Every Girl Does It (14 page)

“Nope
.
S
wimming’s
fine
,
” I answer
and stride
out toward the pool as fast as possible.

“
Where’s
the fire?” He
calls, trying to
catch
up to me.

“Ha, ha
.
So
funny.” I put on my large black sunglasses
, looking to hold on to a little of my dignity
.

He
winks
in return and leads me to a few lounge chairs. The air is thick like honey making it
pleasurable
t
o breathe. It feels good to relax. As I check my phone for messages
,
I
notice Bobby has emailed me again, but
after the infruriating kiss from Preston my heart just isn’t in it
.
It occurs to me that t
h
is
is one path better left untaken, again.

As if on cue
,
Preston turns to
bestow on me the most sensual smile known to mankind
.
The man should really come with a warning label plastered across his forehead before he giv
es some poor old lady a stroke.

“Sir?” A high pitched voice interrupts my thoughts as I squint to see who
se
is addressing Preston as
“
sir
”.
Wincing, I see
it
’
s one of the girls from the lobby. She has on a bikini
which
looks like it
’
s been shrunk three times before being worn
,
and her eyes are hidden by too big sunglasses. She
’
s chewing her g
um so hard that
my
jaw hurts
,
and to top it all off, she
’
s
looking at Preston like he is Brad Pitt. Which
,
maybe according to this girl
,
he is.

“Yes?” Preston asks dumbfounded.

“Can I have your autograph?”

“My autograph?” He asks
,
looking back at her.

She nods her hea
d and smiles, “Well, both of you
guys’ autograph
s
.
I swear, nobody is going to believe me when I tell them!”

“Tell
them what
,
exactly?” I ask. Now I
’
m
curious
.
W
ho does she think we are?

She shrugs and answe
rs as if we
’
re the slow ones
.
“
T
hat I met Brad Pitt
and Angelina Jolie on vacation. S
o where are you
r
kids? Are they
,
like
,
back in the states?” We
are
in
the states
,
is wh
at I want to say
,
but I can’t
,
because that would
make Angelina Jolie look bad, not me.

“You think we
’
re
–”
I begin to say
,
but Preston cuts me off.

“
Sure
thing! Do you have a marker,
pen
,
or something?” Preston
asks looking at the girl with indulgent eyes
.

“
Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it. This
is like so cool.” She pops her gum as she pulls out a sharpie then hands us headshots of A
ngelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. N
ow
I
see why she thought he was Brad Pitt. The picture
is one from his last movie
where he dyed his hair dark, no wonder she thinks he looks like Brad Pitt
,
the resemblance is almost creepy
.
While I
’
m not
built like
Angelina
Jolie
, a
girl co
uld get used to being compared t
o her.

Signing my
—or
rather Angelina’s
name, I say a silent prayer that I’m not doing anything illegal. Preston smiles as she runs away, probably rushing to tell her friends
. Then to my horror I realize she
’
s pointing at us and talking rather loudly to the hotel staff. Well
,
maybe they
’
ll upgrade us.

I shake my head in disbelief as I look to Preston. He just
smiles and nods as if to say
,
“yeah
I get that
a
lot
”
.
Wow, humility is his strong suit; or not.

“You need to be bro
ught down a few levels.” Snorting, I open up my magazine and try not to be violent toward his arrogant smirk.

Preston leans ov
er
close to my
chair
.
“Are you offering?”

I meet
his gaze
,
yet all I can think is how he
’
s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen up close
.

“Did you have plastic surgery? Because you know you can only do so much to the outside, it
’
s what’s on the inside that counts.” Wow
,
if that i
sn’t me channeling Grandma Ned
.
I feel like a Sunday school teacher.

“Aw, you
’
re too sweet. You mean you
’
d like me just based on my personality?”

“No
!
” I yell a little too loud
.
“
Y
our personality is n
arcissistic and selfish.”
I shake
my head
and
wonder when this guy will
get a clue.

