Page 67 of My Hotshot

“…Photoshoot?” he said, and then his eyes widened like someone just hit him in the face with a frying pan. “Oh shit.” Then louder, “Oh,shit.”

“Now do you remember something you should’ve mentioned to me?” I asked, my arms crossed over my chest.

He walked away from the house toward me with his hands up. “Okay, babe, this is going to sound crazy—because it really is—but… the club is part of a reality TV show.”

“What?” Lottie shouted from the grass. She sat up between Harley and Davidson. “You guys are on TV?”

“Not yet,” Sloane said with a smirk. “There’s a new show coming calledTread: Iron Fiends MC.It’s following four different MCs across the country. Iron Fiends is the first season.”

I stared at Duane. “And how… on earth… did you forget to mention that? That seems like apretty big thing.”

He scratched the back of his neck. “It would’ve been if we didn’t have cameras shoved in our faces while also dealing with two psychos trying to kill us. It kind of… ruined the vibe.”

Only Duane.

Only Duane would forget to tell me they were going to be on national television.

“Arewegoing to be on TV now?” Lottie asked, bounding over, cheeks pink from the sun.

“Nope,” Olive said. “Not unless they do a second season and come back. They’ve already wrapped filming for this one. Trust me, if they were still filming, you’d see a camera stuck up Aero’s nose.”

“Rude,” Aero muttered from the patio door.

“And here I thought things couldn’t get more insane,” I said, laughing in disbelief.

“Well,” Sloane said, “Aero and I ran off to Colorado and got married in the middle of filming, so… I guess the crazy bar was already high.”

Sloane winked at Aero. “We should go back when this is all over,” she said. “Another honeymoon.”

He nodded. “Name the day.”

I looked around at all of them—these women I was still getting to know, who were becoming a weird little support system for me—and back at Duane.

I should’ve been mad. Maybe I still was.

But I was more overwhelmed than anything. Trying to keep up with everything felt like trying to build a puzzle without knowing what the picture looked like.

“Okay, just… hold on,” I said, raising a hand. “Is thereanything elseI should know? Any other secrets hiding in plain sight?”

Adalee smiled from her blanket and held up two fingers. “You know the two big ones now. One—Boone and Gibbs. Two—we’re on reality TV.”

I dropped my head into my hands. “Those arereallybig.”

“I’ll admit,” Duane said sheepishly, “I probably should’ve told you. But I didn’t think it mattered. I mean, the filming’s done.”

“It matters when I find out from everyoneelse.”

“I didn’t even think about it, babe.”

“That’s the problem,” I muttered.

But I couldn’t even muster up real anger. This was just… so far outside the scope of anything I thought my life would include. Last year, I was fighting with Lee over co-parenting and working from my kitchen table. Now I was living in a biker clubhouse, learning my boyfriend was about to be ontelevision.

“Don’t worry,” Poppy said. “You’ll be ready for the premiere. You’re in the club now.”

“In the club?” I echoed.

“Well,” Fallon said, “you survived your first near-death scare and haven’t run screaming. That’s step one.”

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