by Max Monroe
“Andrew, get real. I’m not kissing you.”
I almost remind her that soon she’ll have to kiss me—a lot—but decide it’s best that her head doesn’t explode in the middle of this ER room. I mean, our disguises have helped keep the paparazzi bastards off our tail, but a head explosion would surely draw attention.
Not to mention, some staff member in this hospital has probably already connected the dots together and put out a call to TMZ for a few extra bucks. That’s how shit always goes when you’re a celebrity in LA. You can’t do any-fucking-thing without someone finding out about it.
“Whatever,” I say with a shrug. “You asked me what would help, and that’s what would help. But I understand if you don’t really like helping people.” I put the ice pack back to my face and feign a pained groan. “Ah fuck.”
Her big brown eyes, previously on a high-speed course to becoming slits thanks to my jabs, go wide. “It hurts that much?”
“It’s fine,” I say but make a show of clenching my jaw. “Just a little discomfort. No big deal.”
Truthfully, it doesn’t hurt much at all. I’m not sure what phenomenon is responsible for the lack of pain-response, but I’ve had paper cuts that have caused more soreness. Still, she doesn’t need to know that. I look gory, and by God, I’m going to use it.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asks, but then quickly qualifies, “Anything that doesn’t involve me kissing you.”
I nod toward the clipboard holding hospital forms on the bedside table. “You could fill out all those papers for me. Lucille seemed pretty adamant that they needed to be completed before the doctor makes his way in here.”
Honestly, I tried to sweet-talk nurse Lucille into filling them out for me, but it was more than apparent she isn’t influenced by a handsome face and a kick-ass mullet.
“I’m pretty sure you should be filling out your own paperwork, Andrew.”
“Well, I would, but I’m a little busy over here with all the blood gushing from my nose…”
She huffs out an annoyed sigh but snags the clipboard off the table and sits back down in the seat she vacated to pace the room.
To my surprise, though, she doesn’t start asking me questions. Instead, she grabs her cell phone out of her purse and starts typing something in. Then she starts writing shit down on the form.
I let her continue the madness for another two minutes before I have to ask her what in the hell she’s doing.
“I thought you were going to fill out my paperwork?”
“I am,” she responds, and I quirk a brow in her direction. When she glances up at me and sees the confused expression on my face, she adds, “It’s not hard to find most of Andrew Watson’s info on Google.”
A shocked laugh escapes my throat. “You’re using Google instead of asking me?”
“I just figured it would be easier.” She shrugs. “Our conversations almost never end well.”
“Ah, I see.” I grin. “You’re afraid you might resort to violence again.”
“Oh my God!” she exclaims on a heavy sigh. “I did not mean to elbow you in the nose! It was an accident. You know it was an accident.”
“Whatever you say, Birdie.” I do know it was an accident, but I can’t keep myself from teasing her. Even though I know it has the power to unleash the very unpredictable little beast of fury inside her, I can’t seem to stop doing it.
Obviously, you’re fucking insane.
She ignores me completely and goes back to my form. But the silence only stretches out for about a minute before Google can no longer provide her answers.
“What’s your address?”
I tell her.
“Medical insurance?”
I instruct her to grab the card from my wallet.
“Phone number?”
I waggle my brows. “You trying to get my digits, Birdie?”
“No.” She rolls her eyes. “The form wants your digits.”
I rattle off my number.
“Emergency contact?”
I almost tell her to put Blake down, but then I get an idea.
A grand fucking idea.
“Birdie Harris.”
“What?” Her wide eyes meet mine. “I’m not your emergency contact.”
“But you’re the one who brought me here.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t make me your freaking emergency contact.”
“Just put yourself down, Birdie. It’s no big deal.” I roll out my best acting chops and feign another groan, shutting my eyes tight and lying back on the bed with the ice pack held firmly to my face. “Ow, shit.”
I hear her huff a few times, but when I peek out of one eye, I see her pen scrolling across the paper and the name Birdie Harris being written. And then, below that, she adds my brand-new emergency contact’s phone number.
Fucking perfect. I love when an idea comes to fruition.
A few moments later, the door to my room slides open, and a man in a white coat and scrubs steps inside. “Andrew Watson?” he asks, his gray eyebrows rising up on his forehead.
“That’s me.”
“I’m Dr. Collins,” he introduces himself and shakes my hand. “So, how exactly did this injury happen?”
I tilt my head toward Birdie and solemnly shake my head. “She got mad at me.”
“Oh my God!” she chimes in hysterically. “It was an accident, Doctor. I didn’t know he was behind me, and my elbow accidentally hit him in the face.”
“Really hard,” I add. “Blood was basically pouring out everywhere.”
Birdie sighs. “It wasn’t that much blood.”
“It sure felt like a lot of blood…”
Dr. Collins follows our back-and-forth banter with confused eyes. “So…this happened because she elbowed you in the face?” he asks.
“Accidentally elbowed,” Birdie clarifies again, I glance at her hands as she moves them behind her back, subconsciously preparing to be cuffed. “Just an accident. Not intentional.”
Her panic is palpable, and I start to feel a little bad.
