to do but Kyle’s done some work with interior decorating.”

“Why is he being your store manager if he does interior decorating?”

“He’s not an actual interior decorator. He just has some experience in it. Besides I pretty much know what I want to do with the store so there’s no point paying someone to come in and give me ideas I don’t need.”

“I guess. You must have picked up a lot of ideas for interior decorating from your mom.”

“A bit.”

“Is your mom planning on coming out to LA for the opening of the store?”

I inwardly sigh. I know that Justin wants to know more about my family and every once in a while he’ll ask me questions about them. Luckily he doesn’t press too much, probably because he saw how much anxiety I got from his mom interrogating me about them. Usually after a few questions he drops the topic.

“She has a conference that week so she can’t.”

“Too bad. I’d like to meet her.”

I breathe out a laugh. “No you don’t.”

It’s quiet for a minute before Justin pulls his upper body back a bit and I raise my eyes to find him looking down at me. From the moonlight coming in the window, I can make out his eyes examining mine.

“You know, one day you’re going to have to tell me about your family.”

The thought is not appealing. “One day I probably will,” I say as vaguely as possible.

“Families really shape who a person becomes,” he says.

That thought is even less appealing. “I hope not because then I must be really screwed up.”

He smiles. “You’re so dramatic.”

“You don’t know my family,” I reply. “You don’t even know the kind of crazy I’m working with.”

He laughs and pulls me back close to him. I move my body up on the bed a bit so my head is more level with his. He’s closed his eyes but they open again when I lean forward to briefly kiss him. His eyes smile at me and he brings his face close to mine to kiss me back. He pulls back after a minute and I relax my head into my pillow and close my eyes.

“I can’t believe you were working on that dress until three in the morning.”

My eyes open again. I guess he managed to look at the clock. “It took longer than I thought it would,” I reply. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you alone in bed.”

He brings his face close to mine, touching his nose to mine. “Promise it won’t happen again?” he smiles.

With him this close to me, the thought of ever choosing sewing over being in bed with him seems incredibly foolish. I return his smile and move my hand until I’m clutching his shoulder, keeping him close to me. “Promise.”

* * *

Sometimes it’s easy to fall into this fantasy world where nobody cares about what I’m doing and my private life is kept private. That fantasy is usually broken by a call from Cal Friedman, my public relation guy.

“Want to fill me in on Cassandra Reyna?”

“Why do you need to know about her?”

“Because there’s an article about the two of you in US Weekly and I need to know if we’re commenting on this or not.”

I sigh and run my hand over my face. “We’re dating.”

“And is this going to be made public?”

“What did the article say?”

“I scanned it and emailed it over to you.”

Getting up from the couch, I begin to walk towards my office. “Hang on. I’m going to go look at it.”

It really should come as a shock that the press is finally catching on to Cassie and my relationship. We don’t go out a huge amount and I’ve never been aware of any pictures being taken of us together but this is LA and people talk. It was only a matter of time.

My email loads up and I click on the message from Cal. My nose wrinkles in distaste as I quickly scan over the article and pictures. They have a picture of us eating at Carrabba’s in New York but that’s obviously old. The only other pictures are of Cassie. At first I think that she had no idea her picture was being taken but in the last one of her, she’s looking directly at the camera.

“Are you looking at it?”

“Yeah I see it.”

“There’s nothing concrete in there and if you want to deny it I can do that. But you might want to consider how beneficial that will be if this relationship is serious.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and grimace. I knew everything was going too perfect. I knew I couldn’t keep her to myself for too much longer. “Can you just leave it for now? I have to talk to her about it.”

“Sure but get back to me. Heads up next time would be great too.”

I roll my eyes as I hang up the phone. Cal expects me to call him every time I even look at a girl. I hate getting PR involved in my relationship because it just makes everything so complicated.

Checking my watch, I decide that Cassie should still be at the store if I go there now. I grab my car keys from the kitchen counter and a minute later I’m on my way to Rodeo Drive.

Questions are flying through my head the entire drive. If Cassie knew she was suddenly getting her picture taken by paparazzi why didn’t she say anything? You would think that it’s something you would mention, especially when you’re not used to it.

Cassie keeps stuff to herself though. Sometimes getting any information out of her is like pulling teeth. I know that there’s stuff in her past that’s made her slightly closed off but who knows if I’ll ever find out what that is. She has this way of changing the subject whenever I ask her about something she doesn’t want to talk about.

