by Shayla Black
But the novelty had definitely worn off. Even the entertainment value had plummeted. And recently, Keaton’s interest had flipped a one-eighty and now bordered on derision.
While he knew acting absorbed in baseball and conversation might be a delusional attempt at discouraging the triple-E—tattooed from shoulder to wrist—from hitting on him, he hoped it would allow him to at least finish his beer before he bailed.
This might have been one of Austin’s many trendy downtown hotspots, but Keaton liked the bar anyway. Corner was upscale but not pretentious. It had great food without the snobbish foodie flair, and a wide variety of clientele sans the lowlifes and the nerds. The drinks were strong, the bartenders were honest and the barstools had cushy leather pads.
The location was also awesome for people-watching. With two of the walls making up the building’s corner location missing, the bar became a foot-traffic funnel. And he was more than a little annoyed he couldn’t just come here after a long day on the set and enjoy Austin’s beautiful early fall weather, a beer and a ball game without dealing with the inevitable bullshit some Crazy Bitch would come up with.
“Some think Austin’s a sure thing for the second team,” Keaton said. “Others don’t think this town can support a major league ball team. They think it should go to San Antonio, where they have a proven track record with the Spurs.”
Cam took a swig of his beer, then started laughing with the liquid still in his mouth—which was how Keaton knew Crazy Bitch was on her way over.
Dammit.
Cam swallowed and bent his head toward Keaton with a raspy “How do you do that?”
Keaton had wondered the same thing so long, he’d finally asked the most outspoken and streetwise of all the Renegades women—Rubi. When Crazy stopped to talk to the bartender, Keaton told Cam, “Rubi said I managed to pull off some sort of confidence that she says sends a fuck-you attitude. Says I intimidate people who don’t know me.”
“That’s very true.”
Keaton frowned at Cam. “What the fuck? Next to Wes, I’m the easiest-going Renegade in the bunch.”
Cam lifted his brows. “To people who know you. Looking at you from the outside—especially when you’re working, trying to get a stunt down right—you’re intense, dude. Don’t you remember it took me a month to talk to you?”
“I thought that was because Jax always had you working with one of the other guys.”
“Some. But the other part was because you are fucking intimidating.”
He sat back and held his arms out. “How? I don’t have tats and piercings all over. I only have extreme haircuts when I need them to double someone for a long shoot. I shave my beard at least twice a week. I tip well. I say please and thank you. I open the door for others. I answer any question asked of me.” He absolutely did not get this. And if his mother knew, she’d be mortified. “How in the fuck do I intimidate people?”
“But you’ve got your share of scars, which are even scarier.” Cam grinned. “And look around you right now.”
Keaton darted a look around the bar and found several people shooting nervous covert looks his way. But Crazy had her gaze homed in on him like a target, a hot little smile on her lips.
He dropped his hands to the bar and leaned on his elbows. “That’s just ridiculous.”
“You’re built like a tank, but you move like a fucking panther. You’ve got a stare that could cut steel, and you use it whenever you’re thinking about something. And I can’t even tell you how many women who’ve told me how hot they think a guy’s scars are.”
Keaton cut a look at Cam. “Are you telling me I have perpetual asshole face?”
“Like that right there.” Cam chuckled and pointed at him. “I wish I had a mirror. And you carry yourself with a don’t-even-think-about-fucking-with-me air. A real one, not one you trumped up for the occasion. One that makes people take a step back. You’re just an intense dude, man. Nothin’ wrong with that. And it sure has been working like magic on the chicks.”
No, it worked like magic on the crazy chicks. The chicks who dug trouble and drama and extreme shit.
“What can I say?” he muttered. “It’s a fucking gift.”
One he wished he could regift to someone else.
Anyone else.
“I don’t get why you’re not jumping on that shit,” Cameron said. “Hey, I’m not complaining. I score every night you turn them away. But, dude, they’re smokin’ hot.”
Keaton looked at Cameron. He was in his midtwenties, built, talented, smart, and good-looking. Coming on board with Renegades as a stuntman was going to net the kid a shitload of women. Keaton had been there. Done that. And had a few dozen T-shirts to show for it. It had been fun for a while. Those women had introduced Keaton to a whole different side of sex. A whole different side of himself. But it wasn’t what he wanted anymore. If he were honest, it hadn’t been what he’d wanted for a long time.
But that didn’t keep the crazies from coming. And the really shitty part about that was the way those crazies killed interest from the normal women. Nice women. Women like his buddies had found. Like Jax’s Lexi, Wes’s Rubi, Ryker’s Rachel, Troy’s Ellie. Even the fucking OCD, pain-in-the-ass Marx, the Renegade’s risk assessment manager, had landed a sweetheart in Grace.
His mind drifted to Brooke and that brief moment when he’d thought he might have found that kind of woman too. He’d been on the verge of starting something with her when a crisis with Brooke’s sister had taken her back to Florida on short notice.
And Keaton went back to attracting these lunatics, like the tube-top, short-shorts, four-inch-platform-wearing woman now sauntering his direction.
Irritation twisted in the pit of his stomach. And something else. Something tight and vague and hollow. He’d never identified with the phrase “the one that got away,” but he’d wondered over the last year if Brooke might have been that woman for him.