He grabs my hand and begins caressing the top of it
.
I tell my body to pull my hand away
,
but instead it just stays there
;
even my own body is a traitor. “Challenge—
”

“
I
f you say accepted
,
I’m throwing you in the pool
,
” I snap.

“Okay
.” He
shrugs.

L
ean
ing
back in my chair
, I close my eyes then I
feel the su
n being blocked from my body. As I pull off my sunglasses
,
I
see Preston hovering over me like a lion does to a zebra before it pounces.

He leans in too close
for comfort
and
whispers,
“
Accepted
.”

I throw down
my magazine and lunge for him
.
Unfortunately
,
I
’
m quite small
,
and compared to him
,
I never stood a chance
.
B
ut being the good sport he is, he
decides
to jump in afte
r he
pushes
me into the pool
. Then I notice a few cameras go off
,
and to my ultimate embarrassment
,
I realize people still think we
’
re s
tupid celebrities. Please
,
Lord, h
elp this not make the papers.

Bringing myself back to reality
,
I
grab a towel before lying down again. “Exactly what,” I ask as I towel dry my hair, “have you accepted as a challenge?”

“To woo you.” Preston answers without looking in my direction.

“Woo me?” I repeat. This ought to
be good.

“Y
es woo, as in I
’
m going to knock you off your feet. I can tell this whole witty banter thing going on between us isn’t enough for you. My, my
,
you are needy. So I
’
ll also woo you. You’ll be begging for me to kiss you by the end of this trip.”

“Overconfident?” I laugh
.

“Not at all.” He smiles.

“There you guys are!” A female voice exclaims.

I look up to see Brad
and Kristin approaching. Giving them
a weak wave
,
I
take off my sunglasses to fully glare
at my best friend. S
he owes me coffee for life, then again I do get to stare at
Mr. December
for the rest of the week
,
so it
won’t
be too bad. Except he infuriates me and makes me want to cut off parts of him and
feed them to Mrs. Butterworth. At least I didn’t say that out loud
.

Kristin mouths a “Sorry” my way before sitting next to me. “You’ll never believe
what we heard
.”
Her voice is
high pitched and airy,
it’s
obviously good news.

“What?” I ask equally excited.

“Get this!” Her hands are in front of my face as she tries to show me with her body jus
t how big of a deal this news
is
.
“Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are staying at our hotel
.”
She puts her hands over her mouth in shock as my eyes widen in something entirely different.

Preston is the first to break the silence
.
“You don’t say? How do you know?” He
’
s now looking directly at me with a smugness th
at is so irritating I need to push him
in the pool
,
again.

“Wel
l,” Brad interrupts
.
“W
e heard they
were out here just a bit ago signing autographs.
Some
teenage girl is running around the hotel showing everyone. I think she might
'
ve even called the local news, I can’t be sure though
.
S
he was talking way too fast.”

Almost choking
on my spit
, I try to
digest
the information.
“So
, reporters
might be coming?” I croak out as I glare at Preston again.
He shrugs his shoulders as if to say “no big deal.”

“Yeah
,
but I mean, I’m sure they are going to hear about it and switch hotels
.
W
e just thought we could catch a glimpse of them before they took off.” Brad puts his hand on Kristin’s knee and smiles.

“Hey
.”
he looks ba
ck toward us
. “Y
ou guys didn’t
happen to see them
,
did you?”

Just as I open my mouth to reply,
Preston covers it with his hand.

“Nope,” Preston lies
.
“I did hear they were going to make an appearance
at the same restaurant as us to
night though.”

My breathing becomes rapid as the understanding of what he
’
s saying becomes
painfully
clear. We aren’t going to dinner as Preston and Amanda
. We’re
going as Brad and Angelina.

Kristin and Brad exchange shocked looks as I mumble under my breath, “Challenge accepted
.”
And to my surprise I see Preston’s face light up into the most gorgeous smile I
’
ve ever seen
. Maybe
this isn’t
such a bad idea after all.

