Hollywood Rebel by Misti Murphy
Chapter Five
Summer
What on earth have I gotten myself into?
Thirty minutes ago, I followed Rebel and his friend Ethan into a seedy strip club because I’m that desperate. It’s Thursday night and I have less than twenty-four hours to get this giant buffoon’s signature on that contract for Bernadette.
I am so going to lose my job. The knowledge churns in my gut or maybe that’s the horribly cold and greasy pizza slice Rebel offered me earlier. I probably should have known better than to eat anything this jackass presented to me, but I was cold and miserable, and I’ve spent a week living on Strawberry Pop-Tarts, Kellogg’s Smorz, and beef jerky. I haven’t had a hot meal since the night before I told Bernadette, not only could I talk Rebel Maddox into letting me represent him, but that I already had.
And yet I’m facing down the barrel of having to rethink my occupation while wearing a baggy pair of sweatpants that belong to Rebel’s younger brother Riot, and one of Rebel’s tanks. It positively swims on me. I had to MacGyver the white top with a couple of hair ties and some string into something that didn’t flash my side boob every time I moved, because unfortunately the clothes I brought with me are all soaking inside the collapsed tent.
His cologne is all over the material too, and those allergies are back. Every time I catch the scent, my chest grows warmer. Plus I’m addicted. Obviously. That’s why I keep sneaking the cotton up to my nose. I need a Claritin and a shower and a good night’s sleep in my own bed, but instead I’m hanging out with the devil in a strip club. That’s how far I am willing to go to land him as a client. I can’t fail my lifelong dream because my mouth ran away on me and this guy refuses to see sense.
Rebel had retrieved my laptop bag and phone while I was changing. Which was surprisingly nice, but now here we are… drinking beer while a lovely lady named Candy gyrates on the stage in front of us. And I’m starting to consider that it might be time I concede defeat, buy a bus ticket, and head back home to Devil’s Bend, Kansas.
Rebel pulls the lip of the ball cap he jammed on his head lower and sinks into his shoulders. Ethan lifts his glass and drains off a mouthful of amber liquid. Between them is a pile of C-notes.
“What are we doing here?” I ask.
“Hush,” Rebel says without taking his gaze off Candy. Or at least I think he’s looking at the girl crawling around like a kitty cat on the stage while the men surrounding it push notes into her G-string. It’s hard to tell because of the angle of his cap, but I doubt the bill is interesting enough to keep his attention when Candy is twerking her ass like that. I tilt my head to the side. How does one even do that?
“I’m out.” Ethan finishes his drink and rises to his feet. “I have to be on set in the morning. I want to be fresh.”
“Another romantic comedy?” Rebel asks without moving.
“Haven’t you heard; Hollywood doesn’t make those anymore?” Ethan quips.
That’s not entirely accurate. There’s a new breed of romantic comedies thanks to companies like Netflix. But I kind of miss the old school romantic comedies that my mom loved. Of course I didn’t really appreciate it until I was in my teens and then we only had a few short years before she passed away. I don’t know how many afternoons we spent watching Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama or Jennifer Lopez in Maid in Manhattan when she was too exhausted from chemo to do anything but rest. She’d probably smile and shake her head at my current predicament, and say something like, your tenacity will get you where you want to go, baby girl.
Well, I’m not sure it will this time.
Ethan wanders away and Candy finishes up her routine and leaves the stage. Rebel gestures at one of the bar staff to bring him another round as he drains his glass.
I want to ask him if he always drinks so much. There’s a well-documented period in his life where alcohol wasn’t the worst of his problems. But I don’t see any hints that he’s gone back to his old ways.
Another girl, Crystal, wiggles over to the pole to start her routine.
A server with blonde hair and a great rack tied up in a cut off white shirt that knots under her breasts clears away Rebel’s glass and places another one in front of him before asking me, “Can I get you something, sweety?”
“I’m—”
“She wants a vodka and raspberry.” Rebel side eyes me and smirks. “And a shot of tequila.”
