Page 7 of Dirty Like Dylan

I tried to keep the attitude out of my voice when I said, “Sure thing, boss.”

Okay, so it wasn’t like her lack of faith in me was totally unfounded. I knew that. I’d been known to put my foot in my mouth, and in front of the worst people to put my foot in my mouth in front of. It was kind of an unfortunate talent of mine.

But still.

I watched as she glanced at her phone again, checked her wristwatch, then frowned. “I swear,” she grumbled, “he slows down every time I ask him to speed up.” Then she looked at me and sighed heavily.

She reached out and smoothed a lock of my hair behind my ear. It was an almost-tender gesture—until she clucked under her breath as if my hair, which wasn’t quite long enough to stay put in the ponytail I’d attempted, was a sad disappointment.

“Fuck it,” she said, almost to herself. Then: “I need you to do something for me.”

“Okay…?”

“Head down that hall over there…” She pointed toward a hallway that appeared to lead behind the stage. “And knock on Dylan’s dressing room. His name’s on the door.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because I told you to,” she said, in a very Do-not-question-my-orders-on-my-set tone of voice. It was a tone I was, unfortunately, familiar with. Then she rolled her eyes. “I swear to God. He’s like, the world’s nicest rock star.”

Riiight.

“He just has some punctuality issues—”

“I didn’t notice.”

“—but if anyone’s gonna get him out of that dressing room…” She frowned at my blouse like she was disappointed in the lack of discernible cleavage, then frowned again at my naked toes. “Yeah… it’s you.”

“Um. Wait. You hired me to be rock star bait?” I looked down at myself; did I really look like some horny groupie today or something?

No. Definitely not. My jeans were tight, but not skintight. My loose blouse revealed virtually nothing about the size or shape of my boobs. This was not a Come-hither-rock-star outfit.

But then again… I wasn’t wearing one of those when I met Johnny, either. And he’d definitely… come.

“Of course not,” Liv said. “We hired you to take stills.” Then she frowned at me. She was doing that a lot today. “But it wouldn’t kill you to smile at him.”

I scowled at her. What the fuck was this, 1958?

Liv scowled back.

Unfortunately, she won.

So I sighed, dredged up a fake-ass smile, and headed off in search of the world’s nicest rock star.

Chapter Two

Amber

At the entrance to the hallway, I told the ’roided-up security guy who was standing guard that Liv had sent me to get Dylan. Fortunately, he let me through without a fuss, so I didn’t have to resort to any eyelash batting.

The shit I do for my sister…

I found the hallway empty—except for one person. As I approached, I could see that he was standing in front of a door with a handwritten sign on it that said Dylan Cope. But clearly, it wasn’t Dylan Cope.

It was that other rock star—the one who’d flipped me the finger. The one with the ink-black hair, tats for days, piercings, the works.

Ashley Player.

This time, I’d made a point of remembering his name. It was easy enough to do. Ashley, because it wasn’t such a common name for a man, and Player, because it was cheesy as fuck, a rock star’s bullshit stage name. No big surprise, he wore the requisite Motörhead T-shirt, tight black jeans and rocker jewelry. He was looking down at the phone in his hand; a mermaid with perky boobs was tattooed down his right forearm, her white-blonde hair strategically covering her nipples.