No way, I
’
m not wearing that! This I’m thinking to myself a
s my hand trails down the rough fabric of the dress. Preston had gone shopping earlier
,
and unbeknownst
to me bought an Angelina look
alike dress. He did a pretty good job. The bl
ack leather dress somehow looks
classy
,
and the
neckline isn’t too low
,
but the slit up the side is
n’t as modest. People could almost see up my dress.

“You ready yet?” Preston calls as he knocks on my bedroom door. My heart is poun
ding out of my chest. We
lied to Kristin and Brad. We told them we were too tired to go to dinner
,
and they were more than excited to have a dinner date on their own. The plan is to wear sunglasses throughout the night so nobody suspects anything different
.
I
t should work
,
considering we
’
re eating so early.

I put on the dress and look in the mi
rror. It
’
s shocking how much I can resemble Angelina. S
he
’
s a lot taller, s
he also has tattoos
,
which Preston is convinced he can draw on me with a sharpie, we’ll see about that.
But I could easily pass for her shorter twin.
Oddly
,
this is
something I
’ve
never noticed before
today
.

Al
l in all
,
I feel like I look al
l
right
. I
do
my makeup as best I
can
and put on the strappy high heels Preston
bought with the dress. As I open my bedroom door
,
I
gasp. I
’
m face to face with Brad Pitt
,
and I don’t mean he ki
nd of resembles Brad Pitt
. No
,
he
’
s
full on
channeling
celebrity
right now. He
’
s done his hair in a sloppy fashion, let his five o clock shadow grow a little on his face
,
and don’t even get me started on the tan. He
’
s wearing a khaki suit resembl
ing
something I saw
on
Ocean
'
s
E
leven
and is now holdin
g his hand out for me
.

Why am I shaking? There’s no way I’m going to be able to do this, let alone look at him all evening without letting my jaw drop
. He has me do a little twirl before he smiles and kisses me on the cheek. My tongue goes numb
,
therefore speech isn’t an option right now.

He breaks the silence “You look absolutely stunning.” And I think he means it because there
’
s no smugness behind his eye
s, but there
’
s something else I can’t identify
.

“Stop overanalyzing me and sit down,” Preston says
,
breaking the moment.

I roll my eyes and sit
.
“What are you doing?” I ask as he pulls out a sharp
ie. There
'
s a brief glimmer of hope that perhaps he had forgotten about the tattoos I needed to carry off the disguise.

“She,” he says as the sharpie touches my skin, “only has two visible tattoos when she wears dresses like this.”

I ro
ll my eyes
.
“
How
would you know?
”

“TMZ
,
” he answers before finishing off the first tattoo.

“I think I underestimated you.” I shake my head
.

“You always have
,” he
says
wistfully
befor
e starting on the next tattoo. Although I hate
to admit
it,
this does feel kind of fun.
He puts the sharpie down and looks at my slit. He lets out a big sigh before letting his hand run on the inside part of my knee. It makes me want to jump on him
,
and I don’t know why. Sometimes he has that effect on me
;
either I want to kill him
,
or I want to steal his virtue. That can’t be a good sign.

“W
hat’s wrong?”
Assuming
he must think I look terrible or he wouldn’t have such an upset look on his face.

Preston leaves the room then returns within seconds with my heart.

K
idding
,
it’s actually a needle and thread
,
but close enough.

“We
can’t have you walking around like that,” he points to the slit and begins sewing the top part of it down to make it less revealing.

“Wha
t do you mean?” M
y words sound a little choppy since his touch makes me so nervous.

“I mean
.” His
voice is now more intense
.
“
I don’t want other men lusting after you tonight
,
or undressing you with their eyes, so I
’
m going to remedy the situation.” He finishes the last stitch and ties a knot.

“Where in the world did
you learn to sew?” I ask
flabbergasted.

“Prison
.” He
wink
s
. There’s the guy I’ve grown to love.

Wait
a second
,
did I just say love? Ha! Not a possibility. At
least I didn’t say it out loud.

He pulls me to my feet to inspect me.
“Perfect,” he says and I
feel that way. “Grab your sunglasses
,
Mrs.
Pitt.”

“Why thank you
,
Mr. Pitt
.”
I laugh as he leads me out into the night.