“Why?”
He released a loud breath. “Because, you want to look like you know what you’re doing when the time comes. And it’s not like we’ve been given a lot of time to train.”
He was right, and I felt my stomach twist at the thought. In less than two weeks I’d be filming a movie. A f**king surfing movie that already had a devout fan following.
I shuddered and then balanced my board on my head.
“God, this thing is heavy,” I said, as we slogged through the sand in the direction of his house or business or whatever the hell he wanted to call it. “And by the way, you carried them out here in your hands before.”
He shot me a cocky grin. “Yeah, you can do it either way.” When we stepped onto the deck, he sat his board on a wooden bench and lifted mine easily from atop my head.
“So why not do it the other way?”
“Because you’re flustered.”
Less inhuman and much more beautiful.
Remembering the words he spoke to me in LAX caused the pit of my stomach to tighten but I ignored the feeling. “If only I could fire your ass,” I said.
He moved so close to me his tanned chest touched mine. “You can’t.” Then he lifted a strand of my hair, sliding it back and forth between his fingertips. “And you don’t want to.”
The sound of the deck door swinging open sent him pulling me to him protectively, and I instinctively lifted my hands to cover my face from the flash I was sure would follow.
Even here, the cameras could find me.
“God, you’d think I had a gun!” a deep female voice laughed.
“Paige,” Cooper warned through clenched teeth. He stepped aside to reveal a pint-sized woman with tattooed arms, short, black hair and hazel eyes that seemed to pop thanks to jet black eyeliner. She lifted her eyebrows at Cooper and tapped her foot impatiently. He let out a groan and added, “Wills, this is Paige. She’s an instructor here.”
Paige. The friend whose parents owned my rental house.
“I’m Eric’s girlfriend,” she said, grinning.
The Coppertone guy who’d admitted to masturbating to me a few hours ago. Awkward.
“I’m Willow.”
“She knows,” Cooper said at the exact same time Paige said “Nice to meet you.”
Shooting him a glare, she told me, “I made breakfast.”
“I’ve got to get back to my rental to study my script.” It was partially the truth. There was only so much a line prompter could do for me. And of course I wanted to get away from Cooper because I was sure being around him much longer would pull apart my sanity until there was nothing but a handful of frayed thread remaining.
“Oh come on, you can spare an hour, right?” Paige asked. When I shook my head, she walked across the wooden deck and grabbed my hand. I flinched, but she didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve been dying to meet you, Avery, and I made pancakes.”
Don’t get me wrong, Paige seemed nice enough—she was smiling at me hopefully and from somewhere inside the house, Eric yelled teasingly “Tell her I’ll come naked.” But when I looked over at Cooper and saw how annoyed he looked, I pulled my hand out of her grasp.
“I think I’ll just pass today.”
She frowned but nodded her head understandingly. “Next time, then?”
“Definitely,” I said.
The ride back to my rental house was filled with an uncomfortable silence that made me wish the Jeep’s floorboard would open up and swallow me or at least spit me out onto the asphalt. When Cooper pulled onto my street, I was thankful to see the moving truck with my personal belongings parked in the driveway. Miller was directing the guys handling my stuff, and when Cooper drove his Jeep into the driveway, he gave us a little nod of his head and a sideways smile.
I was already trying to jump out the Jeep before Cooper put it into park.
“Wait,” he ordered, and I froze with my fingers wrapped around the door handle.
“What?” My tone was clipped.
He took a deep breath and I waited for a Hollywood-esque apology. For him to ask me to breakfast or make another wise-ass, blatant attempt to get into my shorts. When he spoke a moment later, I didn’t get either of those. “I’m giving a lesson first thing tomorrow, so have your bodyguard drop you off at my place at nine.”
I turned my head to smirk at him. “Why don’t you just come to me and we practice popping up and down on a surfboard on my front lawn?”
He gave me a slow, lazy grin that managed to dig its way under my skin and rub me raw. “I like you much better in my element, Wills.”
Of course he did. I stumbled out the Jeep, slammed the door behind me, and stalked into the house without as much as a backward glance. The whole time, I felt his laughing blue eyes following me.
***
For the first time in what felt like ages, my mother kept her word about getting in touch with me. Miller and I were in the middle of going through boxes that had been delivered (and a lot of them were full of clothes that were too small or too big from my fluctuating weight) when my cell phone rang a few hours later.
“It’s my mom and dad,” I said, looking down at the screen as the word PARENTS scrolled across it in neon green lettering. I sank down on the edge of the couch.
Miller pushed himself up to his feet and started toward the front door. “Want to text me when you need me again?” he asked, glancing back.
I hesitated. Helping me sort through my belongings wasn’t a part of Miller’s job description. I knew that he was only doing it to be nice because he felt sorry for me for being alone, but dammit if I didn’t want to keep him with me for the conversation. The phone vibrated on the coffee table, and I felt my ears start to burn from the sound and from the potential humiliation.