TAMING HOLLYWOOD’S BADDEST BOY

by Monroe, Max

  One by one, I follow the instructions.

  Lay out and account for all components of the tent. Done.

  Lay a tarp over the ground. Done.

  Lay tent over the tarp. Done.

  I grin victoriously, looking down at my current masterpiece.

  Well, look at me, just rocking and rolling through these instructions.

  I am a goddess of tent preparation!

  Connect your tent poles. Okay, this one is a little more complicated because the poles are tricky little fuckers, wanting to go left when I need them to go right, but I manage, because I am a total badass. Done.

  I glance over my shoulder to find Luca’s eyes pointed in my direction.

  Ha! And you said I’d regret this! Feast your eyes on my newfound camping skills, bucko!

  Confidence straightening my spine, I focus back on the task at hand and read the next instruction—Insert tent poles into the corresponding flaps in the tent.

  Flaps? What the fuck are flaps?

  I feel around the pink material, searching for flaps.

  Oh, wait! Is this a flap?

  No. That’s a zipper.

  Or this! Is this flap?

  Nope. That’s…I don’t know what that it is, but it’s not a flap.

  Good Lord, how can a tent be so complicated?

  Sweat starts to bead on my forehead, and a heavy sigh escapes my lungs as I continue my search for flaps.

  Flippity fucking flaps, where are you? Hello?

  “You need some help?” Luca asks from somewhere over my shoulder. I roll my eyes, refusing to look back at him.

  “Nope.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  I refuse to give him any grounds for saying “I told you so.”

  My granny was a mean, old, stubborn biddy when she needed to be, and I can be too.

  She was also obsessed with luck. Scratch-off lotto tickets, video poker, penny stocks—when it came to any and all gambling, she claimed you gotta be in it to win it.

  In the end, though, the joke was on me.

  On her deathbed, two breaths away from meeting Jesus, Granny let Birdie and me know the truth—all that gambling had led to something great. She’d won the lotto fifteen years earlier.

  And I have to believe that, right now, out here in the wilderness fighting for my livelihood, Granny’s up above, telling me to keep rolling the dice.

  You’ve gotta be in it to win it, and if I’m gonna win Luca Weaver, being in “it” means being in the wilderness, proving to myself, moment after moment, what I’m capable of.

  C’mon, Billie. You can do this.

  If I once found a way to get a snooty famous actress frozen yogurt in a Montana blizzard, surely, I can build a darn tent…

  Luca

  It’s nothing unique to have a dick and act like one too. But in the midst of suffering through this hike with a furry-boot-wearing, same-tune-humming, Hollywood fucking princess, there’s no reason to rebuild the wheel.

  The happy-fucking-humming Billie I started out the day with is long gone, and all that’s left is a woman who doesn’t want to admit she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing.

  She groans for the hundredth time and tosses a pole to the ground, an all-out war over there by the neon-pink tent. I’ve watched her fight with that thing for the last hour, twisting and contorting her body into the weirdest positions as she struggles to follow the instructions.

  I shake my head.

  Tents aren’t rocket science, but right now, you’d think Billie is in the midst of developing the next high-tech space shuttle for Mars.

  “For the love of God,” I say and stand to my feet. “I can’t take this anymore.”

  In four long strides, I’m at her side and pulling the instructions and poles from her hands.

  “Hey!” she shouts. “I can build my own tent! I don’t need your help!”

  Her jaw is firm, her big green eyes narrowed in self-righteous indignation, and I have to bite my lip to fight my smile.

  Stubborn fucking woman.

  “Give that back,” she snaps and stomps one furry, garbage-bag-covered boot on the ground.

  If I didn’t hate her so damn much, she might actually be adorable.

  “Relax,” I respond, sliding the first pole into the flap. “I’m sure, if you had another twenty-four hours, you’d be able to get it done, princess, but we’re losing daylight.”

  “It wouldn’t have taken me twenty-four hours, you jerk,” she huffs.

