Hunter: Rockstar Romance (The ProVokaTiv Series Book 2) (9 page)

“Hey, want to go get a bite to eat? I’ll drop you off at home,” he said.

“Aw, thanks but no thanks. I have plans already,” I said.

“Is Brynn picking you up?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Well, when can we talk?” Hunter asked me. He was not going to give this up, wasn’t he.

“Tomorrow, maybe,” I said noncommittally, and then I walked over to Steve, and let Hunter watch us walk out together.

Hanging out with Steve was, well, dull. He was surprisingly uninteresting, and as much I tried to convince myself that it really didn’t matter, it did. I wasn’t there for his stimulating conversation, I failed to be successful at it. He asked if he could go back to my place, to which I said no. Brynn would kill me if I ever did that. And I understood why I didn’t have an offer to go back to his place, he probably shared it with a girlfriend.

“We could go into the backseat of my car?” he asked hopefully.

“You are kidding, right?” I asked.

“What? You’re particular about where you get it?” he said.

His words stung me because I knew that I’d asked for them. I’d flirted and wanted him to come out so I could get Hunter off my mind,

“Do I look like someone who isn’t particular?” I asked and the look he gave me was answer enough. Yep, after just an hour with Steve, Hunter was looking pretty awesome. Lame Steve had somehow made the problem worse for me. Men!

I stormed outside and hailed a cab for a ride home, leaving Steve to settle our tab. Thankfully, one showed up within just a few minutes with its fare available sign lit up.

My mind was loud with thoughts that I didn’t want to hear. Somehow, without my conscious consent, a deeper part of me had started to have feelings for Hunter. My outer being was ill prepared for it, and more than anything, I suddenly felt scared shitless.

The words that my mother used to tell me as a teenager in her thick Filipino accent came to mind. “Trinity, you cannot escape love forever. Eventually you stop running, and it will find you.” I was only sixteen when she said that, after I’d broken up with the sweetest boyfriend just because I realized we’d been dating happily for an entire month. I though it went against my principles, having a happy relationship, feeling it turn to something more than just physical. I wanted to grow up independent. I didn’t want to rely on a man to feel complete in any way other than physically. Who would have thought that seven short years later, I’d have become exhausted with fun and variety, maybe ready for more? And I emphasized the maybe!

Yeah, I decided that my mother’s nuggets of wisdom scared me as much now, as they annoyed me back then. I’d been in LA for just over a week, and my walls of protection were crumbling around me. How could so much change so fast? Then my thoughts drifted off to a very frightening place—the place where I daydreamed about what a day with Hunter might be like if we were actually committed to each other emotionally, and not just playing out lusty desires.

Finally, I was home, and I went to bed. Maybe I could sleep my feelings away.

One glance at Hunter as I walked onto the set the next morning, and I knew I could not sleep my feelings away. It just wasn’t going to work, but I wasn’t ready to openly admit them, either. I had to get through the shoot, and call this job a wrap. People had told me in the past that I had a tendency to self-sabotage. I’d always thought it was a bunch of crap, but that’s exactly what I appeared to be doing with this job.

Dara was standing next to him, and the two looked at me. I had this immediate sense of trouble, like I’d done something wrong. My defenses immediately went up, even though this was not the time to have comebacks at the ready before I even listened. I could be making a situation out of nothing.

“Okay, before we get started, I need to have a talk with the two of you. Hunter, Trinity, my office,” Dara called out. She flagged me over, and we walked back to her small makeshift office, which was about the size of a janitor’s closet, mostly because it was a janitor’s closet at one point.

“What’s going on?” I asked once we were crammed into the small space. Just standing so close to Hunter, his cologne in my nostrils, an electric charge when through me.

Dara sat down in her creaky chair, while Hunter and I took seats in these two wooden folding chairs, which were so old that they may very well send a splinter up my ass if I wiggled around.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush so don’t get all teary eyed on me, Trinity,” Dara said.

That was the first time anyone ever thought I might get teary eyed. I was the tough one, the one who didn’t get all emotional and out of sorts. Well, I used to be…

“I won’t. What the hell is going on?” I asked, trying to be calm, but my insides were on fire.

“The footage from yesterday sucks, and honestly, I’m questioning if we can find the same you that came through the doors when shooting started. What’s going on? Why the sudden change?”

“Nothing, it was just a bad day,” I said. I realized that my reasoning was hard to believe. Even I knew I was full of it.

“We can’t afford a bad day, Trinity. I’m thinking we need to start over, scrap it and find someone else, Hunter,” Dara said to him.

Alert! She’d cut me out of the conversation.

“You don’t have to do that; I can assure you, I can get my act together. Yesterday was tough, but I’m over it now.”

“So you say,” Dara said.

