Page 26 of Hollywood Undercover
As Sebastian left, he saw Alexandra duck back into the house to grab something before she locked up. She climbed into the car, and he noticed her staring over at hishouse.
Damn, I hope I didn’t come on toostrong.
* * *
Sebastian answeredhis ringing cell phone once he made itinside.
“Hello?”
“Hey man. It’s Clint. Got aminute?”
“Uh, yeah. What’s up?” He looked out the kitchen window, watching this new version of Alexandra Storme ride off in the bluecar.
“Do you want Beth to bring anything more than her usual potato salad and coleslaw for the bar-b-q on theweekend?”
“No, no. That’s more than enough. Tell her I said thanks…wait, Clint. Hey…I was wondering about something you might be able to help mewith.”
“Shoot.”
Sebastian hesitated at first, trying to convince himself this was perfectly normal. After a beat, he went for it. “How do I find out more about LexxiRock?”
He regretted asking him anything the minute Clint kicked off the heckling. The man was merciless. Sebastian should have expected it. After several minutes of put-downs, Clint suggested a few websites he had found with in-depth interviews and information abouther.
“Speed dating isn’t enough for you, Bash? You want to stalk rock stars too?” Clint laughed through thephone.
“Go ahead. Laugh it up at my expense. I can takeit.”
“What’s with the suddeninterest?”
Sebastian wasn’t about to tell his friend what was happening next door. “I don’t know. Seeing her on TV at your place got me thinking. With her dad in the hospital, I was wondering abouther.”
Clint huffed through the phone. “Bullshit. I don’t believe that for a second, but I don’t have time right now to drag it out of you. Beth cooked lasagna. That wins out fornow.”
“Thanks…I think. LaterClint.”
He hung up the phone. With this time off work, he had all the time in the world to do a little research on the woman who had once been his high school crush—and was now trying to pull off being a dude so she could hide from the media. That had to be thereason.
He quickly prepared some dinner, and while he ate, he did some digging on his laptop. Tanya—another hot chick from the ‘pretty good lay’ part of his phone contact list—was coming over tonight. He didn’t have much time before she would get there, and he was curious about catching up on Lexxi Rock. He wanted to know everything about her, to fill in the blanks from their high school days untilnow.
He couldn’t pretend his interest was purely curiosity, although he did mean it when he offered to be there for ‘Alex’ as a friend. He understood more than most. He had lost both his parents, and he was in a career where tragedy sometimes happened. Alexandra needed friends and family more than she probably realized. In her disguise, she probably didn’t have anyone in her corner. Sebastian would gladly be that forher.
The tricky part was figuring out how to get close to her and not look creepy doingit.
Sebastian scrolled through another article about her messy breakup with some pompous-looking pretty boy country music singer. By the time he turned off the laptop, he knew she lived in a lavish mansion in Beverly Hills, he discovered she had a history of ugly breakups, and now he knew her closest friend was Evangeline Reese, an actress who happened to be out somewhere in southwest America, filming a new actionmovie.
Wow, this internet trolling shit is way tooeasy.
He knew just as much about Lexxi Rock as any other fan, but not nearly enough about the real girl, Alexandra Storme. Again, he tried to shake that physical attraction he had for her, but he couldn’t. It could complicatethings.
He stretched out on his bed, in almost exactly the same way he did when he was nineteen, imagining what it might be like to have her. Now that he had read about her life since her stardom came about, he wanted to take away the bittersweet taste of failed love from her lips. He could show her what it was like to be with someone who wasn’t star-struck by her, someone who actually wanted the girl behind the celebrityfaçade.
It was surprising how much they had in common in the dating department. For years, Sebastian had gone out with a handful of women who made him second-guess the idea of settling down. They were either too shallow or too crazy or unwilling to stick it out once they understood how dangerous and demanding a job he had. Coming home to a big empty house was getting old, as were the casual flings he had with women like Michelle, Didi, Ashley, or for tonight,Tanya.
He was going through the motions when it came to women, and had been for a longtime.
* * *
Tanya came by,and was now sprawled out on Sebastian’s bed. He should have cancelled. He couldn’t get Alexandra off hismind.