Keaton sucked down the last of his beer just as the lunatic’s hip bumped the bar next to him.
She leaned close, giving Keaton a good whiff of cigarettes and powdery perfume. “Hi.”
He didn’t want to engage, but he didn’t want to be an asshole either. “Hi.” He didn’t look at her as he pulled cash from his wallet and tossed it on the lacquered surface beside his beer to cover his bill. “I’m just on my way out.”
Her hand curved under his forearm and hooked on. Irritation jolted through his body.
This was another thing—the way women touched him, like they had the right.
“That works for what I had in mind,” she said, her voice sliding into a familiar, sultry tone. “Because since I set eyes on you, all I’ve been able to think about is strapping your hands to a headboard with your belt and giving you the best deep throat of your ever-loving life.”
All consideration for her feelings flew out of his mind. Keaton huffed what should have been a laugh but that came out sounding like disgust. They just got bolder and bolder. And when the hell did that start turning him off instead of making him hard? He couldn’t identify the turning point.
He met her eyes briefly as he pushed off the stool, and found them alight with the kind of raw sexual hunger that didn’t thrill him anymore.
“How much is that gonna cost me?” he asked her, partly just to see how she’d respond, partly to make her realize how her approach made her look—because, honestly, these were the same kinds of offers every guy got from hookers in Vegas. The fact that no money would change hands now didn’t make this offer feel any less sleazy.
His challenge took the edge off her cockiness. But instead of getting angry, she gave him a sassy “I’d ask that you return the favor.”
Keaton looked at Cameron and slapped his shoulder. “Have fun, kid. Just don’t miss the plane in the morning.”
He grabbed his leather jacket from the stool and wandered through the milling customers, ignoring her taunt at his back. “What’s the matter, stud? Don’t like the taste of pussy?”
So Keaton acted like a man, stepped onto the sidewalk, and started down the street.
The night was cool—a nice break from the heat they’d had here all summer—and he relaxed as he put distance between himself and the bar. Between himself and that ugly feeling he couldn’t quite understand or escape lately.
The thought of heading home to LA and his friends helped smooth his rough edges. He let the soft air whisper over him as he rolled his shoulders, shook out his arms, then paused for a quick stretch of his calves against the curb, groaning at the relief sliding through his muscles.
It was a good hurt. The kind that confirmed he was learning and growing. That his skills were getting better. But it still hurt—even after he’d already taken a hot shower, stretched completely, and rested ice packs on a few key joints before coming out for dinner with Cameron.
“It’s an ibuprofen kind of night.”
It was also good he had some time off to look forward to. They wouldn’t start filming the next season of this series for another three months, which would give Keaton time to switch up his workout to build different muscle groups.
He continued toward the river and his hotel, wondering how a guy got the wrong women to leave him alone and the right women interested. But based on Rubi’s and Cam’s assessment, it was beginning to sound like Keaton would have to change some very elemental parts of himself to accomplish that. Because how did you get other people to perceive you differently? It wasn’t like he had control over others.
He paused as he passed a little restaurant called Vic’s Diner, where the trunk of a live oak created the perfect place for Keaton to stretch his shoulders. With his hand planted firmly on the rough bark, his body set, he twisted away from the tree. The muscles across the front of his shoulder stretched from his pecs all the way to his biceps. It felt so good, his eyes fell closed on another moan. When the muscle released, Keaton worked the other arm.
The new position turned him toward Vic’s, and as he stretched, his gaze focused on the warm glow inside, where a waitress stood at a table, chatting. She was middle-aged and African-American, with a round, youthful face and big, dark eyes. But what struck Keaton was her laughter—it lit her up and highlighted her animated, relaxed posture, making Keaton smile.
Another waitress joined the first. A younger, girl-next-door blonde, delivering apple pie smothered in vanilla ice cream to the table. She was as happy as her coworker and stayed to chat.
When the two girls broke out into laughter so loud Keaton could hear it through the glass, he couldn’t help but grin. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and wandered a little farther along the sidewalk, curious about the person they were talking to.
Their customer was another woman. Her hair was long and dark and waved loosely past her shoulders. She had her head bent in laughter, her hair hiding her face, but Keaton guessed she was closer to the younger waitress’s age. She held a spoon in one hand while she held her head up with the other, her shoulders shaking with humor. And whatever the three women were talking about had to be universally funny, because even customers in booths around them started laughing and joining in the conversation.
Keaton found himself smiling and leaned his shoulder against the tree. The light, fun, easy atmosphere playing out inside the café churned a yearning inside him. What they were laughing about didn’t matter—he knew with a certainty that this was what he wanted more of in his life. More normal. More sweet. More real. More hometown and apple pie.
He was done with superficial and temporary. Over being judged based on an expression or the way he carried himself. He wanted someone who really knew him. Someone who really got him. Someone who wanted more than a good or kinky or rough fuck. As much as he loved all that, just that wasn’t enough anymore. And he certainly needed it with a whole different type of woman.
