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Chapter One
Cade
“Bad news,” my agent says over the phone I hold to my left ear. The very phone I’d hesitated to pick up but did, and only because I was tired of him hounding my ass. “Blake is officially coming off Forever and a Day. Production is being halted. Possibly canceled.”
I walk carefully across my condo and toward the large sliding window wall that showcases downtown L.A. “And?” L.A. in the middle of the day is bustling. From here on the fifteenth floor, I can see the midday traffic; I don’t envy those people, the ones racing through the rat race, scurrying down the sidewalk to get to their destination, or those stuck in the vehicles, who will be stopping at the next traffic light because that particular light is timed terribly.
Suckers.
“I thought you wanted this project.”
“No,” I say slowly, crossing my right arm over my bare chest, hooking my hand into my elbow. In the reflection of glass, I can barely make out my messy dark hair—hair I’ve been growing out at the annoyance of said agent. “You said it would be great for my career. Said it would firmly plant my ass in heartthrob territory which, may I remind you, I wasn’t always on board with. I wanted the action flicks. The horror ones.”
“Sex. On. Screen.” That had been his single most pointed out “pro” to the pros and cons lists from the moment my name was tossed around for the lead role of this chick-flick. I can even picture him enunciating each word as he holds his fingers in the air, much like a chef would when saying a dish was fantastic.
“Yeah. With a socked cock.”
“I’m telling you, Cade, this film will do things for you. You won’t be type casted—”
“I have no problem being the bad boy.”
“You won’t be type casted,” he repeats, “and this will allow you to work on any and every project you ask for. Trust me on this.”
And that therein lies the problem.
Shit.
I do trust him.
Timothy Creed works with the best actors and having him as my agent is a true Godsend. I do get to work on projects that I want, and he does fight for my rights.
But I can honestly say I’m okay with this project being cancelled.
I wasn’t feeling Blake, anyway.
Totally not my type, and while I get that acting is about putting on a show, there has to be some sort of chemistry, and me and that bitch? Nada.
Tim changes the subject. “When do you get the all-clear?”
I adjust my weight to my good, right leg and bring my previously injured one up gently, rotating the lower half in a move that PT has me doing all the damn time. Six months prior, I was in a less-than-favorable dirt biking accident; dirt bike, 1, Cade, 0—and considering that up until the age of eighteen, when I found myself with an acting gig, I was a circuit-wide pro-rider…
That was saying something.
I didn’t just “get into accidents.”
And if I did, my accidents weren’t ones that took me out of work for months. I’ve ridden with broken thumbs and cracked ribs. Hell, I finished a race with a fractured foot when I was sixteen; it wasn’t enough to get me to medical.
According to me, anyway. My team’s riding coach and manager weren’t pleased but…I still finished in second place.
Not bad, considering.
A few months ago, though, I had this all-encompassing need to get on the back of my bike again. And, me being me, I couldn’t be happy with just going around the old oval dirt track behind my parents’ house a couple of times.
Oh no.
I had to ride around the second dirt track. The one my dad and I built the summer I turned thirteen, when I was preparing for trials that would begin when I turned sixteen and could ride pro.
The track with the hills, the whoops, and the launches.