“It was an accident,” I confirm, and Birdie’s shoulders visibly settle from their previous spot up around her ears.
The doctor looks like he doesn’t quite know what to do with us. I can’t blame him. We’re a weird mix of foreplay and conflict. I’ve been around us for at least two hours total, and I still haven’t figured out our dynamic. Professionalism wins out, though, and somehow, he keeps his composure and starts to assess my injury. With the ice pack removed, he prods and pokes at my nose with his fingers.
“How bad is it, Doc?” I ask. “Am I going to need surgery?”
I don’t miss the way Birdie’s face morphs into shock when I mention the word surgery.
“Oh my God, he’s not going to need surgery, is he?” she asks, another rambling apology already apparent in her voice. Give her one more minute of silence, and she’ll be full steam ahead with more adorable apologies.
But the doctor is quick to dismiss her fears. “No surgery. X-rays showed it was a fairly clean break that only needs some minor interventions.”
Birdie’s sigh of relief is so loud it could be heard outside the hospital.
“But I am going to have to set the break, Mr. Watson,” Dr. Collins instructs. “Would you like some pain medicine before we do it?” His nurse Lucille steps into the room with a vial and a needle, and I start to feel light-headed. In many ways, I’m a tough guy, but I have to admit, needles have blurred the edges of my consciousness a time or two.
I shake my head. “Nah, Doc. I’m good.”
“You sure?” he questions. “Most people like a little something to take the edge off.”
“Don’t need it. I’ll be fine,” I assert, pointedly leaving out the fact that I’m a needle wussie.
The good doctor slips on some gloves while the nurse lowers my bed flat. With two gloved hands on my nose, Dr. Collins does exactly what he said. He pushes my nose back into place with a quick, abrupt movement o
f his wrists.
It hurts—it motherfucking hurts—but this isn’t the first time I’ve had a broken bone that’s needed to be set, and I doubt it’ll be the last. When you’re an actor who prefers to do his own stunts, you find yourself incurring a few injuries over the years.
“Okay, you’re just going to need to keep icing it for the next forty-eight hours, and besides some bruising and swelling that will last for a week or so, it should heal nicely.”
The nurse eases me back up to sitting, and I find Birdie at the foot of my bed, her pretty brown eyes narrowed into little slits again. I wonder if she’s always this suspicious of people. I, of course, deserve it, but still…I wonder how she got so jaded.
“Lucille will get all your discharge paperwork and instructions together, and we’ll have you out of here shortly,” Dr. Collins says, and I nod.
“Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it.”
Once Lucille and Dr. Collins leave the room, Birdie starts in on me.
“Did you just let them set your broken nose without any pain medicine?”
I shrug. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
“And you didn’t even flinch. Didn’t groan. Didn’t do any of the shit you’ve been doing since…”
“Since you elbowed me in the face?” I remind her, and she glares.
“You’ve been playing me this whole time.”
“Playing you?” I repeat. “I wouldn’t say I was playing you…”
“Are you kidding me?” Both of her hands fly up into the air. “You’ve been acting like you were in agony since the moment we left the restaurant!”
“Well, not the whole time. I spent a fair amount of time teasing you too.”
“Ugh!” She squeals as she stomps across the room and snatches her purse off the chair.. “I should’ve known it wasn’t possible for you to act like a grown fucking man.”
She heads for the door immediately, grabbing the knob with brute force—force I’m almost certain she’d like to be inflicting on me.
“You’re leaving?” I ask. “But they haven’t discharged me yet.”
“I think you and I both know you’re going to be just fine, you big fat liar,” she snaps back.
“But you drove me here, in my car, and the keys of said car are in my pocket,” I challenge. “How are you going to get home?”
“I’d rather hitchhike than spend another minute here dealing with your pretend bullshit.”
Well, shit. This isn’t exactly how I pictured this ending…
Not to mention, the idea of her hitchhiking has me feeling extremely uncomfortable.
“Wait, Birdie.” I try to coax her back, but she’s already putting her purse over her shoulder and turning the knob. “Okay, fine. If you don’t want to wait for me to drive you home, at least let me get you an Uber or a cab.”
“Pretty sure I can handle getting myself a freaking Uber,” she declares, and an odd sensation of relief fills my chest.
“So, you’re not going to hitchhike? Just Uber?”
“Of course, I’m not going to hitchhike, you idiot.” She huffs out another sigh and tosses both hands in the air. “And why am I even standing here answering your stupid questions!” she exclaims, talking to herself more than me. “Yeah, I’m done. I’m leaving.”
A glare and a scoff tossed in my direction are the last things I get before she opens the door and stomps through it. An unfamiliar part of me wonders if I’ve pushed her too hard, but the experienced part of me knows better. This is just a part of the game—they always come back.
“See you in a few weeks, sweetheart!” I call toward her retreating back, but she doesn’t entertain me with another response.
Per my assistant Blake, Birdie has to head back to Nashville tomorrow. It was one of the many excuses she used to avoid a dinner date with me.
But in two weeks, she’ll be back in LA to shoot Grass Roots. With me.