“Let me prove it; you’ll be able to tell by what we shoot today, right?” I stated, unable to hide the anxiousness in my voice. Inside, the desperation was consuming me. I couldn’t afford to mess this up. I didn’t want to just head back to Minneapolis for that job without succeeding in this one.  This shoot was a real opportunity, a chance to grow professionally.

Dara looked at me, analyzing the situation. I remained quiet, hoping that would work to my favor. If I hadn’t convinced her with my plea, there may be no convincing her at all.

“Come on, Dara, we don’t want to start over after one bad day,” Hunter said. I was so thankful that he did that, and my ego didn’t even care that I needed help from him. “I thought she was perfect for the shoot before we started, and I still think that, despite it all.”

Despite it all? Fuck. What a guilt trip!

Dara kept staring at me, and I was looking at her. Finally, she said, “Okay, fine. We’ll give it a try, but if you don’t get your act together today, Trinity, it will be the last day. I’m sorry. I have no choice.”

“Thank you,” I said, jumping up. I’d never been so thankful for a second chance. Come to think of it, in this line of work second chances didn’t come around too often. Then I looked at Hunter and said, “Thank you,” to him.

“You’re welcome. Do you have a minute?” he asked.

Shit. Did I owe him one now that he’d helped me out? I think I did.

“Sure,” I said.

“Meet me on set in ten minutes,” Dara said. She walked out of the small room, her elbow accidentally bumping into my boob as she went by.

With Dara gone, Hunter looked at me with serious, concerned eyes. Those dark brown eyes were so electrifying, and calming all at the same time. They were like the eye of the storm.

“I can’t stop worrying about you, Trinity. Look, if I did something to offend you, I’m sorry. Can’t you just tell me so we can get it off our chest, and move on with this photo shoot.”

I could be completely honest and pour out my emotions—new as they were—but that wasn’t a great choice for right now. “I appreciate you helping me out with a second chance, Hunter. I am not going to let you down. Promise.”

“Okay,” he said. He smiled but it was forced. “That’s really all you have to say? After you went off with
Steve
last night?”

God I wished he had known not to push it.

“Nothing happened with Steve. Nothing. Not that it’s any of your business. And the conversation you want to have? It’s not a ten minute talk. So, let’s just get on set so I don’t piss Dara off today,” I bit out.

“Yeah, sure. Who cares about pissing me off?”

Who knew a guy could be such a bitch? But I decided to take the high road.

“Look, the last thing I want is you pissed off at me. You want to talk? Fine. Let’s talk. After we wrap up some good footage today.”

“Great. Let’s get this done,” he replied, pushing out of his chair. Only I could tell nothing was great at all.

We walked out of the closet, and on to the set, unsettled business thick between us. But I had to get this right today. I’d let my emotions show through in my work, and if Hunter couldn’t pick up on how real they were, I sure as hell wasn’t going to hold his hand and help him figure it out. I had to focus on a successful shoot. That was both our number one objective.

The fact that Trinity pulled it together for the shoot that day was a damn good thing, if only for business reasons. She was smoldering, hot, sexy, and cold when she needed to be, and damn if it didn’t consume me in every way. Even after watching her walk out with Steve the night before, she still made me buy into every emotion she was selling me on the stage. What a sap I was. And what a sales person she was. The second we were done shooting she reverted back to her aloof self, which pissed me off, more than I already was. Enough that I left, without pressing her for that talk she’d promised if we got good footage.

But now I was home but for some reason, whatever was going on, I just could not let be, even though I knew I should. Trinity had become a cause to me. Not like charity, but something that compelled a person to do whatever was necessary just to try and solve the problem. I wanted to solve the Trinity puzzle, and figure out how she operated. I wanted her to open up everything to me, not just her legs.

It was a restless night, and I laid in my bed, trying to watch a basketball game on the TV, but my mind bounced from thought to thought like the ball. I was angry that Trinity had left with that guy on the crew. Did they sleep together? Whether she did or didn’t, she wanted me to think about it. She wanted to make me jealous. That much was clear. And that was messed up.

An internal debate started, and I was trying to come up with some plan to just get Trinity to diffuse whatever was brewing in her before it exploded. Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t all out of concern for her, it was out of concern for me, too. We had some press opportunities lined up for the video after it all came together, and if our chemistry was the same as it was when we were not shooting now, they would be a dismal flop. Acting skills and sexiness weren’t everything.  Cameras caught things we couldn’t always see, things like body language.

I needed some assistance from somebody that Trinity trusted. Brynn, of course. And Jessie, the genuine nice girl.  I hadn’t talked to Jessie much that night of Brynn’s birthday party in Milan, but when we went to the awards show a few months later, I saw that she was all genuine. That was the type of girl I should have been drawn to, so naturally, I wasn’t.

I found Brynn’s messages from that first night with Trinity on my phone and hit the “call back” button.