More laughter erupted inside the café among both workers and customers. The woman at the table was laughing so hard, she dropped her spoon in the dessert. A woman in the next booth reached out and clasped the hand of the older waitress, who was grinning when she said something in response.
The joy inside the restaurant was palpable and made Keaton smile even though his heart felt heavy. “Shit. Maybe I just need to start eating in cafés instead of bars.”
The waitresses moved off to help other customers, and the woman at the table lifted her head, pulling her hand through her hair at the crown, exposing her face in a slow sweep.
As Keaton took in her face, Brooke filled his mind again. This woman was pretty, like Brooke. Her face open, happy, and glowing like Brooke’s. Her skin smooth, her cheeks rosy, her lips full like Brooke’s…
Keaton’s smile faded. A lot of emotions conflicted at once—confusion, hope, denial. He tipped his head and narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing her face harder. He wasn’t sure if his brain was distorting the woman to fit his memory of Brooke or if the woman was truly Brooke’s doppelgänger, but it didn’t matter. The sight sent Keaton’s mind back to that night on the beach in Malibu, the night before Brooke had gotten that job offer in Florida. Strolling with her on the shore, under the stars. He remembered the full moon. The sound of the ocean.
Damn, he could almost feel the warmth of her mouth beneath his…
The ache tugging in his gut pulled him from the memory, and Keaton rubbed a hand down his face. He took a deep breath and reset his thoughts. Then laughed at himself. He couldn’t remember much of anything about the women he’d slept with between the time he’d last seen Brooke and now. But he remembered every fucking detail of that one kiss on the beach with her?
Yeah, he was definitely ready for a life change. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t help him where Brooke was concerned. His one revelation didn’t change the distance between Florida and Los Angeles. But then he thought about Austin and how often he came here. About Austin and its development into nothing short of a mini Nashville, steeped in the music industry. Maybe that job she’d taken brought her to Austin occasionally. It wasn’t a huge leap.
The city was also quickly becoming a mini Hollywood, with more television series and more movies being filmed there every year. Hell, maybe he and Brooke had already been in the city at the same time and didn’t even know it.
He should just reconnect with her. See how she was. Check into her schedule. He had a good startup conversation. “Hey, just saw your doppelgänger in Austin and thought about you. Was wondering if you ever get out this way.” Casual. Noncommittal. Good way to get back in touch.
He pulled out his phone, and scrolled through his contacts.
He found her name in the D’s, and just the sight made him smile. “Brooke Dempsey.”
So many fun memories flooded in from their few short weeks of knowing each other—dancing all night with friends, talking until sunrise, laughing, playing practical jokes, hanging out, barbeques, so many stories.
He might have gotten nothing more than one starlit kiss on the beach before she’d taken that job and disappeared to Florida, but looking back, Keaton was pretty damn sure they were some of the best weeks of his life.
He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Fucking Florida.”
Florida was the reason he hadn’t stayed in contact with her. It was the reason he shouldn’t call her again now. But after seeing this woman who brought Brooke’s memory back so vividly at a time he needed it so badly, the urge to hear her voice overshadowed reason. And he hit Dial.
He exhaled and cleared his throat as he lifted the phone to his ear and looked up. The woman in the café was looking up now too, listening to the older waitress as the woman spoke. Keaton lost track of his phone call. A zing of excitement burned down his sternum. Even from where he stood, he could see the sparkle of the woma
n’s bright blue eyes. Then she smiled, and dimples carved into her cheeks.
“Holy shit…” An ache pulled deep in his gut. “That couldn’t be…”
She looked down and searched through her purse. The waitress wandered off. And Brooke’s doppelgänger pulled out her phone, lifted it to her ear…
“Hello?”
Brooke’s sweet voice vibrated against Keaton’s ear at the same time the woman inside the café spoke.
Shock ricocheted through Keaton’s system. His mouth dropped open, but no words came out.
She pulled her phone from her ear and frowned at the screen, then brought it back with a worried “Keaton? Keaton, is that you? Are you okay? Is everything okay? Can you hear me? Keaton?”
“Yes,” he finally spat out. “It’s me.” Excitement, joy, relief, emotions he couldn’t begin to identify, rushed through him with an intensity he didn’t understand. “What the hell…? You’re in Austin? How often do you come to Austin? How long have you been here? How long are you staying?”
Then he realized it was his last night, and all his excitement bottomed out. Fuck.
Brooke glanced around the restaurant, which was when Keaton’s brain kicked in and he realized he was still standing outside.
“How do you know I’m in Austin?” she asked.
He started around the building toward the entrance. “Because I’m here too. I’m coming in.”
Pocketing his phone, Keaton paused a millisecond before pulling open one of the double glass doors.
Keep it together. Don’t embarrass yourself. She hasn’t called you since she left either.
That helped him cool the flash fire in his veins.
He pulled the door open and turned toward her booth. She was frowning at her phone, then glanced over her shoulder at the door. Keaton’s feet halted, stopping him in the middle of the restaurant, and it took a long moment for his brain to catch up with his body to understand why. His conversation with Cam floated into Keaton’s head. Then all the things Rubi had said. And he worried that seeing him again so unexpectedly, so suddenly, might frighten Brooke.
