23. Grey
Chapter 23
Grey
I came onto this set intending to keep all my costars at arm's length, especially the other romantic lead. As of yesterday, I’ve finger-fucked her in her trailer and she’s sucked me off. Jesus, what have I gotten myself into?
Do I regret it? No. Would I do it again? Yes. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a dumb decision.
The whole thing has my head spinning. That scene yesterday had both of us so horny that I think either one of us would’ve been down to hook up with anyone after that. But now, I can’t stop thinking about her . How her eyes rolled back in her head and as my fingers moved inside her tight cunt, or how she looked sucking my dick, cheeks flushed and eyes watering from my size.
So, yeah—I’m royally fucked.
Speak of the devil, Aspen walks up to me, both of us now in our street clothes. Aspen is wearing the most interesting blue mini-dress with a corset-type detail and lots of fringe. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s gorgeous on her. I’m just in black shorts and an old Beatles t-shirt, and I feel sorely underdressed.
“Ready to go hear our next assignment?” she asks.
“Not really.”
“Me neither. I hope it’s at least something fun. Like shopping.”
I raise an eyebrow. “That’s your idea of fun?”
She looks at me with an equally dubious look. “Duh. Let me guess, Grey Aldridge is too cool to go shopping?”
“I just don’t see the appeal.”
“So what? Does your mommy buy all your clothes?” she teases.
“What if I told you my mother was dead? You wouldn’t be so smug then, would you?”
The color drains from Aspen’s face. “She’s dead?”
“No. But that’ll teach you not to make fun of people’s mums.”
She rolls her eyes and walks off toward a spare trailer, where our PR teams are meeting us today. “I wasn’t making fun of her ,” she retorts, assuming I’m following her and am still within earshot…which I am. “I was making fun of you.”
“Thanks for clarifying that, yeah?”
“So, what do you want to do? Instead of shopping.”
“I could go for some food.”
She tsks. “That’s so cliché, Grey.”
“And?”
“I’d never date someone so predictable, so immediately that’s out.”
“And I’d never date someone who wants to spend all day just swiping her credit card.”
She laughs, throwing me off guard.
“What’s so funny?” I demand.
“I wouldn’t be swiping my credit card. Come on, don’t you have a single chivalrous bone in your body?”
“I think you found one yesterday.”
She fake gags toward me right before we enter the trailer.
“Fabulous job, guys,” my PR woman says.
“What?”
“With yesterday’s trailer thing. You both walked in Aspen’s trailer after filming yesterday and came out all flushed and sweaty. I don’t know what kind of burpees or whatever you did in there to get that look, but it really worked. Videos of you guys leaving the trailer are trending all over the internet today.”
Aspen and I look at each other, both baffled.
“Totally,” I reply. “It was Aspen’s idea.”
“It was genius. Honestly, our teams have been talking and we’ve decided you guys seem to have this fake-dating thing down pat, so we’re handing over the reins to you guys. You can decide when and where to be spotted, so long as you keep the ruse alive. The only official planned date we have left for you two is to attend the Young Hollywood International Film Festival together the first Saturday of October.”
“So there’s no planned date this afternoon?” Aspen asks.
“No, but we still want you to go on one roughly once per week. And since you both blocked off tonight for a fake-date, we suggest you still do one.”
“Brilliant,” I say, turning to leave. “Well, what are you waiting on, darling? Let’s go eat.”
Aspen follows me out. “Weird way to pronounce shopping.”
“Just keep the bickering to a minimum,” Aspen’s PR manager yells after us.
“Should we just flip a coin?” Aspen suggests.
“Fine.”
There’s a pause.
“Do you not have a coin?” Aspen asks.
“No. You suggested it, don’t you have one?”
“It’s the twenty-first century. No, I don’t have a coin.”
“Then why would I have one?”
“I don’t know, you’re old.”
“ Old ?”
“Old- er .”
I sigh and pull out my phone. “Heads or tails, Jordan?”
“Heads.”
I pull up an online coin-flipper and start it, showing Aspen the animated coin spinning around. It lands on heads.
“Dammit.”
“Shopping it is!” she squeals. “Can we take my Bronco?”
“Sure,” I resign. “But I’m not staying out with you for longer than two hours.”
“Thank God.”
“When did you get so sassy? I thought you were supposed to be nice.”
“You must just bring out the worst in me.”
I smile as I climb into the passenger seat of her baby blue Bronco. “Lucky me, then.”
Our team of bodyguards climb into a black SUV a few spots down, prepared to follow us.
“Where are we going? Rodeo Drive?”
“No, I have snake trauma from Rodeo Drive.”
“Hey, I apologized for that. Who knew you were so afraid of snakes?”
Aspen sighs exasperatedly. “Everyone is afraid of snakes.”
“Then where are we going?” I ask, ignoring her previous comment.
“Let’s go to the Grove.”
“The Grove? Isn’t that just a mall?”
“It’s not a mall, it’s an outdoor shopping center,” she answers plainly, as though that clears anything up.
I stare blankly at her.
She looks over at me for a second before turning back to the road. “You’ve seriously never been to the Grove?”
“I don’t shop.”
“You don’t shop?” she echoes dubiously.
“One of the perks of being rich—in case you haven’t picked up on it yet—you have people to do that for you. Stylists, private chefs, personal assistants…”
“First of all, that makes you sound like a dick. Second of all, I’ve been rich longer than you’ve been alive?—”
“I’m eight years older than you,” I interject, baffled.
“I was richer as an egg in Isabelle Jordan’s ovaries than you were as a fully formed child.”
“And you think I sound like a dick?”
“What? It’s the truth. And like I said, you bring out the worst in me. And back to my final point, most rich people still go shopping because shopping is fun .”
I chuckle at that. “It is not.”
“You’ll have fun today, I promise. You’ll even get in a little wrist workout swiping your card so many times.”
“I’m not buying anything.”
“Yes, you are. You’re going to buy me whatever I want like a doting fake-boyfriend.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll get my revenge for the snake thing.”
“How?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.”
“Fine. But I’m putting a spending limit on you. No more than a thousand dollars.”
She pouts petulantly. “Ten thousand?”
“What do you even want to buy?” I ask as she swings into a parking spot.
“First things first, some of those mall pretzels.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m dead serious. And I thought you were the one who wanted food anyway.”
“I meant real food, not pretzels.”
“We can get both, come on, there’s plenty of options,” she says, exiting the car as soon as our security detail pulls up beside us.
“I get to pick the next date,” I grumble, then reluctantly step out too. She grabs onto my arm and drags me alongside her, like a lioness with her prey.