Page 9 of Over & Out

My skipping heart and adrenaline-lined stomach expect a fight. I’m ready for it. I know just how it’ll go.What the hell is this?he’ll ask.It’s scotch, just like you asked for,I’ll reply.

But that’s not how it goes. Not at all.

Instead, Dick takes his sunglasses off, setting them neatly on the table.

Okay, so he’s going to be a little bitch about this. That’s fine, I’m ready. If I wasn’t wearing short sleeves, I’d roll them up. “I’ll just wait until you have your first sips,” I say, pure saccharine. “Make sure everything is in order.”

Dick pulls his hat off next, setting it beside his sunglasses. When he does, his deep brown hair flops down over his forehead. Damn, that’s nice hair. Why do men always get the most gorgeous hair? He probably washes once a week with the same soap he uses on his balls. Actually, who am I kidding? This man probably doesn’t wash.

Dick wraps his big fingers around his glass. Then he turns to me.

If I were holding my tray, it would clatter to the ground.

I had a sense, before, that we were being watched. But now? I can actually feel everyone’s eyes on us, and I know why. I hear the murmurs too. From the corner of my eye, I see the barback gape, oblivious to the soda running over the rim of the glass he’s filling. It’s clear now why Dick was covering up. He was trying to hide those sinfully high cheekbones and thick-lashed blue-gray eyesPeoplemagazine called “the world’s dreamiest pair of peepers.” Eyes I know as intimately as my own in the mirror. A distinctive straight nose that ends with a square tip, like it was chiseled from marble. Full lips, with a distinctive little scar over the top one by the cupid’s bow.

“Well, fuck,” I say as Dick holds up the tumbler filled with not scotch whiskey, but two Scotch eggs I so cleverly stuck in it.

Because this is not Dick. This is the man I fantasize about when he pulls off his motorcycle helmet in my dreams. The Duke.Myduke.

Chapter 3

Chris

“Is there a problem?” the Duke says, tumbler at his lips—his full, plush lips, with just a hint of white teeth behind them. Pink tongue.

Problem? No. Only that my heart feels like it’s been dropped in a rut on my old dirt bike track and run over by a thousand gritty tires.

His name, of course, isn’t the Duke. It’s Hopper Emilio Lachlan Donnach, former child actor turned teen heartthrob turned action star, and now adult heartthrob. A man who once dated an actual princess. Who, I think, right now, is engaged to—someone famous. Not this woman, who I realize now must be some kind of handler. He’s thirty-six, an only child, and allegedly secretly worked at a Renaissance fair to get into character before filmingThe Duke and his Daffodil. I only know all that because I read a profile in a magazine in a checkout line. I may or may not have bought the magazine.

But none of this matters. Because movie star or not,Dukeor not, the man is an absolute prick. And I think myheart has shattered because of that. That movie got me through some terrible times. I still put it on whenever I’m feeling down. Now I’ll never be able to watch it again. If this wrecks the novels for me too, I might turn murderous.

I remind myself I don’t know him. I’m not a fan. I didn’t look him up that time; the magazine was in my face when I was buying lettuce and bananas. I know who he plays in a movie, that’s all. Still, I have to shove my hands into my apron to hide their shaking.

“No,” I say, finally answering his stupid question. “There’s no problem at all.”

I try very hard not to react when the man—Hopper—smirks. He knows showing his face has done exactly what it’s supposed to: it’s shocked me into submission. But it’s the smirk that takes the stabbing pain out of his big, stupid reveal.

I press my hands onto the table, praying he can’t see them still trembling with nerves, and zero in on his icy blue—and slightly bloodshot—eyes. “Bottoms up, buddy.”

Even under his several days’ beard growth, I can see his jaw flexing. “Excuse me.Buddy?”

“Quit talking to yourself,” I say, demonstrating the peak of witty maturity.

“That the best you can do, bangles?” he lobs back. But a vein pops in his temple. I’m getting to him.

Now it’s my turn to smirk.

Hopper looks at the woman on the other side of the booth as if for help. But she’s watching us both. She looks rapt, in fact. Like she very much wants to see what happens next.

Same here, girl. Because if he says “do you know who I am?” I’m going to toss an oat milk latte in his lap. Scald his balls.

“Okay,” he says after a long moment. “Fine. Thank you. You know, this is actually perfect. It’s just what I was craving.”

I thought I was being so smart. But to my utter shock, instead of shoving the glass away or standing up in a huff, this man—the source of a thousand of my fantasies—opens his million-dollar lips and raises his glass.

I’m momentarily mesmerized by the pink flat of his tongue. But I get a hold of myself just in time to see him rollbothsausage-covered eggs into his mouth, one after the other.

It’s impressive really, given their size. But he’s not a small man. He chews, cheeks bulging, for what feels like an eternity. The whole time, he doesn’t take his icy blue, thick-lashed eyes off me.

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