After a minute, I heard the driver’s side door shut. I straightened, smoothed out the wrinkles in my dress, and walked confidently to the front bumper, where Paige was sitting against it, pulling her black hair into a short ponytail.
“I feel overdressed,” I said dryly, taking in her plain green t-shirt and tiny denim shorts.
“You are.” Then she smiled and stuffed her hands into her back pockets, leaning back to give me a once over. “And God, you look like an accident waiting to happen. A thousand bucks you’ll ruin that dress by the end of the night,” she said.
I snorted. “I don’t think I have a thousand bucks to spare,” I replied, but I couldn’t help thinking of my advance deposit, money I still hadn’t touched.
She winked. “I don’t either.”
Letting an Ed Sheeran song and the sound of laughter act as our guide, we walked around the house to the backyard. The moment the beach came into view, I felt like I was in paradise. Someone had turned the strings of lantern lights hanging above the deck on, and they cast a faint, multi-colored glow on the sand. A small throng of people huddled around a bonfire in a circle of beach chairs, and my eyes immediately settled on Cooper. He was shirtless—but what else was new?—and talking to a pretty blonde girl in a bikini who was making the kind of wide-ass gestures with her hands that drove me crazy. And he was laughing. The pit of my belly churned, and I quickly looked away from him, to the sea.
Paige slipped beside me, tucking her finger under my chin to close my parted lips. She stretched her arms, linking her fingers behind her. “Beautiful, huh?”
My gaze drifted back to Cooper and the other girl. “Every time I see it.”
“I’m talking about the ocean at night,” Paige said sarcastically. “But yeah, he’s pretty nice too if you like blondes. Me? The skinnier and scruffier the better.”
If Cooper hadn’t glanced up then, catching my eyes with his, making me feel like I was the only person on the beach, I would have been able to keep my voice even. Instead, I said in a gasp, “I’m not talking about him.”
God, where was Willow Avery, the actress? Where was that girl who didn’t give a shit? Wherever she was, she was laughing at me.
“Fucking liar,” Paige said, shaking her head in undisguised amusement.
I pretended not to watch Cooper excuse himself from the chick in the bikini. He made his way toward Paige and me, and for a moment, I couldn’t read the expression on his face. It was blank, and I felt something sink in my ribcage. Maybe I’d been wrong for coming here.
I was invading his personal time.
I was his client.
I was—
He was smiling, a slow, heart-breaking grin that pulled me forward, on wobbly legs until we met halfway. “My favorite movie star,” he said, teasingly.
“You hate the film industry,” I pointed out in a whisper.
“Not when they show up to my house looking like you do.”
“Going to find my boyfriend,” Paige said in a loud voice, breezing past us. “Oh no Paige, don’t go. We love when you’re the creepy third wheel.” She glanced over her shoulder at us and winked. “No, but seriously if you need me, I’ll be keeping Eric from the lure of doing a naked keg stand.”
I followed her finger to the keg sitting on the deck. Eric was sitting beside of it holding two cups of beer as he talked to another guy. I returned my gaze to Paige and pressed my lips into a fine line. “If that happens I’m walking home,” I said. Once she was out of earshot, I glanced up at Cooper. “Sorry for interrupting your conversation with . . .”
“Miranda.”
Miranda. As in Officer Stewart’s sister. As in his ex-girlfriend. I peeked over his shoulder, not quite caring if anyone saw me, and he laughed. “Who knew that a surfer from Hawaii could make the Willow Avery jealous?” He started to walk away from me, toward his friends. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone.”
I caught up beside him, cursing myself for the wedged sandals. “This place looks amazing,” I said, as we stood on the sidelines of the bonfire. I pointed down at it. “And I’m pretty sure that’s totally illegal.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Studying up on local rules?”
“My script,” I explained. “Alyssa . . . gets in trouble for having one.”
“That wasn’t in the original,” he said thoughtfully.
My head jerked up in surprise. “You’ve seen Tidal?” When he lifted his chin slightly, I released a little laugh. “Sorry, just didn’t take you for a romance movie type of guy.”
He clutched his muscular chest and pretended to look hurt. “Wills, you don’t give me enough credit,” he said before pushing his way through a couple of his friends. They turned to grin at us as he gestured for me to sit in an empty beach chair. He took the one beside me, taking a plastic red cup from someone when they offered it to him.
A moment later, his friends started to gravitate towards us. I held my breath when I was introduced to each as one of his clients, and I half-expected someone to make a joke about the drugs or ask me a question about Hollywood, but nobody did.
“Did Coop tell you I’m an extra in your movie?” a guy named Knox with spiky red hair asked me when Cooper disappeared to refill his beer. Nobody else had noticed, but I’d seen him dumping the contents of his cup—all of his beer—into the sand a few minutes before.
I shook my head. “No, he didn’t.” Up until tonight, Cooper hadn’t mentioned any of his friends aside from Eric and Paige.