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"Kyle!" I yelped, coming to my senses. I spun toward my coffee machine so I couldn't look at him anymore. "Good morning. Please go put some clothes on."
I heard him yawn, and it sounded as though he was stretching all of those packs. Good lord.
"Can I have some coffee first?" he asked, sounding chipper.
Great. Not only was he hot and half-naked, he was also a morning person. I punched the start button on my Keurig, but I wanted to punch myself instead.
"Aw, come on, Lo," he said. "It's not like you've never seen me like this before."
I handed him the coffee without turning around. I'm pretty sure you didn't look like that the last time I saw you.
"Clothes," I insisted, starting a cup for myself.
"Fine," he said. I heard him shuffle out.
I hurried into my room, gulping my coffee. I had bigger problems than Kyle's abs to deal with. I had to go face the firing squad today—my director, my producers, and all the other men connected with the film I was working on. Who were the very mansplainers I'd complained about… in that little video that had been viewed all over the Internet.
Closely followed by the video of me oversharing my personal problems and bodily fluids, there were the new pictures of me. Making out with my mysterious, sexy boyfriend who came out of nowhere. Who was secretly my escort. Who was also my stepbrother.
Shit. I was going to need another cup of coffee. Stat.
Usually I dressed for work in sweats and an oversized grey T-shirt; I rarely, if ever, wore makeup because the makeup artists plastered so much on when I got there. Today I pulled on a pair of capri leggings and a pretty pink tank top, and I put on just a little makeup. Just a dab, along with some mascara. For the producers, of course.
A few minutes later, I poured two more cups of coffee in to-go mugs and found Kyle waiting for me by the door. He was dressed in a tight-fitting T-shirt (which I refused to think about), sexy cargo shorts (and I refused to think about why they were sexy, because I was pretty sure I had no idea), and leather thong flip-flops (the words leather thong throbbed in my brain, and I wished that I could punch myself so hard that I would shut up for a long, long time).
"You ready?" I asked, trying to pretend I was normal.
"Is that coffee for me?" he asked. I handed it to him, nodding, and he smiled. "Then I'm absolutely ready." I went to open the door, and he stopped me. "There are at least ten different photographers out there." He smoothed down my hair and turned my face into the light, inspecting it. "You look good."
"Thanks," I said, pulling back from his scrutiny. I pushed by him to get to the window.
Kyle was right. I saw four plainly visible photographers on the sidewalk, looking bored. My neighbors couldn't be happy with me. There were other actors living on the street, and they guarded their privacy jealously. Our little neighborhood was for up-and-comers—we didn't have a gated community or security to keep out the paparazzi. We only had our best behavior for that.
My best behavior had gone rogue. "Ugh."
"Look at it as an opportunity," Kyle said. "We can show them that we're a legitimate, well-behaved couple that leaves for work early in the morning. Not an angry, tequila-swillin
g starlet and her disinherited escort-stepbrother." He grinned at me.
"When you put it that way," I said, staring out the window, "I just want to throw up."
"You're a good actress, Lo," he said. "You can do this."
"I know."
He just raised his eyebrows at me.
"I mean, thank you." I grabbed his hand, annoyed that part of me felt excited by his touch. "Let's do this. And it's okay for me to be confident about my job, you know."
"Oh, I know—that's why I couldn't believe you let that mansplainer director upset you. You should be beyond that."
"I'm not beyond needing a paycheck," I said.
"I hear that," Kyle said, leading me out the door.
We pulled our sunglasses down at the same time, simultaneously balancing our coffees. Then we clasped hands again. If I'd been in a different frame of mind, I might have thought we looked cute.
"Good morning," Kyle called to the photographers. "Nice to see us all up and at it so early. Must mean good things for the economy."
