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I wake up early the next morning. The sound of Tallie shuffling around her room has me sitting upright, knowing I need to get her off to class. It doesn’t matter how used to early starts I am, getting up for school still brings me back to being a kid and wishing that I could do anything but drag my ass out of bed and into school once more.
I’ve never been the guy who’s good with being told what to do. Unless it’s to jump out of a plane for one of our major stunt sequences, of course. Then, I don’t have so much of a problem with it.
"You got everything?" I ask Tallie as the school bus draws up outside the house.
She nods. "I think so!”
"Then you have a great day at school," I tell her. "And I’ll be there to pick you up later, okay?"
"Okay!” she replies. She bounds out of the door after giving me a quick hug and takes off towards the bus. I smile as I watch her go. I don’t know how she’s got so much energy. I need a little injection of that for myself right now. I take another drink of coffee before heading back inside to clear up after the breakfast that I made for Tallie. I've never been much of a cook, but Mom taught Val and I to make pancakes when we were young, and I’ve never forgotten how.
Just as I am dunking the pan under the cold tap, I realize something – the cookies we decorated are still sitting in their containers on the table, shiny pink frosting waiting to be taken to the school party where they belong.
"Shit!" I mutter to myself. I don’t want to have made all these for nothing. I grab them off the counter, knowing that I don’t have long to get them there before the day starts and the teachers are not going to want to have to deal with someone like me.
Slipping on running shoes and pulling a down vest over my long sleeve t-shirt, I decide gray sweats are fine for a school drop-off and head out to my car.
I get in my Jeep and head the few miles to Tallie’s building. When I get to the school parking lot, I see the playground is still full of students. Good, the school bell hasn’t yet rung.
The cupcakes and cookies are on the seat beside me and I gently ease them out, making sure not to do any damage to any of Tallie’s hard work. I balance them in my arms as I head towards the gate, surrounded by a flurry of teachers and students and parents, looking for Tallie so that I can give them over to her.
Before I can, someone else catches my eye entirely. A woman. Curvy and blonde, with blue eyes that sparkle in the February light. She stands by the gate, her shoulder-length hair bouncing perkily as she chats to the person in front of her. Her face lights up with a slightly crooked smile as she laughs, and I can’t help but reflect it on my own lips.
As soon as I grin, she glances over at me – and when our eyes meet, it’s like something has given way inside of me. And I know that there is no way that I am going to be able to contain myself for another moment.
I’ve been looking for a woman who would stop me dead in my tracks – and this Cinderella seems to have swept me off my goddamn feet.
Chapter Two
Ellie
Okay. There is no way that can be who I think it is, right?
But the longer I stare at him, the more sure I become that, yes, that really is Ethan Parker. As in, the Ethan Parker. The guy who stars in the biggest action movie franchise on the planet. How many times have I seen him on posters, in ads on TV, his muscles rippling in his trademark black tee, his muscles barely contained behind the fabric of his shirt?
He’s looking right at me. Likely because I’m staring at him. But he doesn’t just expect me to turn away and pretend like I don’t see him, right?
It’s Ethan Parker for goodness’ sake.
There are a few other people glancing around in that moment, checking him out, double-taking to see if it’s really him. And I can’t for the life of me work out if I have lost my mind with the stress of the first-grade Valentine’s party and started to hallucinate or not, but it sure looks like the man of my dreams. My biggest celebrity crush of all time.
Okay, I have to find out one way or the other. I gather up my courage and tell Rita, one of the moms that I’ve been chatting to, that I need a second.
