Hot as Heller (Aster Valley 3)

He turned to me with narrowed eyes and a frown. The intense look on his face made the hairs on my arms stand up a little. “How could you not know? Isn’t it spelled out in the contract? Don’t you have an agent looking out for you?”

“I have an agent who looks over everything. If she agreed to it, I’m sure it will be fine.” Now I was definitely lying. As much as I appreciated Iris, I knew she was desperate to change my image from the clean-cut boy-next-door Chip Clover character to something edgier, more mature. I could see her accepting dicey stunt terms in an effort to make my image a little more badass.

But I wasn’t a tough, brave guy who relished putting myself in danger. I was an awkward, too-small-to-be-an-action-hero guy who’d accidentally fallen in love with rock climbing after taking private lessons with all the best safety equipment available. There’d been one other action movie, but I’d played the weakest link on the team, and I’d been well prepared with plenty of action choreography ahead of time. I assumed the same thing would happen on this film, but I was a little nervous the show runner hadn’t given me more information about it yet. Maybe I needed to take the initiative and ask. Regardless, I didn’t want to talk about it.

I wanted to know more about the sexy but stern sheriff with the tiny rainbow flag icon on his watch face. Did that mean he’d be open to a little flirting?

“When did you move to Colorado?”

“Six months ago.”

Talking to this man was like pulling teeth out of a rabid dinosaur. “Why did you leave California?”

“How’d you get into acting?” he asked instead of answering my question. The brush-off was rude as shit. He was behaving like an automaton.

“My mother took me to an open casting call as a newborn. She was a young single mom with delusions of grandeur, according to my grandparents. But her plan worked. I was offered a commercial. That led to modeling jobs for kids clothes and stuff. She used some of the money to enroll me in acting classes at a local theater program when I was very young.”

He scoffed. “Typical stage mom.”

That set my teeth on edge, not because he was wrong. He wasn’t. My mom was the worst kind of stage mom. She was the reason stage moms had the reputation they did. But she’d done it out of a violent desperation to get enough money to get out from under the thumb of my conservative grandparents and out of the horrible neighborhood we’d escaped to when they’d become too much.

“You don’t know me or my mom,” I said as calmly as I could manage.

“Bet I do,” he muttered, rubbing his hand over his face as if he was suddenly exhausted. “I’ve met a million people just like you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” So much for the flirting. The man was an ass.

He shook his head. “Never mind. Forget I said it.”

“Not possible. But I appreciate knowing you’ve prejudged me and my mother. That’s always nice. I’ll go ahead and put you in the bucket of people who think they know me without ever fucking trying.”

“I’m not trying? What do you think I’m doing right now? I’ve asked you a ton of questions about your work, for Christ’s sake.”

“You’ve used those questions to get out of answering questions about yourself. Don’t pretend you want to get to know me. I know people just like you.” I emphasized the last few words the same way he had.

We sat side by side in fuming silence. For the first time in a very long time, I wanted to punch someone.

“You tried to get me to park your damned car.”

I threw up my hands. “I apologized for that! For fuck’s sake, can you not let it go? So I got it wrong. I assumed Tiller Fucking Raine would have a valet service at his engagement party. Was that such a stretch to imagine?”

“I was wearing a sidearm.”

“You had on a white button-down and black pants!” And he’d looked like sex incarnate. I’d wanted to fuck the sexy valet over the hood of my car, but I didn’t dare tell him that.

“After I told you I wasn’t the valet, you still asked me to park your car.”

“I made a fucking mistake! I’m a nice guy. I swear I’m not the asshole prima donna you seem to think I am. I’m a nice, normal guy.” At least, I tried to be.

“Okay, Chip,” he said with a slight sneer.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I shouted.

He smirked at me as if satisfied he’d gotten a rise out of me. “Whatever you say, Chip.”

“That’s mature,” I muttered, crossing my arms and sitting back in my seat. “Real mature, Sheriff.”