  I lift a skeptical brow at her, and she flips me the bird.

  “God, you’re annoying.”

  “Annoying enough that you’re willing to admit this trip was a bad idea and you want to go back?”

  She snorts at that. “Nice try, bucko. I’m here to stay, even if you’re a big enough dick that no one would dare send your ego any of those male-enhancement spam emails.”

  It’s my turn to sigh.

  How am I going to survive the rest of this trip with this woman prancing her way through slowing me down?

  “Okay, fine.” She huffs again. “I will let you finish building my tent—”

  I snort audibly, but she ignores it.

  “But I refuse to just sit around and twiddle my thumbs while you act all caveman. So, what can I do?”

  “You can go home,” I mutter, eyes focused on building my second tent of the day. The neon color is so bright, it’s nearly blinding. If it weren’t for Billie’s incessant babbling, it would probably make me pass out or seize or something. Kind of like an epileptic in a warehouse full of strobe lights.

  “Be serious, Luca.”

  “I am. Dead fucking serious.”

  She ignores my words entirely and puts a hand to her hip. “What can I do? Whether you like it or not, we’re a team on this hiking trip, and I want to do my part.”

  A team.

  Jesus Christ.

  This woman in the jean shorts and furry hiking boots and pink tent wants to do her part.

  She barely finished the nine-mile hike, legs shaking and knees wobbling, can’t build a tent with the instructions in her hand, and yet, she thinks there’s something else she can help with?

  Fine. She wants to help. I’ll let her help.

  “We need a fire.”

  She looks at me and then over her shoulder toward where I gathered kindling and logs and dug out a temporary pit in the center of camp.

  Her nose crinkles up in confusion. “I need to light the fire?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do we have any…?”

  I look up at her. “Any what?”

  “Fire lighting…things?”

  “Fire lighting things?” I question with a tilt of my head, and she scowls.

  “A lighter, okay? I couldn’t think of the word. Do we have one?” She holds out a hand to me instead of doing a single thing to get one herself, and at the sight of it, I can’t help the idea that takes root.

  “Nope.” I shake my head. “Personally, I prefer to do things the old-fashioned way.”

  “What the hell does that even mean?” she asks. “Like rubbing two sticks together until fire happens?”

  I smirk to myself but move my focus back to her tent. “I guess that’s an option. But if you haven’t noticed, I’m a little busy here. You said you wanna help, so fucking help and figure it out yourself.”

  “Goodness gracious,” she mutters.

  “What’s the problem?” I challenge, looking back up at her. “Need my help to do that, too?”

  She glares. “Of course not. And, for the record, I could’ve built my own tent. You just didn’t give me the chance.”

  This woman sure as shit doesn’t like being told she can’t do something…

  I tuck away that knowledge in my back pocket and finish setting up her tent while Billie turns on her heel and stomps away. I can hear her doing all manner of shit behind me, but I don’t bother to look up and check in. I have a feeling the fun will be so muc
h greater if I wait until the end.

  Not even ten minutes later, the pink monstrosity is all set to go.

  I stand to my feet, brush dirt off my jeans, and turn around to find Billie hovered over the kindling and logs with Bailey lying behind her, snoring.

  Her petite hands grip two large sticks, and her arms move furiously as she rubs them together. Her brow is furrowed and her eyes are focused and her teeth dig into her bottom lip as she tries like hell to move her arms faster and faster and faster.

  For fuck’s sake, this woman is literally trying to start a fire the old-fashioned way with wet, soggy fucking sticks.

  At this rate, we’ll have a fire sometime next goddamn century.

  She pauses for a moment to brush a few pieces of her long hair out of her eyes before going right back to the madness. Harder and faster, she rubs wet sticks together in the stupid hope that it’ll lead to something fruitful.

  I could probably watch her struggle for another hour or more, but the fact is, out here, fire is a necessity, and I’d like to relax sometime soon.

