Kissing Kendall

“I didn’t think you did, Aubrey.” He pulled her close, sneaking another kiss as the other passengers swerved around them. “Now, on the other hand, I could definitely enact that plan and only to save you and therefore be a real life hero. The media coverage would be amazing.” His smartwatch buzzed.

Glancing down, he saw his brother’s name cross the caller ID. He hit decline call and walked with Aubrey away from the boat. The buzzing started again almost immediately. Fuck. Byron would not stop calling. It wasn’t in his brother’s DNA to give up when he was on a mission.

“I gotta take this real quick while I can still pick up signal from the ship.”

“No worries.” She squeezed his hand before letting go. “I’ll go get our snorkel gear.”

She strutted off and it took Carter two tries to get his Bluetooth headphones in because he was distracted by her hips swaying from side to side as she followed the wood plank path to the snorkel shop.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Your cover’s been blown and Allyson is very not happy about it,” Byron said, ignoring any socially-acceptable pleasantries per usual.

The Allyson was Allyson Hernandez as in the director of the movie he was desperately trying to get cast in. Fuck. This was not good.

“Give me all of it,” he said, moving closer to the end of the dock in order to be as close to the ship as possible.

“It was that stupid fan account again,” Bryon said, his frustration obvious. “Somehow they heard you were on board. The post was deleted but not before it was splashed all over everywhere. I swear to God, I’m going to track down whoever is behind the account and follow them around for a week to see how they like it.”

Part bulldog, part agent, and part overprotective brother, Byron had always been like this. Him picking on Carter was fine. Someone else? Not even a little bit.

“That’s called stalking, Byron, the law frowns upon it.”

“Not if you’re the press,” his brother groused.

“Which you’re not, so settle back a little. How bad is it?” This was the part that made Carter’s gut clench.

The window for being able to make a brand change in Hollywood was infinitesimal. If he missed this window and took another big budget action flick, he’d be doing only those movies for the rest of his career. They were fun, he enjoyed them, and he was grateful as hell for having the opportunities he did because of The Admiral movies, but he wanted career growth too. For that to happen he had to make a change.

“Well,” Byron said, drawing out the four-letter word. “They deleted the post, which thank God didn’t have an actual photo of you on the ship, but it had already gone viral by the time it was removed for whatever reason. I told you going off the grid would just make people hungrier for more details about your life.”

“I had to have time to change my hair, get the fake tan, and do the rest.” He watched blue water that seemed to go on forever knowing it all looked the same on the surface, but underneath it was a totally different story. “It’s a process.”

“Actors.” Byron let out a huff. “You’re all a pain in the ass.”

“You’ve been telling me I’m a pain in the ass since I was twelve.”

“And I’ve never been wrong.”

“So what’s the bottom line? Were you able to alleviate Allyson’s concerns?”

Nervous? Him? Fuck yes.

“You don’t pay me fifteen percent because I’m shitty at my job,” Byron shot back. “I’m cautiously optimistic this hasn’t thrown your audition in the garbage disposal but if anything else pops up, your cover gets blown, she’s going to pull back. She does not want the movie to be a media circus. She’s not looking for a movie star for this part, she wants an actor. If you can’t pull this off, she’ll never believe you can’t pull off carrying this movie.” His brother paused, then continued, a thick ribbon of worry winding through his words, “Just don’t get distracted and lose sight of what’s at stake here. You want to make this career pivot that will change everything? You’ve got to commit. Eye on the prize.”

“Any other clichés you want to throw my way?” Carter asked, desperate to change the mood from edge-of-the-world-disaster to the usual things-are-fucked-but-we’ll-be-okay.

“Yeah.” Byron chuckled. “You owe me, brother.”

“Always.”

Per usual, Byron ended the call without a goodbye. Chewing over the situation, Carter pocketed his headphones and made his way over to where Aubrey stood with two sets of flippers and snorkels.

“Everything okay?” she asked, cocking her head to one side.

“Yeah, just some work stuff.” He reached over and snuck in another a quick kiss. “You ready to go see some fish?”

She grinned up at him. “I’m always up for fun.”