Taming Hollywood's Baddest Boy - Max Monroe Page 0,26
and choose my moments selectively. I’m still coming to terms with how incredibly rare those moments are.
Still, I’m here. I am on this trip with him, sitting in the back of his boat with his dog while he navigates through the channel of the Hatchal River. A plain of low-lying grassland on each side of the passing water—upstream from his house by a couple miles—the landscape doesn’t take all that long to change. Snow-capped mountains sit majestically in the distance, and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t found religion a time or two while I silently hope our hiking route doesn’t include them.
But I had to come. Leaving to go back to LA with nothing but some bruises and scratches wasn’t an option. Sitting and waiting at his house for days while he’s gone to God knows where also wasn’t going to help me achieve anything but temporary insanity born out of boredom. Obviously, the only option is to be on the front lines, infiltrating my enemy—his anger, loathing, and mistrust for everything Hollywood—one joke at a time.
I might be a little banged-up from last night, but I’ll deal with any and all discomfort as long as it keeps me in the saving-my-career game.
Plus…if he didn’t kind of sort of want me to go, wouldn’t he have made it impossible for me to come along?
Obviously, yes. He’s grouchier than a grizzly bear, and his words are most definitely sharper. Luca Weaver would have taken my beaten carcass straight to my car last night if his only reason for rescuing me was to keep his conscience clear.
Hell, maybe he even secretly wants to come back to Hollywood.
Stranger things have happened. I mean, I just saw Charlie Sheen on some kind of health insurance commercial with his father, Martin. If you would have asked me in 2007 what Charlie Sheen would be up to now, I sure as hell wouldn’t have said that.
Luca slows down the engine as he pulls us toward a boat dock, and I start to get excited at the possibility of a bathroom. My bladder has been full for the past hour, and now that there’s an option other than hanging ass over the side of a boat, she’s positively screaming.
“Pit stop?” I ask as casually as I can manage.
“Final stop,” Luca corrects, wheeling the front end of the boat in at an angle and cranking the throttle back to reverse.
I scrunch up my nose and look around at all of the…nothing. It’s a desolate no-man’s-land—no people, no boats—just a single slip dock that leads to nowhere.
“Where are we?” I ask and stand to my feet as Luca turns off the engine and hops off the boat to grab some rope and secure us to the dock.
“A boat dock.”
Wow. Thank you, Captain Obvious.
Bailey wags his tail and jumps onto land, and I look around in confusion.
“This is our final destination?”
“Not even close.” Luca grins at me as he heads for the back of the boat, bends down, and secures the stern with another rope. “This is where our hike begins.”
Oh, right. Hiking.
Ha. Ha. I almost forgot about that part.
I just nod my head—careful not to let any of my inner hysterical cackles fly free—and grab my backpack from the back of the boat, lugging the heavy sack with me as I step onto the dock.
I can do this. In a way, I asked for it. Not in the grand scheme, sure, but definitely when he was telling me I couldn’t go. So, I can, and I will. I am woman, hear me roar and all that jazz.
All I have to do is pee first.
“Well, before we begin the hiking portion of our day, mind pointing me in the direction of the bathroom?”
Luca stops in his tracks at the end of the dock and turns around to face me. “A bathroom?”
“Yeah, you know, so I can start fresh.” He stares at me, his eyes nothing more than hollow orbs of blank, blue ocean. I smile slightly and pick up my point again, only this time, mixing up the terms in the hope that I’ll land on one he understands. “Empty the tank. Clear the screen. Erase the board. Reset the—”
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news here,” he says while shaking his head and chuckling, clearly not sorry at all. “But we’re in the middle of nowhere, princess. There aren’t bathrooms out here. Just nature.”
I narrow my eyes. “Where am I supposed to pee, then?”