“I don’t.” I’m painfully aware that the time is ticking away. I’m in the final minutes of the game and if I don’t score that touchdown soon, I’m going to have to admit defeat. Alcohol isn’t going to help.
“She does,” Rebel argues.
The blonde’s head swings from him to me and back again. “Are you sure, hon?”
He has to realize he sounds like a real asshole right now.
“I’m good—”
“Five minutes,” he grumbles.
“What?” My pulse begins to race as I stand and push back my seat. “If you’re threatening me again.”
I am so out. Done. In the eternal words of Meatloaf, I will do anything for this—insert job instead of love—but I will not drink because this jerk threatens me. Okay, so those aren’t the words to the classic song, but the meaning is still the same. It was bad enough when he threatened to run me over in his car. Not that he actually would have done it, I don’t think. Either way, getting out of his way made sense two days ago, just like leaving does now.
“You want to tell me why I need you.” He pries his hand from its resting place in the crook of his opposite elbow and stretches his fingers. “Have a drink with me and I will give you five minutes to sell me on why I should hire you to save my reputation.”
“Oh.” That stops me in my tracks.
“I hope you have something better than that.” He tucks his hand back into his elbow with a smirk.
This is it. My shot. Time to shoot it or run home with my tail between my legs because I couldn’t hold my own in the big city. Yeah, well, screw that. I straighten my spine and swipe my hands down the front of my borrowed shirt as I tell the server, “I think I will have that drink after all.”
“I’ll take a shot of tequila too,” he tells her.
“I’ll be right back with those,” she says before heading back to the bar.
My mind races over my spiel. What we can do for him at Knightly PR. How it will change the trajectory of his career from a slide into obscurity to being on the rise again. “You’re a talented actor, Mr. Maddox. Your work speaks for itself.”
His jaw bulges under the cap. “It’s Rebel. Only Rebel. If I hear one more Mr. Maddox…”
“Okay.” I start again, “Where you fall down is in your people skills.”
He holds up one finger. Is he telling me I’ve already used up a minute, because it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.
“I’m aware of my sins,” he says as the server comes back with our drinks and places them in front of us. “And there is not enough alcohol in the world for me to want to listen to you tell me what they are.”
“That isn’t—”
“Pick up your drink, Summer,” he orders as Crystal is replaced by Bambi, a gorgeous brunette with legs that seem like they’re taller than I am.
“Do you always have to be so difficult?” Damn it, the words I’m thinking spew out my mouth. One day I am going to work out how to circuit break the habit. It’s just growing up with a bunch of boys didn’t give me a lot of opportunity to be heard. “I didn’t mean that.”
He laughs, deep and throaty. “Yeah, you did.”
“Well, I shouldn’t have said it.”
He picks up his tequila shot and indicates for me to copy him. “Drink.”
I pick up the small glass and he clinks the rim of his against mine. Drops of tequila pepper my fingertips. It’s the most absurd moment. Almost like this is an enjoyable evening with a friend and not an effort to make a deal with the devil in a seedy club. At least he hasn’t ordered himself a lap dance.
He tips his head and tosses the shot back. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows the clear liquid. A small smile curves his lips. His lashes sweep his cheeks. Dark scruff defines his jaw instead of softening it like it does on some men. He’s so damn… pleasurable to look at. My insides get all warm.
“Drink, Summer,” he says like he knows I got trapped watching him.
“Oh, right.” I tip the cup to my lips and drain it. It tastes awful, and I grimace.
He wraps his fingers around his whisky glass. Purses his lips. “So tell me, little girl, what do you know about being bad?”
“This isn’t about me.” I bristle, but I don’t react. There’s no point in telling him I don’t like him calling me that when he’s doing it to annoy me. I take a sip of my raspberry vodka. “It’s about you.”
“I disagree.” That small smile still plays on his mouth. “You want to fix me, but you don’t know me. You sure as shit don’t understand me.”