  “Need help?” I ask, and she glares at me but doesn’t stop her arms’ momentum.

  “No.”

  This woman is so damn stubborn, I have to believe she’d die out here in the woods before giving up the good fight on this fire.

  I sigh. Done with the games, I grab the pack of matches from my sack, step over to the logs and kindling, gently move Billie out of the way, and light the fire with one quick swipe of my wrist.

  Her eyes go wide with surprise, and outrage makes her cheeks redden. “Are you kidding me right now?”

  “What?” I ask and grab a stick to shuffle the kindling into the growing flames.

  “I asked you if you had something!”

  “You asked for a lighter.” I shrug. “I only had matches.”

  “Oh my god! You’re such a dick!” she shouts and stomps over toward her tent.

  Yeah, I am. And at the rate we’re going on this god-awful trip, it certainly won’t be the last time she feels that way.

  Luca

  Don’t have a phone surgically attached to your person? That evidently makes you a creepy fucking weirdo these days. But I don’t give a fuck. When the sole form of service is provided by carrier pigeon, the only thing a phone will add around here is extra weight.

  When Billie steps out of her tent a few hours after stomping off to do God knows what inside, the temperature has dropped a good ten degrees and counting.

  While I’ve been enjoying the brief reprieve from her chatty, sassy mouth, she’s evidently been using common sense to change out of her ridiculous jean shorts that showed way too much of her ass for my well-being and into a pair of stretchy black pants. The furry boots, however, are still holding strong.

  The sun has begun her descent toward the west, and the sky is putting on a pastel show of pinks and oranges and blues. A cool breeze shakes the trees, and I sit by the crackling fire, perched on a log, while Bailey chews on a stick he found from the forest.

  Billie walks around in circles, phone held in her hand, and Bailey stops what he’s doing to watch her stomp her big boots around our campfire.

  There’s nothing for me to stop doing, but I have to admit, I watch her too. Her hair flips and flutters in the breeze, and she bites into the flesh of her bottom lip as she concentrates.

  She sighs, lifts her phone higher, and stomps some more.

  Bailey watches her for a moment longer, but eventually grows bored and moves his attention back to the half-chewed stick between his big paws. I wish I could say I do the same, but despite how outrageously dramatic she’s being, I can’t seem to take my eyes off her.

  Shit, I need to find something to keep me busy.

  Billie groans. “What’s a girl gotta do to get some freaking cell service out here!” Her eyes move to me. “I haven’t had any since I got within an hour of your house, which means I haven’t been able to update anyone! Oh god, my sister is going to kill me if I don’t let her know what’s going on!” Her eyes go wide, and her mouth keeps moving. “And my boss isn’t going to be happy if I’m not keeping track of emails and shit!”

  Eventually, she finishes her long-winded ramble long enough to shoot a ridiculous fucking question my way, “Do you have cell service?”

  I want to laugh. “Wouldn’t know. Didn’t bring one with me.”

  Her big green eyes grow wider, like a child who just found out Santa Claus isn’t real. “You didn’t bring a phone with you?”

  I shake my head and toss another log on the fire.

  “How in the hell are you planning on calling someone if there’s an emergency?”

  “I’m not,” I reply. “Only way you’re making a call out here is with a satellite phone. And, no, before you ask, I don’t have mine with me.”

  “I’m sorry…what?” she asks and puts her hand to one defiant hip. “Are you telling me I’m not going to be able to get any kind of service on this trip?”

  “Pretty much.” I mean, Lou definitely has a sat phone at his place, but I’m praying, at some point in the very near future, she’s going to choose to bail out of this trip. No need to incentivize her to keep going.

  “No cell service? No Wi-Fi? No hotspot? No nothing?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say nothing,” I respond with a little smirk. “I mean, we have this great fire and your pink tent.” I nod toward my dog. “And Bailey seems pretty content with that stick he found.”

  “How in the hell am I supposed to let my sister know I’m okay? How am I supposed to check in with my boss?”

