Hate the Player: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy(24)

“You ready?” he asks as I finish by jiggling the knob to make sure I haven’t accidentally just turned the key in the wrong direction, effectively achieving nothing—a frequent occurrence for me. When I spin to face him, my eyes do a cursory once-over without my permission.

From the tips of his well-worn boots to his faded blue jeans to the way his thick biceps bulge in a simple long-sleeved Henley that’s pushed up to his elbows, he looks photo-ready. To make matters worse, I have a feeling the bastard spent all of five minutes getting dressed.

Frankly, it’s exasperating. I spend more time just lotioning my alligator elbows than this fool—and just about every other man—spends readying himself for public scrutiny.

“Where are we going?” I ask, putting a defiant hand to my hip and holding my ground.

“To lunch.” He winks and gestures me toward the fancy-schmancy sports car sitting in my driveway. “And since you’ve only penciled me in for forty-five minutes, we better get a move on it.”

I sigh and hitch my purse up onto my shoulder, following his lead toward the shiny black car. Of course he drives something like this. I have no idea what the brand is or what it’s called, but I can tell it’s fast and draws eyes wherever he goes.

Anything to get attention.

He opens my door and helps me inside before mockingly jogging around the hood while tapping his watch. I roll my eyes as he slips into the driver’s seat.

“Here,” he says, after reaching behind the seat. A brown paper bag lands in my lap as he starts up the engine. It rumbles and roars with an addictive purr.

I peer into the bag and scrunch up my nose when I see what looks to be brown hair. “What is this?”

“A disguise.” His explanation is matter-of-fact as he pulls out of the driveway, but I rarely believe sociopaths on the first go.

“You’re joking, right?”

“Birdie, I never joke,” he deadpans.

I exhale so hard a snot bubble forms at the opening of one nostril. Luckily, for the sake of my dignity, he’s facing the other way. “Right.”

Smug enjoyment coloring his cheeks pink, he taps a finger on the steering wheel and elucidates. “I want to introduce you to the best tacos in town, and well, this town knows me a little too well.”

“Oh, right.” I roll my eyes. Autographs and selfies. He likes to give them away like fucking hot cakes. You get a selfie! And you get a selfie! He’s like the Oprah of Hollywood douchebags.

He takes a right out of my street and heads out onto the main road, and I mentally hope that the rest of our drive—the rest of our lunch—goes just like this. No talking. No Andrew saying something that will most likely tick me off. Just total, blessed silence.

“They know you too, you know.”

My hope-balloon-of-silence is popped, and I turn my wrinkled brow his direction. “Excuse me?”

“Birdie Harris is already a name,” he answers, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye as he takes a left turn at a light. “And Birdie Harris acting in Howie King’s next big movie makes you beautiful bait for all the paparazzi piranhas.”

Sure, Nashville knows me.

LA, though? The country music scene doesn’t fully translate out here.

My look says yeah, right, and he doesn’t miss it.

“Trust me on this. You’re not going to be able to go anywhere in this town without complications.”

My first instinct is to deny anything that comes out of his mouth, but I’m not sure I can in this instance without being obtuse. My manager Neil has already started taking the steps to ramp up my security. Interviews, background checks, he’s all in on his safety search. Soon, I’ll probably have two big, burly men following me around like Billie’s Franco and Mel.

Instead of arguing, I keep my mouth shut, and by some miracle, he does too.

The two of us stay that way for a few beautiful minutes until Andrew turns into a parking lot, a big neon sign scrolling against the adjacent brick building. It reads Buenos Tacos in bright orange and yellow letters, and in this moment, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful.

“I hope you brought your appetite,” Andrew says, sliding into a parking space and pulling another brown paper bag from behind his seat. He unrolls the top and nods to my bag. “Suit up.”

There’s a big, huge part of me that wants to reject the whole disguise thing, but I figure it’s best if I just go with it. It’s only one lunch. One forty-five-minute lunch at which tacos will be served.

I’m a woman. After a lifetime of pap smears and uncomfortably sexist encounters with all kinds of assholes, I can do anything for forty-five minutes, even if that includes wearing whatever he’s stuffed inside this bag for me.

I reach inside and pull out three items, one after another. A brunette wig, red-rimmed eyeglasses, and an LA Dodgers baseball cap.

I put everything on, don’t even bother examining how ridiculous I probably look in the visor mirror above my head, and get out of the passenger seat.

Andrew meets me at the front of the car in a freaking blond mullet that is straight out of the movie Joe Dirt and a pair of aviators.

Lord Almighty. I can’t not laugh.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he says smartly. “I should always be sporting a mullet.”

I wish I could say he looked stupid in a mullet, but his insane good looks have superpowers. They can even make a freaking mullet look hot.