“Brynn, hey, it’s Hunter. You alone?” I asked, whispering on my end of the phone like Trinity would actually hear that. The woman had made me lose my fucking mind—just great.

“What’s going on?”

“I was hoping I could recruit you for some help,” I replied.

“With what?”

“Are you in a place you can talk, without any ears?”

“Yup, all alone,” she said.

“Okay, and this is confidential. Off the record. Not for that article you’re working on.”

“Of course.”

I wanted to ask where Trinity was, but that was pathetic. Focused, I needed to stay focused. “I’m not sure what’s going on with Trinity, but she’s completely disgruntled with me for some reason. I want to figure it out and she’s not talking. Interested in helping?”

“Nothing would please me more. She’s been…well, she has not been herself. Any ideas?”

“It’ll require some extras.  Can you get Jessie here, my treat, for a little outing? Tell Trinity that you guys are worried about her, and want to go out for some fun.”

“She’ll believe that Jessie’s worried, but that would be suspicious from my end. I don’t know, but let me see if I can swing it and make it look natural.”

“And, can we get this done for Friday?”

“Two days. Whew, um, I guess so. Hold on. I’ll text Jessie.”

“Call me back with her info for a ticket. Where is she, anyway?”

“Boston right now.”

“Okay. Remember, confidentiality is essential,” I cautioned.

“And not a problem. Trin would kick my ass if she knew I was doing this, but… I like the two of you together.”

We hung up and I started to formulate a plan in my head. This was the craziest thing I’d ever done, and there was no logical explanation. I just didn’t want to walk away, even though that would have been the easiest thing to do. We didn’t even live in the same city so it wasn’t like it would be difficult to avoid her. It’s just that I didn’t want to avoid her. I wanted to see her—not the cold, bitchy her, but the hot, passionate, funny her. The girl who had swallowed her nerves and jumped off that bridge with me. The girl who got my heart racing. The girl who had practically made my heart explode that night in the mountains, I could hardly contain the emotions she’d stirred up in me.

While waiting for Brynn to call back, I made a few extra phone calls, and got a couple choices lined up for where the plan would go down.  Brynn had a bit of a devious side to her, which worked to my benefit for this.  And Jessie, well she was actually one of those girls who seemed to be as sweet as she acted—completely genuine. She was the perfect one to help pull of the ruse successfully, if she didn’t think I was being a conniver, which I wasn’t; okay, I was, but still…

Finally, my cellphone rang. “Okay Hunter, Jessie’s on board, but she wants to call you with some questions. Be prepared. She’s a bit more straight and narrow than Trin and I.”

“I can handle that. Simon, remember? The guy is straight and narrow, black and white, business driven, that kind of thing.”

“Jessie is straight and narrow on emotions, not that so much. She doesn’t like the thought of anyone playing with someone else’s emotions. She’s a mama bear that looks like a sweet little Teddy bear.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the comparison. I’d never heard any woman described that way before. What a unique trio of friends they were. Gauge, Simon, and I were friendly, but wouldn’t hang out a lot, if at all, if we didn’t have ProVokaTiv. “I’ll be cautious.”

“I’ll email you the details right now, along with Jessie’s email. I’m sure she’ll be calling you soon,” Brynn said.

“Right now, in fact,” I said. My phone beeped and I looked and saw a number from the Boston area. It wasn’t a coincidence.

“Great. Gotta’ go. Talk tomorrow,” I said.

“Jessie, hi, thanks for calling.”

“What’s going on with this plan?” she asked, not wasting any time.

“I assure you, my intention is good.  I’m just trying to get through to Trinity and honestly, I’m struggling and it fucking sucks.”

From there, I believe Jessie sensed my heart was genuinely in it.  Of course, she warned me, too.  “Don’t mess with her emotions, she doesn’t deserve it.  You’ve got to be vested, you know.”

“You know what, I am.  I really am,” I said forthrightly.

By the time morning came around, I was tired from a lack of sleep, but excited because it was fun setting up an elaborate trap to get someone to confess. The few times I dove into what Trinity might say if the plan were to be pulled off successfully, I both smiled and cringed. She’d either say something so beyond her character that it shocked me in a good way, or she’d unleash on me, making me think she was a kraken claiming me for the sea, lashing out at me ferociously with her tentacles.

I got up and made my way toward the set, stopping to get a breakfast sandwich and a coffee along the way. I needed to be super charged. When I pulled into the parking lot of the coffee house, I noticed a crowd of people up ahead. I had no idea what was going on? There was always a protest going on in LA somewhere; either it was for something silly, like forcing small dogs to wear clothes, or something major—a violation of some civil liberty or another. March and protest away, that was my thought, as long as it didn’t interfere with my desire to not protest, and get to work on time.

