most likely tick me off. Just total, blessed silence.
“They know you too, you know.”
My hope-balloon-of-silence is popped, and I turn my wrinkled brow his direction. “Excuse me?”
“Birdie Harris is already a name,” he answers, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye as he takes a left turn at a light. “And Birdie Harris acting in Howie King’s next big movie makes you beautiful bait for all the paparazzi piranhas.”
Sure, Nashville knows me.
LA, though? The country music scene doesn’t fully translate out here.
My look says yeah, right, and he doesn’t miss it.
“Trust me on this. You’re not going to be able to go anywhere in this town without complications.”
My first instinct is to deny anything that comes out of his mouth, but I’m not sure I can in this instance without being obtuse. My manager Neil has already started taking the steps to ramp up my security. Interviews, background checks, he’s all in on his safety search. Soon, I’ll probably have two big, burly men following me around like Billie’s Franco and Mel.
Instead of arguing, I keep my mouth shut, and by some miracle, he does too.
The two of us stay that way for a few beautiful minutes until Andrew turns into a parking lot, a big neon sign scrolling against the adjacent brick building. It reads Buenos Tacos in bright orange and yellow letters, and in this moment, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful.
“I hope you brought your appetite,” Andrew says, sliding into a parking space and pulling another brown paper bag from behind his seat. He unrolls the top and nods to my bag. “Suit up.”
There’s a big, huge part of me that wants to reject the whole disguise thing, but I figure it’s best if I just go with it. It’s only one lunch. One forty-five-minute lunch at which tacos will be served.
I’m a woman. After a lifetime of pap smears and uncomfortably sexist encounters with all kinds of assholes, I can do anything for forty-five minutes, even if that includes wearing whatever he’s stuffed inside this bag for me.
I reach inside and pull out three items, one after another. A brunette wig, red-rimmed eyeglasses, and an LA Dodgers baseball cap.
I put everything on, don’t even bother examining how ridiculous I probably look in the visor mirror above my head, and get out of the passenger seat.
Andrew meets me at the front of the car in a freaking blond mullet that is straight out of the movie Joe Dirt and a pair of aviators.
Lord Almighty. I can’t not laugh.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he says smartly. “I should always be sporting a mullet.”
I wish I could say he looked stupid in a mullet, but his insane good looks have superpowers. They can even make a freaking mullet look hot.
I sure as shit am not going to tell him that, but there’s no stopping my brain from thinking it. Physically, he is genetically superior to every man I’ve ever met.
Outwardly, though, I roll my eyes. He doesn’t need any ego padding.
He grins—almost as though he can read my innermost thoughts—and reaches out a hand for mine. I’m startled by the gesture, but I’m also annoyed with him enough to think quickly on my feet and avoid getting swept up in it. I slip both of my hands into the pockets of my cutoff jean shorts and head to the entrance doors.
There is no freaking way I’m holding hands with this guy. Considering I’ll be filming sex scenes with him, it might seem like a pointless avoidance. But it’s not. Hand-holding with a hot-guy enemy can only be described as a gateway drug. You take one little sample, and suddenly, you’re lying back against his headboard with your legs pulled open by a spreader bar.
Just say no, kids.
I ignore my pesky subconscious’s after school special and shield my sensitive eyes as we step through the doors of Buenos Tacos and out of the sun. A hostess wearing a vibrant, color-block-style dress greets us with a big, full-teeth smile.
I’m not sure if she takes the task of front-of-house friendliness really seriously or if she thinks Andrew’s mullet is ridiculous, but neither of us bothers to ask. It doesn’t take her long to seat us at a table for two, and not even a minute later, a giant bowl of chips and salsa is placed between us.
Okay, okay, I guess this lunch meeting isn’t so bad…
I dig out a perfectly hot tortilla chip from the bottom