Page 6 of How to Kiss a Movie Star
“Just make sure you take his camera before you do.”
Nate stalks off, and I turn around to retrieve my shirt.
I managed to escape a lot of things when I moved out of California.
A lot of unnecessary pressure and expectations. A toxic relationship. The constant hounding of the press.
But apparently, no matter how far into the wilderness I go, I’ll never escape the kind of people who will don camo and traipse through the woods just to capture a few pictures.
I’ll never escape myfame.
Chapter Two
Audrey
Threeweeks.ThreeweeksI’ve been searching, and I finally found him.
I’d heard rumors about various sightings.
But I wasn’t going to believe it until I saw for myself.
The implications are huge, after all. Here? In Silver Creek? I suspected it might eventually come to this—all my PhD research indicated it might—but to see actual, physical proof?
My heart squeezes. It’s almost too much.
I inch forward across the loamy forest floor and lift my camera. I’m up on a bit of a ledge, a deep ravine cutting through the mountainside directly in front of me, but the height of my current position makes it easy to see, even at a distance. “Gotcha,” I say as I focus my camera, zooming in to get a clearer picture.
“I’m going to need that camera,” a deep voice says behind me. I jolt, and my finger slams down on the button, sounding the shutter before the camera slips from my hands, landing on the dirt in front of me.
When I look up, the white squirrel just on the other side of the ravine is nowhere to be seen.
I jump to my feet, glaring at the stranger behind me with the heat of a thousand suns.
Figurative suns,my rational, science-minded brain asserts. Because a thousand real suns would char me into nonexistence before I could glare atanyone.
It’s a ridiculous thought, considering the giant, stern-faced stranger looming over me, but I’ve been with my brain for twenty-nine years now. I’ve learned that sometimes, there’s no reasoning with it.
A flash of white appears in the distance, then vanishes behind a tree, and my jaw tightens. I was so close.
“Was thattrulynecessary?” I say as I scramble to my feet and reach for my camera. I use the hem of my shirt to wipe off the screen on the back.
The man holds out his hand, totally unfazed by my fury. “The camera,” he repeats.
Does he not realize what he just disrupted? Does he have any clue how long I’ve been attempting to verify the presence of white squirrels in this area?
I take a step backward. “You can’t have my camera.”
The man is wearing some sort of utility vest over a black T-shirt, and he makes a show of sliding the vest back and propping his hands on hips, an obvious move to show off the handgun strapped to his waist.
Okay.So I probably ought to take this man seriously. Still, he doesn’t look like he necessarily wants tousehis gun. And he isn’t trying to strongarm me, something he could absolutely do, though he does look poised to grab me if I try to run.
My eyes dart up to his face. There’s a slim earpiece looped over the top of his left ear.
Stern expression. Armed. Wearing an earpiece. He has to be some sort of security guard.
It occurs to me that I actually have no idea who purchased the land I’ve been trespassing on for the past eighteen months. Trespassing with zero issues, I might add. I’ve never seen a soul out here, and no one has ever seen me.
“Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” the man says, his tone gentle, like he’s trying to pacify me.