I couldn’t tell what was happening so I went inside, got my coffee and a sandwich, and headed back out.  However, the action was still there.  They were blocking my way and I had no choice but to walk over.  “I don’t feel like this shit this morning,” I mumbled.

As I got closer, I saw that someone was sitting on the ground.  Someone realized I was there and shouted, “Hey, it’s Hunter Martinez,” one voice called out.

“What’s going on here?” I asked.

“Some guy is withdrawing or something, just sitting on the ground, rocking back and forth,” someone called out.

I ran closer and everyone parted so I could get by the guy.  “Did you call anyone?”

I glanced up and everyone was looking at me like they didn’t speak a fucking word of English.  “ Did you call anyone?” I repeated more loudly.

“No, I’ll call,” one woman said, suddenly smiling and trying to earn brownie points with me.

I had no tolerance for gawkers to others hardships, especially an addicts.  “Never mind, I’ll call.  Why don’t you all get out of here.”

They stepped back, but didn’t leave.  “Are you okay?” I asked the guy, who looked to be about fifty but was probably only thirty max.  He was a meth head, I could tell from the scratch marks on his face and his teeth.

“Cold, can you spare some money so I can take the edge off?” he asked.

“Here, have this,” I said, offering him the coffee and sandwich.  He needed some food for certain, the coffee, probably not.

He held it, shaking and trying to eat, crumbs falling everywhere and sweating like it was midday and a hundred degrees out.

I pulled out my phone.  “Sally, hi, I need you…yeah…”  I gave the address and hung up.  “I’m going to help you out.  What’s your name?”

“Gary,” the guy said with food in his mouth.  He wasn’t chewing.

“Chew and relax, I’ll stay with you, Gary.  One of my friends is going to come help you.”

He thought I meant to get him a fix, but that was not what I meant at all.

We talked casually and I had no idea how much time had passed, but finally Sally pulled up in the familiar plain, white van that she drove.  Two other people by her side, big guys that could handle situations when they became rough.

“Sally, this is Gary,” I said, glancing at her and then nodding at the other two.  “She’s going to help you out.  Listen to her and don’t worry about it, okay, I’ve got you covered.”

“What?” Gary asked.  He was confused, but he’s soon learn.

“Gary, we’re going to take you to a safe place, okay?” Sally said.  “Will you come willingly?”

“Yeah,” he said.  He agree, but I knew from past experiences with these poor people that they really didn’t process.  They’d agree to anything if they thought it meant getting a fix.

Two minutes later,  Gary was in the van and they were driving off.  I looked down at my watch.  Shit, I was running a half hour late.

I ran to the car, no coffee or breakfast for me that morning.

I’d arrived on the set, and Dara immediately blasted me for being late and with the news that after today we’d have one more day of shoots, and it would be on Monday. One day after I’d know for sure if the trap I was setting for Trinity had worked. I laughed at the thought of it, not having any idea of how Trin would feel about that. Could be good, or very bad, depending on how the plan played out. Just thinking about the plan made me smile.

“You’re happy today. What’s going on?” Trinity asked, looking at me curiously.

“Just thinking about all the crazy things happening lately,” I said, still grinning.

“I don’t even want to know the details,” she said, walking away.

We were on the same page at least. I didn’t want her to know, either.

“Today, we’re going to reshoot the restaurant scene,” Dara said, walking over. “I just couldn’t salvage any of it, but now that Trinity seems to have bounced back, we should be able to do it fairly quickly.”

“I think she’ll be great,” I said, smiling.

“What are you so smiley about?” Dara asked me.

“Just in a good mood.”

“Well, it’s too smiley for the shoot so calm down. It would be just my luck that Trinity would be back to normal, and you’d be out of sorts,” Dara replied.

“Smiling is out of sorts?” I asked playfully. She was so funny, and I loved her direct approach to everything, now that I’d gotten used to her style.  To get into character, I thought about Gary, the guy I hoped I could help.  There were no guarantees and unfortunately, the rate of success in those situations was never as high as the rate of failure.

She paused and looked at me, peering in closer. “Wow, you can switch personas quickly, good work, Hunter.”  Then she walked away, barking out orders to someone else.

I walked over to wardrobe and saw Steve in the room by Trinity. She was smiling at him, but had a guarded look. I hated to admit how glad I was to see it, too, because thinking of him making her laugh, let alone the image of her doing even half of the things with him that she’d done with me was driving me crazy. Even though I didn’t have any real claim on her, I
wanted
to, that was the thing.

Fifteen minutes later, we were at the mock restaurant, sitting at the small table, and talking with our bodies and expressions—not our mouths.

My hand reached over to Trin’s and I started to trace softly on the top of it. Her skin was so soft and damn if it didn’t give me a thrill, seeing a trail of goose bumps start where I’d caressed her, and travel up her arm. That was something that couldn’t be rehearsed.