Her phone started bleating as she drove through the boom gate and onto the street into what was now a heavy downfall. Evie’s triumphant cackle through the hands-free speakers had to compete with the crack of lightning.
“What’s it like giving a hand job to Hollywood royalty?” Evie said.
Teela checked her rear view and signaled to change lanes. “He did call himself a fluff actor.”
“Noo. You made words together. You cow. I’m sooo jealous.”
“You’re best friends with rock stars and go out with people who get written up in gossip columns on the regular.” And she was going to be stuck in this lane till her next birthday because the traffic wasn’t moving, and the rain kept coming and now there was thunder rolling overhead.
“This is not about me, Tee. You meet famous, rich people all the time too. But not Sexiest Man Alive, uber celebrity people. This is about you and Haydn Delany’s cock.”
Evie’s musical family was legitimately famous. The famous people Teela met were the clandestine type. Wealthy corporate players and influential politicians who only courted the limelight when it suited their interests.
“I did get to feast my eyes on him,” she said, fiddling with the air conditioning to try to stop the inside of the front window from fogging up. “I did not see the cock, but if it’s as charismatic as the rest of him, I’m probably already three months pregnant, despite the two of us remining fully clothed and my no-expense-spared birth control.”
Evie hooted. “Moo. You complete cow. You really did talk to him. You’re not just making this up.”
Teela upped her wiper speed but still had to peer though the downpour. “He kissed my hand.”
“Oh, fuck me rigid. He did not. Who goes around kissing hands in the Anthropocene age? That shit went extinct generations ago.”
“You’re more ready to believe I wanked him between appetizer and main course than that he was ridiculously charming.”
“I wish. He is screaming hot. If you touched his magnificent appendage I want to lick your fingers. Tell me everything.”
A horn sounded. The traffic went nowhere. There was water running in the gutters, a veritable stream. “I will, but this weather is a shocker, and the traffic is a mess. I don’t want to rear end someone when you shout in my ear.”
“Why would I shout?”
“Later. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Why would I shout?” Evie shouted. “You can’t leave me hanging like this. It’s un-Australian.”
“Hang on to this.” Another horn blast. It had to compete with a roll of thunder right over the top of her to be heard. “He offered me his crooked arm.”
She disconnected the call before Evie finished shout-laughing and she was still smiling when the delivery van behind slid into her, tapping her bumper and turning her car into sandwich meat as she was shoved into the stopped vehicle in front.
Other than pride, no one was hurt, but her car was a mess, with both headlights and taillights smashed. It took over two hours to sort out insurance details,
wait for a tow, and fail to find a taxi or an affordable ride share car to get her home. By the time she started walking towards a cab rank she was wet through, dress a limp rag, hair plastered to her head and shoes totally ruined. Whatever magic she liked to imagine Haydn Delany had kissed into her skin was long washed away.
Until he pulled up beside her in a limo, flung open the door and said, “Miss. Carpenter. You’re very wet. Get in.”
TWO
Teela Carpenter looked like she’d taken an unscheduled swim in Sydney Harbour and yet she hesitated, standing dripping wet, in the downpour, silhouetted by the purple clouds of the storm before getting into Haydn’s car.
When he made it out to that balcony and spotted her, his third thought after this fag is a bad idea and goddam, I’m not alone, was that she was Rum’s prank for this year’s Sexiest Man Alive title win. He’d known it was only a matter of time before Rum got his revenge. The surf lesson sprained wrist was an own goal.
The first year, Rum had been cool about being beaten to the title despite Haydn having ten years on him. The second, gracious. The third year, Rum had taken a full-page ad in USA Today that said for a good time message Haydn Delany and included his real cell number and the covert twitter handle he used to read other people’s timelines. Thank fuck he’d never made a post of his own and dumping cell numbers wasn’t a big deal.
The fourth time, Rum had all the locks and security codes on his homes in LA, Côte d'Azur and Bora Bora changed. It was hard to know which event had been more disruptive.
The fifth time was going to be a doozy.
Would’ve been easy enough for Rum to have planted someone in his orbit. If Haydn had a type it was smart, leggy brunettes and Rum knew that, but when he quit resenting the unwanted interruption to his time out, he realized Teela couldn’t possibly be a plant. She was the woman Lynda had raved about. The secret weapon. The one who apparently understood the difference between star power and genuine influence and that it was the latter he was trying to build.
He’d been uncharacteristically on edge when he’d stepped out on that balcony, because this was his first corporate event. He wasn’t being paid to act a part, instead he was working for free to convince people to support his aid satellite-tracking project.