Page 2 of Dirty Like Dylan

The other guy was obviously security, though not the uniformed, pot-bellied kind. This one was tall and imposing and dressed like a biker—black boots, black jeans, black leather vest over a Harley-Davidson T-shirt. Cheesy skull tat on his muscular arm. Long blondish hair pulled back in a messy man-bun. He was cute, which just annoyed me.

Unfortunately, I had an incredibly long history of doing the stupidest shit where cute guys were concerned.

“Underlayer?” he asked me, no preamble, as if we were continuing a conversation we’d already been having.

“Yes. I’m the stills photographer. Amber Malone?” Why I kept saying my own name like it was a question, I’d never know.

He looked a little closer at me, squinting in the morning sun. The perusal went from head to foot, slowly and unnecessarily, like he’d just noticed I was cute. “Liv Malone—?”

“Is my sister.”

He pulled out a cell phone and appeared to do some searching on it. Then he informed me, “You’re not on the list.”

Of course not.

I started to squelch a sigh, but then something occurred to me. “Can you try Amber Paige?”

He consulted his phone again. “Yeah. I’ve got that.”

Well thank fuck.

“That’s me. I go by my middle name, professionally. Amber Paige?” Damn it. Quit saying your own name like you don’t know who the hell you are. “But they usually put my legal name on the crew list. Malone.”

He kept looking me over, but made no move to welcome me into the fancy golf cart. “You have some ID, Amber Paige?”

Yeah, I had ID. Somewhere deep in the bowels of my backpack, probably under all the shit I’d just piled back in there.

The big dude arched his sexy eyebrow at me, waiting. (Truth be told, I kinda had a thing for eyebrows.) He hadn’t even cracked a smile in my direction, but shit… was it my imagination, or had he just taken a flirtatious tone with me? Was there an opening here I was missing?

Briefly, my inner feminist turned a blind eye and the rest of me actually wondered if this guy would be amenable to a little eyelash batting and/or hair twirling.

Unfortunately, I just wasn’t the girl who knew the answers to such questions. Nor was I the girl who could actually pull off flirting my way in here. No exaggeration, the last guy I’d consciously tried to flirt with had actually asked me if I was feeling ill. Are you feeling ill? Those were his exact words.

Apparently, when I tried to flirt with a cute guy, the ensuing blushing, fumbling, babbling and mild hyperventilating was concerning to some people.

So instead, I bit back another sigh, laid my bag on the ground again and started digging everything back out. Wondering all the while why I was doing this to myself.

Oh, right. Paycheck.

While I searched for my passport, I listened to the voices crackling on the walkie; the driver pulled it off his belt and chatted with someone in crew-guy shorthand. It sounded like they hadn’t started filming yet?

So at least maybe Liv wouldn’t be pissed at me for being late.

I found my passport, just as a vehicle rolled up behind me, music blaring. I glanced up; it was a pimped-out black pickup truck, Pink Floyd’s “Young Lust” rattling the windows. I was almost blinded by the glint of sunlight off the driver’s rings as he lifted his hand in greeting towards the security guys. The biker dude waved him through with a little salute. And as the truck rolled past, the guy behind the wheel looked right at me.

Black surfer-dude hair, black T-shirt, tattoos all down his arms… and hot as all hell. The kind of hot, once you’ve seen it, you don’t forget it.

“I know that guy…” I said, getting to my feet. “Hey!” I called over to him. “I met you, at that party… you know… at that guy’s place?” Shit. I’d definitely met him—at a party for one of the guys in Dirty, about four years ago, when I was fresh back from Australia. The same party where I’d also met—

Never mind that.

I just couldn’t remember much more than this guy’s face, though. I just knew he was some rock star or another. Guitarist? Lead singer? Whatshisname?

Whatever his name was, he didn’t seem to give one fuck that we’d met. Or maybe he couldn’t even hear me over the bass vibrating through his truck. As he drove on into the lot, he actually flipped me the finger.

Admittedly, it wasn’t the first time a man had ever given me the finger, but come on.

Fucking rock stars.

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