Debt Collector

by Weston Parker

  Frank's voice pulled me from my quirky response. "All right lover boy. Get your ass over here and let's get this done. We're hoping to get out of here around three today."

  "Right in the middle of traffic?" I shook my head and gave him a thumbs up. "Fucking brilliant."

  "I talked to Charlotte and she's good going with us this weekend if you still need a fake girlfriend." Something in her voice said she wasn't happy about the fake part. Did she want more? Surely not.

  "Well, Charlotte will have to play Liam's fake girlfriend. And you, my pretty, are my fiancé. We're taking it a little farther."

  "Oh yeah?" She picked up her book and tilted her head to the side. "Well, I expect a serious payback for giving up my time and being forced to lie in front of your parents."

  "I told you I'd let you pet the monster." I winked and pulled my sunglasses off my head before walking toward the set.

  "I've already conquered him. Got anything else up your sleeve?" she called after me as I laughed under my breath.

  "Nope, but I got plenty in my pants. Keep it up and I'll spank you with him." I stopped beside Deza.

  "Who's him?" she asked.

  "Yeah, you don't wanna know." I walked past her and got in my place as Frank ran through the details of the scene. The look on Deza's face was priceless. She was back to acting like her old self, or sort of. I might have to fuck up her ex a little if he didn't move out of the picture and let her get on with her life, or maybe it was the other way around.

  Maybe she was the one hanging on so tightly.

  Chapter 15

  Riley

  "I'm so glad that’s over." Ethan held the door to his place open for me.

  "Me too, but it was nice to get away to San Diego." I walked in and tried to push away the emotions that flooded me. The last time I'd been there, he'd left me feeling like a fool by denying me a kiss and then invited someone over who had the power to make him scream.

  I could still hear the sound of him groaning in the back of my mind somewhere. I wanted that power. It wasn't right and most likely trivial seeing that we had something building between us far better than a night of lust could provide, but another had it over him.

  I wanted it to be mine.

  "You okay?" He pressed his fingers to my lower back and gave me a funny look. "You're panting."

  "Sorry." I forced a chuckle and walked into the kitchen. "I really can't stay long. I need to get back to the apartment and spend a little bit of time with Charlotte. That, and I need to study."

  "And see Jace?" He turned to face me.

  "No. Jace and I are just friends."

  "Oh, I'm well aware what kind of friends you and Jace are." His voice was light as if he were being cheeky, but something told me he wasn't.

  "What are we eating? You want me to take your car to the store and pick something up, or maybe we could order a pizza?"

  He moved across the room and wrapped his arms around me. "Did you just change the subject on me?"

  "Yes, and I'm aware - my transitions are horrible."

  "They really are. Good thing you're so damn beautiful. It lets you get away with almost too much." His eyes moved across my face slowly as my heart fluttered in my chest. "Thank you for coming back with me."

  "No need to thank me." I reached up and ran my fingers by the side of his head. "You look tired."

  "I am. Between all the filming, sleeping with the finest woman in the world and trying to juggle the drama called my life..." He covered his mouth and yawned.

  I could never seem to keep myself from yawning when someone else did it. Almost like it was a spreadable disease. Backing up, I let out a big yawn and lost it halfway through because of him laughing.

  "Oh my God. That yawn is horrible."

  "Fuck you too!" I moved around him to see what was in the fridge.

  "I'm totally into you, but that yawn? That's gotta go." He moved up behind me and ran his hands over my rear as I leaned into the fridge and found liquor, ketchup and cheese slices.

  "Charlotte makes fun of it too." I moved back, bumping into him, and closed the fridge. "Groceries or delivery?"

  He wrapped his arms around me and leaned down to press his mouth to the soft skin under my ear. "Anything you want, and remind me to tell Charlotte that we're on the same team now."

  "Is that so?" I turned around in his arms, feeling almost too comfortable being there. He could domesticate me in a heartbeat, which was weird. Would I really be willing to give up my dream of acting if we were to get together and his career continued to be as big as it already was?