“I know enough to do my job,” I argue. “I see what everyone else does. A great actor intent on destroying his career. But I can work with what I know. I can run a social media campaign that will have your audience and Hollywood eating out of the palm of your hand again. We can minimize your bad qualities and spin an image that will get you back on top.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” His finger ticks against the side of his glass. “Don’t tell me. You want me to date some actress or high-profile personality with a squeaky clean image who is on the up and up. So I look like I’ve turned over a new leaf. Or better yet…you?”
“What?” I almost spit the mouthful of drink I’ve just taken. If he thinks I’d even consider wanting to date his difficult ass, even fake dating, he’s clearly had too much to drink. “That’s ridiculous. What did you do to come up with that idea? Read too many romance novels?”
“I spent six months in prison.” He shrugs. “I found ways to entertain myself.”
Surely the broody behemoth doesn’t actually read romance novels. And even if he does, that’s no reason for my breath to catch at the idea he has a soft gooey center just waiting to be mined. “You’re joking.”
“Of course I’m joking.” He guffaws so loud that Bambi stops mid gyration to check out what’s so funny. It’s definitely not her butt in that tiny white thong. Mine would look like someone is trying to contain jelly in a fishing net in comparison. Any normal person’s would. “You don’t give people ammunition to use against you while you’re away.”
Ugh, he’s a pain in the ass.
“What other brilliant ideas do you have?”
“That wasn’t my idea,” I remind him. Let’s see, what did I have on the list I put together the first night I sat shivering in my tent? “You could volunteer at an animal shelter. It would—”
“Nope,” he shuts me down. “And I’m not working with kids either. No big brother, no mentoring. Don’t you know the cardinal rule? Never work with kids or animals. There’s a reason for that. I don’t fucking want to.”
“Okay, well, what if we took on some other cause? Something that actually matters to you.”
“Listen, Red. I’m not going to bend over backwards, doing all your pansy ass ideas to get people to like me. In case you haven’t heard, I really don’t give a flying rat fuck what people think. Or say, for that matter.”
“You’re impossible,” I snap.
He tugs the brim of his hat to the back as he leans in. Those hard as steel blues stare me down from no more than an inch away.
His cologne and something more masculine lodges itself in the back of my throat and makes my skin prickle like its covered in a fine layer of electricity.
A tic pulls at his cheek on one side, making him look like he’s almost trying not to smile. “You’re not doing your job properly.”
I pounce on the words your job like they’re a grenade and I’m a superhero trying to save the world from their explosion. “My job. Does that mean I’m hired?”
Bambi crawls toward us on her hands and knees and turns over to give us a view of her barely covered vagina. Her muscular body is really quite phenomenal, and I have to admit I’m more than a little jealous.
Rebel doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m considering it. But I’m going to need you to do something to prove your commitment first.”
“What?” I lick my lips that are suddenly as parched as my mouth. I know it’s insane to let him push me around like this, but I’ve come so far. It’s like the time my brothers dared me to spend the night in the woodshed with all the spiders when I was a kid. I can’t back down so close to the dawn. “What is it that you want me to do?”
He pushes his mouth from side to side.
Bambi climbs to her knees, thrusts out her tits, and tosses her wild mane of straight, glossy hair in our direction, before dropping to her elbows and fake humping the stage.
“Strip,” he orders.
His gaze drops to my fully covered chest. Not that it matters. My nipples peak so hard under his hard stare he has to be able to make out their shape even in the dim lighting.
“Strip?” My breath catches along with my heart. My insides clench in a funny way at the idea of getting as naked in front of him as he was in that photo the night we met. I’m no Bambi or Crystal or Candy, but he wants to see me naked anyway? I finger the loose collar of the tank top. “You can’t be serious.”
His pupils grow darker. “Get on the stage and do what she’s doing.”
“No.” I expel the word on an exhale. Was I holding my breath because of the heat in his stare? I take a deep breath. “Nope. No way.”
