Page 11 of A Flighty Fake Boyfriend
He glanced at his feet. “I might not answer.”
“How old are you?”
“Oh,” he smiled. “That’s an easy one. Twenty-three. You?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Silver fox.”
I coughed out smoke and surprise. “More like aging roadkill.”
“No. I dig older men.”
I hardly knew what to say to that. “Are you hitting on me?”
“Duh. You’re new around here. And you’re a friend of Daniel’s. He’s like…the ultimate business Daddy. Plus, you look like you need me.”
“I what?” My phone vibrated again. I couldn’t stop myself from reading the message that time, and my heart sank. “Motherfucker.”
Laurie: Don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me. I have to cancel.
“Something wrong?” asked Epic.
“Wait. Gimme a second.” Instead of replying to Laurie’s text, I walked a few steps away and called him back. He answered on the first ring.
“I’m so sorry. Don’t hate me.”
Despair made me sag. “What happened?”
“You know the actor Kelsey D’Angelo?”
“The dude that got arrested for statutory rape?”
“That’s him. He had a small part in the film I just finished, so now we either need to cut his scenes or reshoot them. The director made the decision to hire another actor, so I’m due back in Vancouver tomorrow. I am so sorry, Ryan. You know I’d do anything for you, but—”
“It’s not your fault, Laurie.” I stared at the sky and swallowed my initial reaction, which was to scream. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Will you be able to find someone else? Should I ask around?”
“No. God no. I don’t want to go with a stranger. I’m comfortable with you, so I just thought…” I don’t know what I thought. He was handsome enough to be arm candy and kind enough to make the wedding bearable. He was someone I could have a good time with. “It’s all right.”
“You could hire someone to go with you.”
“An escort? I bet if you think about my life’s work for a second, you’ll see why that might be problematic for me.”
“Bro, I was talking about hiring an actor.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,oh. I know a dozen actors who’d be happy to do it.”
“But how would we get them up to speed at this stage in the game? At least you know me. If we were forced to make small talk—”
“Listen to you. Actors can improvise. That’s part of our training, you know.”
“No improvised relationship talk would fool Luis into thinking any actor I hired was a real date. He’s way too shrewd for that.”
“I’m really, really sorry, Ry. If there was any way I could postpone this, I would, but as it is, this is costing the production a boatload of money, and—”
