I grinned at him and said, “Wow, way to sell it. You clearly missed your calling. You should be working as a cruise director with your uncanny ability to promote activities like that.”
“Undersell, overdeliver. That’s my motto. So, are you in?”
I hoped to spend the evening with Harper, so I said, “Not this time, but let’s definitely grab some drinks when we’re both back in L.A.”
“For sure. I’d better go see if your evil twin needs anything, but I’ll talk to you soon.”
We went off in opposite directions, and when I reached the dressing room I found the remote and turned on the monitor, despite myself. A continuous live feed ran during taping, for the benefit of the guests who were waiting to take the stage.
Dallas was center stage with an electric guitar hanging around his neck and a drink in his hand. He was laughing and joking with someone off camera, while totally ignoring the woman trying to touch up his makeup. Behind him, his band was settling in.
After a minute, the makeup artist went away, and Noah took Dallas’s drink from him. Then the lights dimmed, and Tommy Allen stepped into a spotlight to the right of the stage. When the cameras starting rolling, Tommy said, “Please give a warm welcome to the one, the only Dallas Jaymes!”
I muttered, “Technically there are two of him, but whatever.”
The audience started screaming as Tommy’s spotlight dimmed and another illuminated Dallas. My brother played the opening riff to one of his biggest hits, and honestly you would have thought he’d just invented guitar playing by the crowd’s reaction. When he opened his mouth to sing the first note, I clicked the button on the remote and shut off the monitor.
Okay, so I was a terrible human being who really wasn’t going to win sibling of the year. I was fine with that.
About two minutes later, Harper burst into the room. In his perfectly tailored blue suit, it was as if he’d just stepped out of one of his movies, all dapper and suave and impossibly handsome.
He was buzzing with excitement, and he asked, “Did you watch the taping?”
“Yup, every minute that you were on.”
“What did you think?”
“You were brilliant.”
That was exactly what he needed to hear. He dropped onto the couch and put his feet on the coffee table as he grinned at me. Then he said, “Tommy seemed to like the story I told.”
“He loved it. The audience did, too.” I started packing up our things as I asked, “Do you want to change back into your jeans before we head out?”
“No. Porter Robbins invited a bunch of us for cocktails in his suite at the Four Seasons, followed by dinner at Le Bernardin, which definitely means dressing up. Did you bring a suit?” He’d just mentioned arguably the biggest star in Hollywood and one of the most exclusive restaurants in New York, as casually as if he’d said he was meeting a buddy at McDonald’s.
“Yeah. You’re wearing it.”
“No, I mean, for yourself.” When I shook my head, he said, “That’s okay. We can swing by Bergdorf’s and buy you something off the rack.”
“Why would I need a suit?”
“That’s generally what people wear to Le Bernardin, and I’m planning to bring you as my date.”
“Oh no, that’s not happening,” I said, as I folded his clothes and put them in the garment bag.
“Which part, the shopping or the date?”
“Both.”
He asked, “You don’t want to have dinner with me?”
“I’d love to have dinner with you when it’s just the two of us, but I can’t go with you tonight.”
“Why not?”
“I’d stick out like a fly on a wedding cake,” I told him. “Plus, I wouldn’t have the first thing to say to any of those people.”
“You know, technically I’m ‘those people,’ and you don’t have any problem finding things to say to me.”
“This is different. The first thing they’ll do is ask me what I do for a living and glaze over with boredom when I tell them I’m a PA. Then they’ll spend the evening bragging about their new jet, or their fifth vacation home, or telling oh-so-relatable stories about how they didn’t want to fire their maid, but their Vicodin kept disappearing and they just knew it was her. Plot twist, turns out it was actually their brat of a fifteen-year-old stepson, who’s been selling their shit to the kids at prep school because he wants to be a drug dealer when he grows up.”
Harper chuckled and said, “That’s pretty brutal.”
“I’m not wrong, though. I’ve spent the last decade working for the type of people who’ll be at that dinner, so I know exactly what’s on tap for tonight. I also know it’s not something I’d enjoy.”
“Okay.” Harper pulled his phone from his pocket and said, “I’ll just message Porter and tell him I can’t make it. What would you like to do instead?”