I’ll just have to find a way to keep her attention in the meantime.
I snag the clipboard off the bedside table, and my emergency contact stares back at me in pretty, feminine scrawl.
Birdie Harris
555-111-5554
I grab my phone off the bedside table and save her number under the only name that makes sense.
Firecracker.
Birdie
It’s not the ups and downs that make life difficult; it’s bobbing and weaving to avoid all the punches jerks like Andrew Watson like to pull.
My hands shake as I hit the button to download Uber from the app store while standing outside the hospital entrance. An ambulance pulls up to the bay, EMTs jumping out quickly to unload someone in real distress, and still, all I can think about is how angry I am at Andrew Watson.
The bastard played me.
Pretending—fucking acting—like he was in all this pain and making me feel guilty as hell for accidentally elbowing him in the face.
If I hadn’t left when I did, the doctor would have had to set his dang balls back into place after I shoved my knee into them.
Maybe then he would’ve felt some pain.
Man, I’m really invested in flirting with assault charges these days…
I swear, I’m not normally an angry person, but something about that guy makes me feel insane. He is far-too-skilled at pushing all my buttons, and beyond that, seems to enjoy doing it.
I don’t know what kind of a sadistic prick gets pleasure out of someone else’s pain, but I hate that anyone—especially him—has that much power over me.
Fuck!
It’s not an ideal time to be teaching myself how to use an app I’m unfamiliar with, but thankfully, the user interface for this one seems pretty simple to understand. Even with a million typos from slamming my fingers across the screen, it manages to decipher what I intend and presents the address of my LA rental as an option.
Shortly after setting it as my destination, I’m told that Benjamin will be picking me up in a Ford Fusion in less than ten minutes.
I hope to God ole Benji is a fast driver because I do not want to be standing out here, in this itchy wig and baseball cap, when Andrew is finally discharged and heading to his stupid sports car.
If I could never see him again, it would be too soon.
That’s cute. In two weeks, you’re going to be seeing him all the damn time…
I choose to think about that stark reality at a later date and focus on something I can control. Like, double-checking my schedule tomorrow. According to the schedule my assistant Samantha sent over, I’ll be headed out early. Six in the morning, to be exact. And once I land in Nashville a few hours later, I’ll hit the ground running.
A meeting with Neil, my manager.
A photo shoot for a magazine.
Three radio interviews.
And an acoustic show at my label—Bandanna Records—so the bigwigs can hear a few songs from the album I’m working on.
Holy moly. I pull up my messages and shoot a quick text to Samantha.
Me: Damn, girl. I just looked at tomorrow’s schedule. Are you trying to kill me?
She responds immediately.
Samantha: I know, and I’m sorry. Neil was insistent on fitting in all of those things tomorrow. He’s worried about your time crunch. But don’t worry, I’ve at least managed to make sure you’ll get a full six hours of sleep each night. That is, if you stop eating meals or existing in any space whatsoever other than work engagements. LOL.
There is, in fact, a time crunch. With shooting for Grass Roots starting in two weeks and me trying to finish up an album before that, I’m not exactly swimming in free time. I guess I’ll get back to sleeping when I’m dead.
Me: Very funny.
Samantha: Will it make you feel any better if I tell you that when you get back from your acoustic showcase with Bandanna, tacos and margaritas will be waiting for you?
Me: Don’t toy with my emotions. Tacos and I have been flirting too much lately without making it to physical contact. I’m horny for tacos, and I�
��m not ashamed to say it.
Samantha: HAHA! Oh, I’m not. The order has already been placed with Los Almas, and I am going to make sure it’s in your kitchen by the time you get home tomorrow night.
Los Almas. My favorite taco joint in Nashville. God bless her.
Me: SAMMY GIRL, I LOVE YOU.
Samantha: LOL. Yeah, yeah, love you too. Oh, and by the way, how did lunch with Andrew Watson go?
I sigh.
Me: What lunch? I’ve chosen to rewrite history, and that lunch no longer exists. It’s like a time-warp, time-space-continuum thing. Very complicated, but very science-y.
Samantha: That bad???
Before I can respond to her, my phone pings with a message from Uber—Benjamin is arriving in 1 minute.
Me: Hey, I gotta go. My Uber is here.
Samantha: WHAT? Your Uber??? Where are you??? Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve sent a car to get you!!! Oh my God, if Neil finds out about this, he is going to kill me!
She isn’t wrong. Neil would have a coronary if he knew I was just prancing around LA, stopping at ERs and shit, without any kind of security.
Me: It’s a long story, but I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow night.
Samantha: You better text me when you get back to your rental!!!!
Me: Okay, Mom. I will.
A four-door white sedan pulls up beside me, and I walk around the back of the car to double-check the license plate. When that matches up, I greet the man stepping out of the driver’s door with a friendly smile.
“Benjamin?”
“That’s me.” He nods. “You must be Bernadette?”
“That’s me.”
Technically, Bernadette is my middle name.
And, trust me, I know. Birdie Bernadette Harris. Talk about a mouthful, huh?
My momma and daddy didn’t quite think that one through in my opinion.