  I shrug. “Telepathy? Or…and this is a new one…you could go home.”

  “Funny ha-ha,” she snipes. “You don’t understand, I need to get some kind of service to check in with people back home.”

  “Sorry to tell you, princess, but if you’re planning on sticking with this trip, you might as well toss that phone of yours into the fire. Kindling is about the only thing you can use it for now.”

  “Ugh!” she groans and tosses both hands in the air. “And for the love of everything, stop calling me princess!”

  I smirk. I guess it’s time to start using “princess” more.

  “Is now the time for me to say ‘I told you so’? Because I’d really, really like to. It would give me great pleasure.”

  Her glare could cut glass, and a laugh bubbles up from my lungs. She doesn’t appreciate it. “You didn’t tell me there wouldn’t be service.”

  I nod. “You’re right. What do you think? Should I have told you when I was telling you that you weren’t invited on this trip or when you weren’t listening?”

  “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “Beauty is only skin-deep, but ugly goes straight to the bone.”

  I can’t not laugh at that. “You think I’m ugly?”

  “I think your cocky, snide, jerk attitude is ugly right now.”

  I smirk at the attraction she’s given away. “But I’m not ugly?”

  “Oh, get over yourself,” she snaps back. “Like I’m going to sit here and give you compliments.”

  “But isn’t that what you should be doing?” I ask. “Shouldn’t you be giving me compliments? Buttering me up so I agree to meet your producer about this big, lucrative movie opportunity you keep talking about?”

  “I’m smart enough to know buttering up doesn’t work for someone like you,” she retorts with a quirk of her brow. “And there’s no butter required in this scenario. The screenplay speaks for itself. If you don’t do it, there’s a long, long line of successful actors who are just waiting for this kind of opportunity.”

  “You sound pretty confident for someone who’s wading ankle-deep in shit’s creek. You obviously need me badly, or you wouldn’t be failing spectacularly at doing an impression of Annie fucking Oakley.”

  “Pssh,” she mutters, her nose raised high in the air. “You should feel special that your name was even muttered near this movie.”

 
“I should feel special?” I ask on a laugh. “I should feel special that you stalked me to my private residence and then took it upon yourself to come on a hiking trip? I should feel special that I had to build your neon-pink tent over there? Or that instead of just worrying about myself and my dog, I have to make sure you survive this trip?” I laugh again. “Oh yeah, princess. I feel real fucking special right now.”

  “Gah! You’re impossible!” she shouts, stalking back toward her tent and abruptly sliding inside, zipping the opening closed behind her.

  Christ. This woman.

  “Why did I let her come on this trip again?” I mutter to myself and stare out toward the woods.

  That’s the winning fucking question.

  Bailey looks up at me, his eyes knowing far too much for a canine, and I run a hand through my hair in frustration.

  “Just chew on your damn stick,” I grumble.

  An hour later, while I have corn and baked beans heating up over the fire, Billie decides to make her second debut from the solace of her stupid pink tent.

  I expect another country-twang tornado of anger and fury, but the woman is a rat’s nest of surprises. Twigs, garbage, steely determination, and lies—there’s no telling what you’ll find in there. Her emerald eyes are soft around the edges as she makes her way over to the fire, sitting down on a log beside Bailey and running her fingertips through his fur.

  “Whatcha making?” she asks like she didn’t storm off in a flurry of ass-swaying, hair-tossing, and a general piss-poor distribution of blame the last time I saw her.

  Still, I keep it civil to preserve the peace. Anytime I get amped up to argue with her, my body up and decides to get amped up in other ways. Maybe I’m better off keeping my cool. “Beans and corn.”

  “Is there enough to go around?” she asks, surprisingly timidly. “It appears Earl only packed protein bars and bags of trail mix for me, and my growling stomach is demanding something with a little more oomph.”

  There isn’t, but I nod anyway. It won’t do me any good to starve her before we head out on the trail again tomorrow. She lags behind enough as it is.