  I wasn't sure I could.

  "It is." He kissed the tip of my nose. "Let's order a pizza, make some popcorn and watch Ghost while we snuggle on the couch."

  I laughed. "You sound like the girl."

  "I'm good with that. Just don't put anything near my rear, or we're going to have words."

  "Yeah. Me too." I ran my hands over his chest, enjoying almost too much the solid structure under my fingers.

  "Awww, really? I love anal." He leaned down and kissed at my lips. "Maybe in a few months when you're used to me."

  "No way." I kissed him one more time before pulling out of his arms and walking to the living room. "I'll call and order the pizza. You make the popcorn and get us something to drink."

  "How about I do all three and you just be willing to talk about non-traditional sex when I get in there in a minute."

  I snorted. "No way. You're far too big for that."

  "But you like it."

  "That you're big?" I walked to the living room, not at all shocked that we were having the conversation we were. He was open and vulgar, and I was completely lost to him.

  He leaned out of the kitchen. "No, baby. Anal."

  "Hush. I'm on the phone with the pizza guy."

  "Pizza guys like anal, I'm sure of it. All guys do." He wagged his eyebrows. “Get me pepperoni.”

  I chuckled as he grunted and disappeared back in the kitchen. Were we in the process of building a friendship? A relationship? A love affair? "Why do we have to define it?"

  "This is Barry. Pick your pizza for only five bucks. What can I get you?"

  I ordered my favorite and Ethan’s pepperoni and hung up. My job was done.

  He walked in balancing a bowl of popcorn and two drinks, looking way too cute.

  "Stay the night with me." He handed me a drink and put his drink and popcorn on the table before moving toward the TV to get the movie going.

  "I can't. Seriously. Maybe on Saturday. I have to study. I'm almost done."

  "Congratulations by the way." He glanced over his shoulder. "That's a big accomplishment, Ri. You should be proud of yourself."

  "I am." I smiled, warmth filling every part of me. My mother didn't give a shit whether I finished college, much less high school. Where I missed her horribly, our relationship had been strained at best.

  "Good." He got up and pulled his shirt over his head and slipped his jeans over his hips, leaving him to look like a god in black boxers. "We should celebrate."

  I shook my head and kicked off my shoes as he grabbed a blanket and sat down next to me.

  "Let me guess... with anal?"

  He laughed loudly, causing my heart to flutter. "No, baby. With you spending the night and letting me take my time with you."

  "You took your time with me last night." I curled up beside him and tried not to read too much into how comfortable it was to start acting like we were dating. We weren't.

  "And you disapprove?" He ran his hand over my legs under the covers as the movie started.

  "Not at all. I just want to see what else you're capable of." I gripped his hand as he pushed my skirt up to my panties and brushed his fingers by my sex.

  "Now?" He wagged his eyebrows.

  "No. Eat your popcorn and behave. I have finals tomorrow. I know you're hearing me."

  "That is no fun, Riley." He leaned forward and got the popcorn before settling down beside me. I almost lamente
d telling him to keep his hands to himself. Now that he was... I wanted them back on me.

  I reached over to get a handful of popcorn and jerked my hand back as he stuck his tongue in the top of the popcorn and licked at it.

  "What the heck?" I laughed and forced a repulsed look on my face.

  "Oh, hell no! Not you too?"

  "Me too? You just licked the popcorn."

  "You've had my tongue in your mouth and just about everywhere else. What do you care?" His eyes twinkled with mischief.

  "That doesn't mean I want to eat wet popcorn."

  "Hush. Deza gives me hell about this already. Find something else." He leaned over and stuck his tongue in the bowl again. There wasn't any winning that war.

  "Speaking of you and Deza."

  He glanced over at me. "What about us?"

  "Have you ever been more than friends, or agent and star?"

  "Like lovers or something?" He turned back to the movie and pulled the covers down to his waist, leaving his chest on display.

