She wasn’t, at all.
“Yep, I’m ready,” she said.
They walked out of Ben’s apartment, walked down the stairs, and opened the outside door. And then she stood, frozen, on the doorstep, until she whirled around and went back inside.
She turned to Ben with a glare as soon as the door closed behind them.
“Did you know that they’d be filming out there this morning?”
He took a step back.
“What? No, of course not!” he said. “Do you think I would have had you stay over if I knew there was going to be a film crew on my street at five thirty a.m.?”
She looked at him for a long moment. Some people absolutely would have had her stay over if they’d known that the next morning there would be not just a camera crew filming on his block, but a gaggle of paparazzi on the sidelines. Was Ben one of them?
No. He wasn’t. If he’d wanted to publicize that he’d slept with her, he’d had plenty of opportunities to do so since Palm Springs, and he hadn’t.
“No. Sorry. I don’t think that,” she said. “It’s just . . . some people would do that. It’s hard to . . .”
He put his hand on her shoulder.
“I get it.” He steered her back toward the stairs. “Let’s go back to my apartment while we figure out how to get you out of here.”
When they walked back into his apartment, she glanced toward his deck.
“There’s not a back door that way I just didn’t see last night, is there?”
Ben shook his head.
“Not unless you want to jump off the deck, and I kind of don’t think you’re the type who does her own stunts, no offense.”
Yeah, that was accurate.
“None taken. Okay. Shit. I guess I could . . . put on a hat?” She pulled out her phone to try to figure out what was filming outside. Maybe it would be over soon?
Nope, no such luck. And shit—that’s why she’d seen paparazzi: there were two big-name stars in that movie. One of whom had been in the tabloids a lot lately. Damn it.
How was she going to get out of there? The thought of walking outside into all of that made her anxious. People knew she was in San Francisco; the photographers might be watching out for her. And she was wearing the same thing she’d worn to the set yesterday. She’d avoided situations like this—where she wasn’t in control of how and when people took photos of her—for exactly this reason. Shit. She dropped her head into her hands.
Ben pulled his phone out of his pocket.
“I have an idea. Hold on.”
* * *
—
Theo answered the phone after only two rings.
“Why are you calling me this early? Is someone in the hospital? Are you in jail?”
His brother had so much faith in him.
“Neither of those, but I need your help. Wait, actually, Maddie’s, too, if she’s with you.”
Theo snorted.
“Oh, are you going to be the one to wake her up before six a.m. and deal with the consequences? Because I sure as hell do not want to do that.”
Ben heard mumbling in the background.
“She says fine, she’s up, what is it?”
Wait. Damn it. He hadn’t checked with Anna to see if he could let Theo and Maddie in on this. Which, obviously, they were already in on it, but Anna didn’t know that.
“Hold on. Give me a second.”
He ignored the squawking from Theo and hit the mute button.
“Anna.” She looked up from her phone and at him. “Can I tell my brother that . . . you’re here? And his girlfriend? They’re both trustworthy, I swear, they won’t tell anyone, and just as important, they’ll know how to solve this. My brother might irritate the hell out of me sometimes, but he’s great in a crisis.”
She looked at him for a minute and shrugged.
“Sure.”
“Okay. Great.” He unmuted the phone. “Here’s the situation. Anna is here, at my apartment.” Theo whistled, but Ben kept talking. “There’s a film crew outside, on my street, with a bunch of photographers, which we discovered when we tried to leave to go to my car so I could drive her back to her hotel. How do we get her out of here without being photographed?”
He heard a gasp from Maddie.
“I know! I know how to do this!” Maddie said. Theo had obviously put him on speaker. “This is the moment I’ve been dreaming of for years! Okay, wait—what time does she have to be back at her hotel? Like, by absolutely what time?”
He repeated that question to Anna, who looked down at her phone.
“Well, my manager just postponed our meeting from six to eight, thank God. Luckily, Gene told me yesterday I don’t have to be on set until ten today, because you guys are doing all of that crowd stuff first.”
“Eight,” Ben said into the phone. “Why, what are you—”
“Okay!” Maddie said. “We’ll be there as soon as we can. Stay where you are!”
“Where would we go? That’s the whole . . .” She’d hung up the phone. Well, if he trusted anyone in this world, he trusted his brother and Maddie, so hopefully their solution was real.
And hopefully, they’d make it to San Francisco from the East Bay in time.
Ben turned to look at Anna.
“Maddie says stay here, they’re on their way.”
She looked back at him and narrowed her eyes.
“Who . . . is Maddie again?”
He shook his head. Right. Even though it felt like they knew each other well by this point, they barely knew anything about each other’s lives.
“Maddie is my brother’s girlfriend. Between the two of them, I knew they’d have some sort of idea for how to deal with this, but I didn’t expect them to come flying across the bay before six a.m.” Anna still looked doubtful. “Maddie’s a stylist; she’s used to this sort of thing. She worked for that princess, the American one.”
“Oh!” Anna’s brow cleared. “Duchess, but okay. So she does know what she’s talking about.” She looked past him into the kitchen. “Is there any coffee in there, by chance?”
