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22
KYLA
“Can Brooke take my role?” I asked Wyatt as I ate lunch with him the next day. We’d both selected fish and salad from the Bain Marie, although he’d added a piece of chicken breast that the chef passed through the kitchen window on a tray, which must have been cooked especially for him. “I mean, it was hers first.”
Wyatt swallowed and dabbed his mouth with his napkin as he shook his head.
“Not only has she been fired, but you’ve signed a contract. The role is officially yours.”
That made me feel a tiny bit better, but there was still a massive power imbalance here. Brooke was, well,Brooke Hayes. She had money, star power, and the best lawyers money could buy, probably. If she decided to fight me, what could I do to stop her? My knowledge of the law consisted of a few episodes ofLaw and Order, and I didn’t want to lose all the money I’d earned in court.
“Contracts can be broken, though.” I shifted a lettuce leaf sideways with my fork. “Can’t they?”
Isaac joined us with a plate that looked similar to Wyatt’s. I was blown away by how healthy their food choices were —especially when they had enough money to buy an entire fast foodfranchise, if they wanted to.
It had never occurred to me that men in Hollywood needed to be every bit as conscious of how their bodies looked when blown up on the big screen as women, but it made sense. And it explained how lean and muscular their bodies were. Even dressed as their characters in t-shirts and loose jeans, I could still see their muscles through their clothes when they moved.
“You’d have to read the fine print in your contract,” Isaac said, and I blinked. What was he talking about? Oh, yeah… Brooke. I hoped he hadn’t noticed that I’d been staring at his chest and remembering our almost-kiss in my car. “But they’re usually watertight.”
“What did Dean say?” Wyatt asked, and I grimaced.
“I haven’t asked him… and I don’t want to.”
Dean was still filming and would be on set for the rest of the afternoon — I was glad he wasn’t here. I needed to talk about Brooke, but I didn’t want to add more pressure to the boiler pot situation that was already developing for him.
“You could always join the union,” Isaac suggested. “They can go into bat for you if things get crazy.”
Crazy. That was exactly what I was worried about. I pushed my plate away — my churning stomach wasn’t ready for food — and went to stand up.
“Wait.”
I turned back to see both men watching me.
Isaac and Wyatt were like polar opposites of each other — Isaac with dark eyes, pale skin, defined jaw, and chin-length dark hair, Wyatt with gray eyes, tanned skin, and scruffy sun-bleached hair. Yet somehow they both looked as attractive as each other.
“None of us are in this afternoon’s scenes,” Isaac said. “We were wondering, if you’re not too busy, whether you would mind being our tour guide?”
“We could find our own entertainment, of course,” Wyatt added, “but we figured it’d be more fun with a local.”
“Sure,” I said with a smile, not wanting to let them down. But my mind raced. I knew the area well — I’d grown up here, after all — but I couldn’t very well take Isaac Williams and Wyatt Cole to the local pub, could I?
Wyatt pulled his phone out of his pocket.
“I’ll call a taxi.”
“You don’t need to do that — my car’s right outside.”
I led them out to the parking lot, still scrambling to come up with ideas. Every field trip I’d ever gone on at school came back to me as I sifted through ideas and discarded them.
The rose garden at the park? Too boring. The shops on the main street? Too plain for people who were accustomed to designer brands and five-star restaurants. The cinema? I couldn’t see either of them wanting to surround themselves with work on their afternoon off.
I started my car as they fastened their seatbelts and drove toward the town. For a moment, I wished I was April — she’d have no trouble coming up with something fun. She’d probably take them to the tattoo parlor on the main street to have lines from the script permanently etched on their asses… but that wasn’t my style.
Especially since, if Brooke managed to get me fired, a permanent reminder of my failure was the last thing I’d want.
I’d almost given up when I drove past a sign advertising a wildlife park twenty minutes out of town. I’d almost forgotten it was there — it had been owned by the same man who’d owned Rainforest Retreat and while the resort had been abandoned andfallen into disrepair, the wildlife park had been sold to a new owner.
It wasn’t Paris or Ibiza, but it was popular with tourists and far more fun than the rose garden. I navigated out of town and wound down my window, letting my hair stream back in the summer breeze as Isaac and Wyatt tried to guess where we were going.
