Page 22 of Smartasses
Chapter Eight
Baseball hat on and pulled low, ridiculous swim trunks covered in hot pink pineapples in play, and the hottest woman on the ship sitting next to him getting all the sidelong glances from the other passengers on the boat taking them from the ship to the cruise’s private island, Carter was feeling more than a little cocky about how his disguise was working out. No one gave two shits about him. It had been more than a decade since that had happened, right about the time that the first Admiral movie came out. The worst was when he got called out in mid-chew at dinner. He loved his fans for sure, but sometimes he just wanted to eat a cheeseburger with onions and not read a snarky post later about how he had the worst breath in Hollywood.
“Are you sure you want to take this risk?” Audrey asked as she looked around at the other passengers packed in around them, obviously nervous enough about him being exposed for both of them. “People do stay on the ship during these excursions. It wouldn’t be that weird.”
“True.” He scooted closer to her on the bench seat until they touched from knee to hips to his hand around her shoulders as he toyed with the ends of her hair. Usually, he wasn’t much of a PDA guy, but with Aubrey, the urge to continually touch her was something he wasn’t about to deny. “But I’d lose the chance to kiss you under a waterfall or save you from a shark or something.”
“There are no waterfalls on the island,” she said as she snuggled closer, her hand landing on his thigh just above his knee. “And if Jaws came to take me out, I’d happily shove you into danger so I could swim away.”
“That’s cold.”
She shot him a shit-eating grin as the boat pulled up to the island dock. “It’s good you realize what kind of woman you’ve hooked up with on this trip.”
“A very sexy one.” He gave her a soft, quick kiss before they got up and followed the rest of the crowd to the stairs leading off the boat.
From their spot on the top row, it was easy to get the lay of the land. The island was set up with a beach area covered in lounge chairs placed close together and mostly occupied, an open shopping area with little grass huts filled with tourist tchotchkes, food stands, a guy with a cart selling piña coladas in coconut shells, and—bingo!—a small building where they could rent snorkeling gear.
“You in?” he asked, pointing at the building.
“Most definitely. How else am I going to shove you in the shark’s way so I can sell my story and see it get made into a streaming-only movie?” Her face paled, and her grip on his hand tightened as they made their way down to the single set of stairs and out onto the dock. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I didn’t think you did, Aubrey.” He pulled her close, sneaking another kiss as the other passengers swerved around them. “Now, on the other hand, I could definitely enact that plan and only to save you and therefore be a real-life hero. The media coverage would be amazing.” His smart watch buzzed.
Glancing down, he saw his brother’s name cross the caller ID. He hit decline call and walked with Aubrey away from the boat. The buzzing started again almost immediately. Fuck. Byron would not stop calling. It wasn’t in his brother’s DNA to give up when he was on a mission.
“I gotta take this real quick while I can still pick up a signal from the ship.”
“No worries.” She squeezed his hand before letting go. “I’ll go get our snorkel gear.”
She strutted off, and it took Carter two tries to get his Bluetooth headphones in because he was distracted by her hips swaying from side to side as she followed the wood plank path to the snorkel shop.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Your cover’s been blown, and Allyson is not very happy about it,” Byron said, ignoring any socially acceptable pleasantries per usual.
The Allyson was Allyson Hernandez as in the director of the movie he was desperately trying to get cast in. Fuck. This was not good.
“Give me all of it,” he said, moving closer to the end of the dock in order to be as close to the ship as possible.
“It was that stupid fan account again,” Byron said, his frustration obvious. “Somehow, they heard you were on board. The post was deleted but not before it was splashed all over everywhere. I swear to God, I’m going to track down whoever is behind the account and follow them around for a week to see how they like it.”
Part bulldog, part agent, and part overprotective brother, Byron had always been like this. Him picking on Carter was fine. Someone else? Not even a little bit.
“That’s called stalking, Byron. The law frowns upon it.”
“Not if you’re the press,” his brother groused.
“Which you’re not, so settle back a little. How bad is it?” This was the part that made Carter’s gut clench.
The window for being able to make a brand change in Hollywood was infinitesimal. If he missed this window and took another big-budget action flick, he’d be doing only those movies for the rest of his career. They were fun, he enjoyed them, and he was grateful as hell for having the opportunities he did because of The Admiral movies, but he wanted career growth too. For that to happen, he had to make a change.
“Well,” Byron said, drawing out the four-letter word. “They deleted the post, which thank God didn’t have an actual photo of you on the ship, but it had already gone viral by the time it was removed for whatever reason. I told you going off the grid would just make people hungrier for more details about your life.”
“I had to have time to change my hair, get the fake tan, and do the rest.” He watched blue water that seemed to go on forever, knowing it all looked the same on the surface, but it was a totally different story underneath. “It’s a process.”
“Actors.” Byron let out a huff. “You’re all a pain in the ass.”
“You’ve been telling me I’m a pain in the ass since I was twelve.”