They were deep into their third cup of coffee by the time Theo and Maddie buzzed from downstairs. Thank God, because Ben had spent the past thirty minutes freaking out that maybe there’d been an accident on the bridge and his promise to Anna that he’d find a way to get her out of there unscathed would be a lie and he’d have to dress her up in four layers of his clothes to walk to his car.
Ben opened his apartment door and let in Theo, Maddie, and the enormous suitcase Maddie was carrying. That must contain her disguise options for Anna. His brother looked sleepy; Maddie looked excited.
“Anna, meet my brother, Theo, and his girlfriend, Maddie. Theo, Maddie, this is Anna.”
It was, yes, slightly awkward to be introducing his brother and Maddie to Anna at his apartment at 6:15 a.m., but everyone involved pretended it was totally normal.
“Nice to meet you, Anna.” Theo nodded at her, as uptight and formal at this hour of the morning as he always was.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Anna said. “Your brother has told me a lot about you.”
Theo turned to Ben, and the formal mask slipped from his face a little. If Theo said Likewise Ben might have to murder him on the spot.
“Mmm. Well. Only believe the good stories he told you. The bad ones are all lies.”
Ben relaxed. He should have trusted his brother. In his defense, it had been a . . . while since he’d introduced him to a woman he was dating.
Not that he was dating Anna.
But still.
Maddie broke into his musings.
“Hi, Anna. Do you want to hear my plan?”
She held up the suitcase, and Ben couldn’t resist interrupting her.
“What is in that thing, anyway? That’s t
he biggest suitcase I’ve ever seen.”
Maddie grinned at him. She looked more excited than he’d ever seen her.
“It’s huge. I usually use it for big-deal shoots, or when I’m trying to transport a ton of clothes for a client. And I brought an assortment of random clothes and a few wigs over this morning, in case Anna wants to wear them on the way to the hotel, but also . . .” She paused and looked right at Anna. “It’s big enough for you to fit inside.”
Maddie must have lost her mind. Ben looked at Anna, expecting her to say that, but instead, Anna let out a peal of laughter.
“Like when . . . Oh my God, this is ridiculous and hilarious and borderline certifiable.” She grinned. “And also, I love it. Why the fuck not?”
Ben saw quite a few reasons why the fuck not, actually.
“Hold on, hold on. How do you know Anna will be able to fit inside? What if she suffocates? Who’s going to carry her? What if she hurts herself? Maddie, this was your fantastic idea?”
The two women ignored him. Maddie already had the suitcase open on the floor, and Anna was inspecting it with that wild grin still on her face.
“These are the things I said all the way across the bridge,” Theo said to him. “She didn’t listen to me, either, but I thought Anna might have some of those same concerns. I guess not.”
Anna was already sitting inside the suitcase, laughing again.
Maddie looked up at the two brothers.
“Stop worrying! Oh my God, Ben, I thought you of all people would be into this, but you’re just as much of a stress case as your brother here! You two will carry the suitcase, you’re both very strong!” Well. She had a point there. “How far away is your car?”
“A few blocks away,” Ben said. “But—”
“Good,” Maddie said. “That’s not far at all. You and Theo will carry Anna in the suitcase to the car—put her in the back seat, obviously. I’ll get in the back seat with her. Once we’re well on our way, I’ll unzip her. We’ll drive her to her hotel, and she can either walk in of her own volition, or we can zip her up before we get to the hotel and you guys can carry her in. Simple, perfect, no one will know it’s Anna inside.”
Shit. She was going to talk him into this.
Ben looked at Anna, who had gotten out of the suitcase and come over to his side.
“This sounds ridiculous,” he said. “But I’m happy to help with this weird stunt if you’re okay with it.” He lowered his voice. “But if you don’t want to do this, Maddie has the disguises, we can just do that, you know.”
Anna put her hand on his arm.
“The whole idea of this brings me so much joy that we have to do it,” she said. “It’s so silly and outlandish and I love it. But thanks for giving me an out. I appreciate it.”
She picked up her tote bag from the couch and pulled her wallet out of it.
“Here.” She handed him a plastic card. “This is my hotel room key; we’ll also need it to get into the elevator. I’m suite 212.”
She handed her tote bag to Maddie.
“Can you take this for me? It would be too bulky inside the suitcase.”
Ben looked at Theo, and Theo looked back at him.
“I think we’re going to be carrying a suitcase with an Oscar-nominated actress inside to my car,” Ben said.
Theo nodded.
“I think so, too. How did these women convince us to do this?”
Ben looked over at Anna. She was already inside the suitcase and looked positively gleeful as she sat there, chatting away with Maddie.
“I don’t think they even tried to convince us,” he said. “I think they just knew that we’d do whatever they wanted us to do.”
Theo shook his head.
“That’s depressingly accurate.”
Five minutes later, he and Theo were walking down the street, carrying Anna. In the suitcase. It was hard-sided, which, thank God, made it feel less like there was a person inside and more like it was just a heavy suitcase.
Except there was a person inside. Anna. Anna was the person inside. What the fuck were they doing?
Maddie had left the zipper only partway zipped in the middle, and at least when they were still in the apartment, Anna had said she could breathe fine, but Ben was still worried about that.