  "Yeah. Something like that." I reached to get my drink and tried to play it cool. I didn't know what was up between him and D, if anything, but I felt like I needed to know.

  "No. I would have been a few years back, but she's pretty strict. At least when she wants to be." He shrugged and offered me the popcorn. "You're really not going to eat some of this?"

  "Um, no." I put my drink back on the table and moved to lay down with my head in his lap.

  He shifted the popcorn bucket to his other side and smiled down at me. "You jealous of Deza?"

  "What? No. You and I aren't dating. Why would I be jealous?" Fuck. Here we go again.

  "This is true." He turned his attention back to the TV and dropped the conversation.

  Did he want to date? Something I said seemed to turn him off. It had to be that, right?

  I turned to face the TV and curled up, fighting against sleep as the movie played for the next twenty to thirty minutes. I'd almost drifted off to sleep when the doorbell rang.

  "Pizza." He popped my butt as I jerked up and walked around in a daze.

  "Where's my purse?"

  "Get my card. It's on the kitchen counter."

  "No. I want to pay for dinner."

  "You're being silly, Riley. Get my card and let me take care of it."

  "Fine," I barked, not liking that he was paying for anything of mine. I finally had the money to take care of myself, and I wanted to. I grabbed his card and opened the door to find a girl standing outside with two pizza boxes. "Hi there."

  "Hi." She leaned toward me and glanced toward the living room. "Is this really Ethan Lewis' place?"

  "Yep. Sure is." I handed her the card.

  She lifted it to her face and squealed as I took the pizza. "Right. He's going to have to sign this."

  "Ethan. She needs you to sign it."

  "I'm naked. You sign it for me, baby." I could hear the joy in his voice as he fucked with both of us. Something that would have normally made me groan and roll my eyes had me chuckling.

  The poor girl's eyes were like saucers. "Wait a minute. Are you the one he knocked up? You're soooo lucky."

  "What? No." I took the handheld machine and signed Ethan's name. "And they don't even know if that's a true story yet."

  "Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Sorry." She gave me a sheepish look and turned around, half-jogging to her car.

  I let out a long sigh and turned, closing the door behind me. "I'm going to kill this bitch that is slandering your name all over the universe. Why isn't your lawyer doing something about this? It's ridiculous."

  He followed me into the kitchen and leaned over my shoulder, breathing in deeply. "You're upset about it."

  "Yes." I opened the top box and pulled out a slice, lifting it to my mouth and taking a huge bite of it before he leaned over a little more and opened his mouth. I smiled and gave him a bite. I could love him forever. I most likely would.

  "Don't be upset. I'll work it all out, okay?"

  "Yeah. I just hate that people think they can get away with this shit."

  "And you're mad because of the injustice?" He forced me to turn toward him. "Because you and I... we're friends."

  "Yes. Exactly." I grabbed the box and walked back into the living room. "Because we're friends."

  Chapter 16

  Ethan

  Something about Riley's tension on Thursday night over the Amber thing continued to bug me for the next few days. By Saturday morning... I was rather pissy, which was a good thing. I had lunch plans with Deza. She could either make me feel much better, or I'd unload a boatload of shitastic joy in her lap.

  "Why are you smiling?" The tight expression on her face was almost comical.

  I took the seat across from her at one of our favorite restaurants on Rodeo Drive. Famous people filled the streets on Saturday mornings, which was the only time I'd come down that way. It meant there were more of us and less of them. Good odds that I'd only get ambushed and fondled once or twice instead of the usual twenty.

  "I like smiling, and if I recall," I leaned toward her and put my forearms on the table, "my agent likes it when I smile. Remember?"

  "Yeah, but that's not a normal smile."

  "No?" I leaned back. "No clue what you're yakking about, but let it go. I'm not in the mood."

  "Oh great. You're pissy."

  "I was trying to not be, but you pointing out that my smile is fucked up doesn't help the mood shift, if you know what I mean."

  She let out a long sigh. "I can't fight with you right now. I have enough to deal with."