“Go on, be a bad girl,” he says. “Strip for me.”
I take a deep breath as I glance around the room at all the men watching the show on stage. See ya later, career. Buh-bye, Knightly PR. Arrivederci, Hollywood. I have a limit and apparently Rebel just found it. “That’s not going to happen.”
“You saw me naked,” he says.
“Hasn’t everybody?” I’ve googled him. It’s not like he hasn’t been arrested for public nudity before. Those pictures are online.
He comes at me from a different angle. “You want me to bare my damn soul so you can pick it apart and turn me into some kind of media wet dream. You owe me this.”
“Uh, no.” I’m on my feet and picking up my purse. “I owe you my best work when it comes to your career. If you sign with me, that is. I don’t owe you my public embarrassment. Or my body.”
A look—regret or pain or something a lot like it—flits across his face. The cocky nastiness of a second ago gives way with the tension in his jaw and shoulders. “Have you got the contract with you?”
“I do.” I blink. His gaze thaws ever so slightly. Even his voice is softer.
“Figures.” He thrusts out his hand. “Give it to me.”
I pull it up on my phone with shaky fingers. This is happening? My job is safe? Rebel Maddox is agreeing to be my client.
Once the contract is open on my phone, I hand it to him.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Summer Heart?”
Am I sure I want to tackle the impossible and turn this rebel without a cause into the Hollywood Prince he’s supposed to be? “Yes.”
“Alright then.” He swirls his finger across the screen of my device, signing his name on the dotted line, so to speak. “Give Bambi her money.”
“What?” I’m still sort of in shock that he finally agreed, and I don’t have a clue what it was that actually convinced him. Jolene is going to die with envy. Bernadette will be as thrilled as I am.
“We’re done here.” He hands me back my phone as he stands.
I double check that it is indeed his signature on the document and not some prank to get me to leave. His scrawl is familiar from researching it online. Yup, that is his John Hancock. Relief crawls through my veins.
“Tuck those notes into her thong,” he orders me.
I frown at the money and shake my head. “I’m not going to do that.”
“Look, little girl, I might have thought it cute that you stood up for yourself a moment ago, but Bambi doesn’t shake her ass for the fun of it.” He towers over me. “She has bills to pay. She wants to be able to eat. Get out of your own comfort zone and pay the woman what she deserves.”
Damn. I hadn’t thought about it like that. Hadn’t expected him to either. He’s mean as a cut snake toward everyone else, but generous and kind toward Bambi? I’m not sure what to make of it. “Why don’t you do it?”
“Because I am going over there.” He points at the girl who served our drinks earlier. “And making sure that she and the two other girls we watched perform get paid the tips they deserve.”
He dumps the stack of C notes in my hands and gestures to Bambi to move back to our side of the stage. “Now give this to Bambi. Her song’s almost finished.”
He drifts off to talk to the lady who served us drinks while Bambi crawls in front of me. I suck my lips in as I lean over the stage to tuck the stack into the string of her underwear. My face turns hot from the awkwardness of touching her panties, and I remind myself that new experiences are good.
Get out there and live, that’s what mom told me in those final months. Don’t stay in Devil’s Bend. It’ll dull your enthusiasm and your heart, eventually. You have too much to offer to get stuck in this town.Go out and experience the world. Have an epic journey for me. Dance in the rain. Fall in love. Get your heart broken.
I’d told her she watched too many movies. She’d told me that any experience that makes you feel alive is worthwhile.
I’m not entirely sure she ever suspected I’d be tucking money into a stripper’s G-string though.
Bambi smiles her thanks as she returns to the middle of the stage, and I turn to find Rebel watching me with a cocky sort of amusement. Of course he got a kick out of ordering me around.
The man is dangerous. To my sanity and my job and to my ovaries, apparently, if the sweet tingles that flooded me when he told me to strip for him are any indication.
As I walk toward him I have this feeling that this experience is going to make me… or break me.