Jim and I walked a few paces behind Ashton as we moved from one area of the hotel to another, stopping every few feet for pictures and autographs. Alex was in front of him and Phillip just to one side. Every time a young woman approached him, Ashton smiled, flirted, and then usually looked a little nauseated once she was out of view again.
And he was supposed to be such a great actor.
We made our way slowly back to his room, where he moved straight to the wet bar in the common area and started rummaging around. Phillip tried to entice him with a large bottle of wine, but Ashton wasn’t interested. Instead, he found one of those small bottles of vodka in the mini bar fridge. Phillip handed him a glass, which Ashton took roughly from the PR guy before pouring the vodka and tonic water carelessly into it. Some of the liquid spilled on the counter, but no one bothered to wipe it up.
“Looks like you are good for the night,” Alex said to Jim.
Jim nodded, exchanged some notes with Damon, and then we all started to head out of the room. I glanced back at Brad once more and found his eyes on me.
“Why don’t you hang around for a little while, Marshall?”
Jim’s eyes met mine, and the little shine in them gave me a pretty good idea that Jim was well aware of Brad Ashton’s preferences. I wondered if he’d ever been asked to hang around as well.
Brad held up his cocktail.
“I hate drinking alone,” he said. He flashed me a toothy, actor-practiced smile. It was probably known to drop panties or something, but I wore boxers.
This was really, really hard to fake.
“Of course, sir,” I replied.
Jim and the others were waved out of the room, and I couldn’t believe how lucky I had gotten to be left alone with him. Of course, the main problem now was the number of people here in his organization who knew my face if not my name. I just needed to work on getting him away from his room now so I wasn’t a completely obvious suspect.
“Please, have a seat.”
I hesitated, and he pointed to the chair next to him.
“Please, I insist.”
“I’m…ah…I’m still on the clock, Mister Ashton,” I said.
“Hmm,” he hummed. “You should call me Brad.”
“Brad,” I replied softly.
He stood and walked towards me, still sipping from his gla
ss of vodka tonic. He came up very close, though not quite touching me. I went back to at attention, which seemed to make his grin wider.
“Am I making you nervous?” he asked as he took another step closer.
“Ah…um…a little,” I admitted. At least I didn’t have to fake that one.
Brad wasn’t one to be dissuaded that easily, though. He tilted his head to one side as he looked me up and down again. His hand moved out as if he was going to touch me, but his fingers didn’t quite make it. Instead, his hand hovered in the air right in front of me.
“You are a…a very well-built young man, Marshall,” Brad said softly.
I smiled slightly and looked down, feigning embarrassment. I tried to will myself to blush, but I wasn’t sure if I was pulling it off or not. This whole plan was actually ending up a lot harder than I thought it would be.
“You aren’t used to men saying that to you, are you?”
“Um…no, sir.” Again, at least I didn’t have to make it up.
“Sir,” he repeated, letting the sound draw out a bit. “You keep calling me that.”
“Sorry, sir…um…sorry.” I took an exaggerated breath and glanced back up at him. “I used to be in the military. Hard habit to break.”
“Yes, Phillip mentioned that,” he murmured as he took one more sip out of his glass before setting it down on the table.