  "Same." I picked up my menu and tried to breathe the tension out through my nose as quietly as possible. Deza and I had to clear the air between us, but it wasn't going to be easy, namely because there wasn't that one thing we could look toward to resolve. It was a lot of small cuts that had us bleeding to death.

  "Ethan," she spoke at the same time I looked up and said her name.

  "Me first." I lifted my hand and sighed. No sense in holding back. "You know you mean the world to me, right?"

  "Yes." She leaned back and clasped her hands in her lap.

  "So let's figure out how to stop back-biting each other and get back to being us. I miss you. Like really fucking bad." I pushed at my plate softly, needing something to fidget with. "I know you're going through some shit, and I'm sorry for my part of it, okay?"

  "Yeah. I wanted to say the same. I'm sorry too." She reached across the table and brushed her fingers over my hand. "I love you too. We need to pull together and figure all of this stuff out."

  "Well, I'm probably going to piss you off, unless my dip-shit lawyer finally called in the test and scheduled the date with you, but I'm not settling with this Amber girl out of court. I don't even fucking remember her face. I might be bad, but I'm not that bad. Come on, D."

  "I agree." She shocked the hell out of me.

  "Come again?"

  "I have to come the first time to come again. Silly boy." She winked and picked up her menu.

  "What?" I snorted. "That's my line, you old beautiful bat."

  And there it was. Resolution between us. She bent a little and I did the same, and life was beautiful. No matter what went wrong in either of our private lives, we still had a business to run together and a friendship that would sustain us through tough times.

  "Hey. Weird questions." I leaned in a little. "Riley asked me if you and I had ever been a thing."

  "Really?" Deza shook her head. "She sort of asked me the same thing. You think she's jealous?"

  "No. Why would she be? You're like a sister to me."

  "Are you guys getting closer? Like starting to talk about dating?"

  "I don't know." I picked up my menu, needing an out. I had no clue what the fuck we were doing. Pretending to play house? I had the good sense to make her sit down and define it with me, but every time I got around her, I softened and just wanted to enjoy our time, no matter what it looked like or where the hell we were.

&
nbsp; "What do you mean, you don't know." She reached across the table and pushed my menu down.

  I brought it back up. "Like, I don't know. We're sleeping together, but she seems to want a friends-with-benefits relationship. I'm in love with her. It doesn't exactly bode well for me."

  "And what if she's in love with you?"

  That got my attention. I dropped the menu on the table and lifted my eyebrow at my oldest friend.

  "Are you trying to say she told you that she was?"

  "I don't kiss and tell, but what if she was?"

  "Then a certain someone, like you, would need to tell me that."

  "Not happening." She pulled her menu up in front of her face.

  "D. I need to know. I'm getting closer and closer to telling the woman that I love her. I don't want my heart handed back to me in pieces."

  "So start with friends with benefits and move into it."

  "So she doesn't love me?"

  "Did you know that Trish and her husband filed for divorce? She's so broken up over it that her newest project has been put on a one-month hold." She narrowed her eyes. "A one-month hold. Do you know how much money and time they are losing? This isn't just about her, but everyone that works on her crew at Eon. Some of those people get paid hourly. It's a fucking mess."

  She didn't shift the subject like I thought she was. She threw a lesson in my face. If Trish, the sweetest, most loyal of women couldn't make a relationship work because of our profession, I sure as fuck wasn't going to be able to do it.

  But funny enough, love didn't give a shit if you were capable of maintaining. It wanted what the fuck it wanted, when it wanted it. Choice was an irrelevant term in the face of falling in love. Period.

  "Deza."

  "No. Riley has talked to me a little about you, but the woman just lost her mother, scored the job of her dreams and is graduating college in a few weeks. There's a lot going on with her, Ethan. Tread carefully."

  "I know that, and I want to be there for her, but I need something, shit. A guarantee that I'm not just pulling out my dick to have someone stomp on it."

  "Always goes back to your dick."

  "No, it doesn't." I smirked. It totally did.