They walked past the filming for a whole block—there were a ton of people around for whatever they were filming, and lots more outside the barriers watching. Ben had even seen the temporary no-parking signs along his street earlier in the week, but hadn’t paid attention, or looked into why. He kicked himself for that now—if he’d done that, he would have taken Anna back to her hotel last night, and they wouldn’t be dealing with this today.
But. Then he wouldn’t have been able to hang out with her last night, in that easy, relaxed way. And he wouldn’t have been able to have sex with her again one more time before they fell asleep. And he wouldn’t have been able to sleep next to her all night, or introduce her to Theo and Maddie, or do this ridiculous—but, he had to admit, kind of hilarious—stunt to get her past all of these people without them seeing her. Maybe he was glad he hadn’t checked after all.
“So, um. How long are you going to be out of town for?” Theo asked as they walked past a big group of people.
“What do you . . .” Ben stared at him, and Theo stared back without blinking. “Oh! Right, yes, of course. Um. I’ll be out of town for . . . a month! For work. Which is why I needed so big of a suitcase. Lots of, um, outfit changes.”
Theo nodded.
“Outfit changes, yes, of course. That makes sense. All of the many different pairs of jeans and sneakers and hoodies you own.” He paused for a second. “Actually, I’m sure your sneakers could fill up this whole suitcase if you tried. How many pairs of them did you bring?”
Well, let’s see, if he did go out of town for a month for work, how many pairs of sneakers would he bring?
“Only ten pairs.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to get my good sneakers too dirty, so I couldn’t bring most of the best ones—only a handful of my favorites and then a few of the daily workhorses.” Now he started thinking about which of his sneakers he’d pack. “As a matter of fact, I was really sad to leave some of them behind. It’s a real shame. But we’ll be at the beach, and you know what sand does to good shoes.”
“No, what does sand do to good shoes?” Theo asked with a very straight face.
Suddenly Ben thought about Anna inside the suitcase overhearing this conversation. Would she think he was comparing her to his sneakers? Well, if she did, she should be honored—he treated his sneakers very well.
She probably wouldn’t like the way he phrased that.
A laugh exploded from him, with no warning. Theo turned and looked at him, and his face crumpled. They stood still, both laughing so hard they were shaking.
“Guys!” Maddie said. “Don’t we need to get a move on?”
Ben took a deep breath and tried to stop laughing. Yes, right, Anna was still inside the suitcase. He pulled himself together and walked on.
“I’m ashamed of you,” he said to his brother. “Me, you’d expect me to lose it, but I had more faith in you.”
Theo glared at him.
“If you make me lose it again before we get to this car, I’m going to tell Mom about this.”
Ben stopped again.
“You wouldn’t!”
Maddie poked him with her shoulder and he kept walking.
“Of course I wouldn’t,” Theo said. “But still.” He looked from Ben down to the suitcase and back again. Yes, yes, message received, they had to get Anna into the car and out of the suitcase.
It wasn’t his fault that this situation was hilarious. It wasn’t Theo’s fault, either. Come to think of it, it was . . .
“Ben? Isn’t this your car?” Maddie asked.
/>
Oh right, that was his car.
Not without some difficulty, he pulled his car key out of his pocket while he kept a grip on the suitcase with Anna inside. Why didn’t he have one of those cars where it automatically unlocked when the key was in your pocket? Maybe he’d have one next time he had to carry an Oscar-nominated actress to his car in a suitcase.
Maddie opened the back door, and he and Theo carefully slid the Anna suitcase into the back seat. She pulled the seat belt out as far as it could go and buckled it around the suitcase.
Ben pulled out of the parking spot while Theo was still putting his own seat belt on.
“Unzip her, Maddie!” Ben said as soon as they were at the corner.
“Already done,” Maddie said.
The lid of the suitcase flipped up, and Anna’s head popped out.
“Just how many pairs of sneakers do you have?” she asked Ben.
Theo started laughing. Then Maddie. Then Anna. Then Ben. They all laughed so hard and for so long that someone honked at him to keep driving.
“I can’t believe . . .” Ben said as soon as he could talk again, “that I just walked down the street with my brother, carrying Anna Fucking Gardiner in a suitcase.”
“You two did a very good job,” Anna said. “Really. Professional suitcase actress carriers couldn’t have done it better. I felt extremely secure.”
Ben turned to Theo and gave him a nod. That’s right.
“Except for when you were both giggling so hard you almost dropped me.”
Ben and Theo both started talking at once.
“We wouldn’t have!”
“We stopped walking! To make sure we didn’t!”
“We weren’t giggling, we were laughing!”
Ben saw Anna and Maddie exchange glances in the back seat, and glared at them.
“Mmm,” Anna said. “One question, Ben—when you compared me to a sneaker . . . was that supposed to be a compliment?”
See, he knew she wouldn’t get it.
“Okay, first of all, I didn’t compare you to a sneaker, I was just trying to make some fake conversation about what would be in my suitcase. You know, to throw people off the scent! But also, I treat my sneakers very well!”
While We Were Dating Page 16