Whether she wants to talk about getting her picture taken or not, we have to talk about it. Unfortunately, dating me kind of requires dating the media because they hound me and whoever I happen to be dating. She needs to know that.

When I get to the store, I call Cassie’s number. She picks up after the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey. I’m outside. Can you let me in?”

“Sure. Hang on.”

I only have to wait for a few seconds before the front door opens and I see Cassie.

“What are you doing here?” she asks as she ushers me into the store.

“I need to talk to you,” I state. There’s a man and woman standing in the corner of the store looking through a photo album but I ignore them and pull Cassie through the store to the back part where her office is.

“Slow down,” she says, pulling her hand away from my grasp. “What’s wrong?”

I make sure the door’s closed before speaking. “Do you read US Weekly?”

“I try and read more stimulating things.”

“My PR guy called and there’s an article about us in there.”

Her brow furrows a bit. “Really?”

I cross the room to her desk and upload the email from Cal. When it pops up, I gesture for her to come over and point to it. I watch her face for a reaction as she glances over it but her expression remains pretty neutral.

“Who exactly are the sources they cite in here?” she asks after she’s finished, looking up at me.

“No one. Just people being paid to say things.”

Both her hands run through her hair. “So I guess our relationship is a public thing now?”

“It doesn’t have to be. Cal can deny it and say we’re friends or some shit.”

Her hands slip into the back pockets of her jeans. “Is that what you want?”

Sighing, I lean back against the edge of the desk. “It would be easier to do that now but it’s kind of inevitable that we’re going to have to make it public at some point. We can’t hide it forever.”

“Then let’s not bother and just come out with it. It can’t be that bad.”

She’s a bit naïve when it comes to Hollywood. “It can be pretty bad.”

She shrugs and smiles. “Well are you worth it?” she asks, a teasing tone laced in her question.

My lips begin to curl up. “I like to think so.”

“Then let’s just go with it,” she says. “I don’t care who knows.”

This surprises me a bit since I’ve come to the conclusion that she has this thing about commitment and being publicly linked to someone is a big step in the commitment area. I’m not going to question it though. “Okay. I’ll call Cal and tell him.”

She steps towards me and loops her arms around my neck. I smile down at her and rub my hands up and down her back.

“There’s worse things in the world than being romantically linked to Justin Timberlake,” she says, her thumbs rubbing the back of my neck. It feels great and I could easily fall into her embrace but my earlier questions come back to mind.

“Cass?”

“Hm?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that the paparazzi were taking your picture?”

Her eyes examine mine and I press on.

“You were looking right into the camera on that last picture. You had to have known someone was taking your picture.”

“A short guy with a huge camera is kind of hard to miss,” she responds.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shrugs. “I didn’t think it was important.”

I lean my head down and rest my forehead against hers. “It is. You should tell me those things.”

“I thought you’d get upset about it,” she says. “And I was right because I can tell you’re upset even now.”

I frown. “I just hate the intrusiveness of it all. It pisses me off.”

“Which is why I didn’t tell you. It was just a couple pictures.”

“It’s going to be like this a lot,” I say, a little scared of her reaction. “If we confirm that we’re dating, they’re going to hound you. It’s gonna be overwhelming.”

She rises on her toes and plants a kiss on my nose. “I can handle overwhelming.”

“You’re sure?”

“Stop asking or I’ll change my mind,” she says, and kisses me again, this time her lips meeting mine. I can feel my body relax as she kisses me, all earlier tension flowing out of me. I know realistically that handling the media is going to be a pain in the ass but while I’m standing here kissing her, it doesn’t seem to matter at all. Anything is worth this moment right now.

She pulls away after a minute, leaving me wanting more, like her kisses always do. Her hands move to the sides of my head and she smiles up at me.

“Now that this is all sorted out, how about we go back out there and you try to make a good first impression for Susan and Kyle?”

My eyes move to the closed door and then back to her. “That’s who’s out there?”

“Mm hmm. And it’s awfully rude of us to be in here while they’re out there.”

“Rude is okay sometimes,” I say, trying to pull her back to me. She merely laughs and gives my stomach a playful smack.

“Come on.”

Smiling, I take her hand and allow her to pull me out into the store, my earlier concerns gone. If Cassie’s not freaked out about it, maybe going public isn’t such a big deal after all.