“When I said I would see you later.” He looked in her eyes. “Was I lying?”
Julia pressed her lips together, then smiled. She rested a hand on his chest and he felt his blood leap at her touch. She shook her head.
“There was no frown.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m here.”
He brushed her lips with his before leaving to get his wallet, passport, water bottle, and camera. They met back outside with the rest of the crew. Blake took a step closer to Julia when he saw her waving to Lukas. God, what was wrong with him? Changing his plans, postponing Argentina, revisiting a part of the waterfalls he’d already seen, staking out his territory against the other young and single male—he had to remember this was just another one-night stand.
Or maybe two nights. Tops.
This time they called a van to fit everyone. Blake squeezed into the back after Julia. As the driver took off, she idly rested her hand across his knee while she looked out the window, taking in her first sights of the town by day.
The border was porous here, and it was an easy crossing, tourists constantly coming and going to see the waterfalls that stretched from either side. Waiting in line to cross through, they pulled out their passports. Blake grabbed Julia’s before she could protest.
“Julia Allyson Evans,” he read. “Nice.”
She snorted. “Checking out my address?”
“Nah, Chicago streets mean nothing to me. Here we go.” He evaluated her picture. Her hair was pulled back, like maybe she’d come from the gym. She wasn’t smiling.
“I like your hair better down,” he declared, brushing the long strands over her bare shoulder.
“Noted,” she said. “Although to be fair, post-yoga isn’t exactly my finest.”
“Nope, still beautiful,” he whispered in her ear, sure no one could hear him over the hum of the motor and the samba-reggae the driver was blasting.
“But the hair is up,” she protested.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t beautiful,” he clarified. “Just that I like it down best. It’s like having to choose your favorite ice cream flavor. They’re all good. In fact, if you could have them all on one giant cone all at once, you would.” She laughed. “But if you have to pick, then you choose something chocolatey with lots of chunky bits of everything in it. And Julia with her hair down.”
“So I’m a chocolate chunky bit?” She frowned.
“Exactly.”
She grabbed his passport out of his hand.
“Hey, I didn’t say this goes both ways!” he cried, but she had already found his picture, too.
She burst out laughing so loudly that the whole row in front of them turned around to see what was going on.
“You have no hair!” she exclaimed.
“Let me see that,” Chris demanded. She was sitting directly in front of Julia and the passport was passed over before Blake could stop them.
“Come on, not fair.”
“Blake, you didn’t tell us you had a buzz cut,” Chris said, passing the photo to Jamie beside her.
“I cut it off right before leaving. Thankfully it’s grown back.”
“Somehow we all missed that stage,” Chris said, snatching the picture from Jamie and passing it up to Lukas. “How’d you keep the cameras off of you then?”
Blake cringed. “Solitary confinement,” he shot back. Of course Chris and Jamie had known who he was—they lived in Melbourne, not under a rock. Blake had been nervous when he first heard Aussie accents coming into the hostel, and then pleasantly relieved to find out that they were happy to treat him like a normal person and not like the current celebrity gossip course, laid out on a platter for everyone to feast. Obviously they knew about Kelley and Liam, too, but they’d been good about keeping things discreet. It was pretty clear, knowing what the tabloids had said, that he was there to get away.
He willed them to hold on to some of that discretion now. The last thing he needed was for Julia to be curious about why there’d be cameras around and start fishing for more. He tried to change the subject—look at the roadside vendors lined up on the side of the street!—but it was no use. Julia shifted in the cramped space to face him.
“You’re actually famous in Australia?” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Blake’s stomach clenched. Chris and Jamie had no idea how much he wanted Julia to see him as a regular person and not pursue—or avoid—him because of who he was back home. Nor could they guess how desperately he was trying to hide his humiliation at the hands of his ex. It was just his luck that the two of them burst out laughing as the van inched forward in the line.
“Famous?” Jamie said, shaking his head. “Everyone who owns a television knows who he is.”
Julia’s eyes widened. “And you’re just hanging out in Brazil at some hostel with the rest of us?”
Blake’s mind was racing, trying to find a way out. But the only way to play this was to stay cool. “What can I say?” he said with a shrug. “I’m just a regular bloke.”
“Who decided to shave his head and come to South America.”
“I started in Central, but yeah.”
“Because…?” Julia started, and Blake caught Chris and Jamie exchanging glances he hoped Julia didn’t see.
“Because why not?” Blake said carefully, and at last a border official stepped up to the side of the van to stamp their passports, saving him from further embarrassment.
But it wasn’t over, because Chris turned around to face them. “Seriously, all you foreigners should get your hands on a copy of The Everlastings. No one is doing drama in Oz like this guy.”
“He told me it was boring,” Julia said, talking about Blake like he wasn’t even there.
Chris shook her head. “He’s being modest. You should know not to take anything he says too seriously.”
“I’ll remember that,” Julia said, and Blake looked at her in alarm.
“Tell me there’s more coming,” Jamie said. “You’re going back for the next season, aren’t you? You can’t leave Anderson to untangle the storyline with Celia and Reese—it’s just not possible.”
Anderson was the writer under Blake, the guy he’d hired when they were signed for a third season and things got too crazy for Blake to handle by himself. Now they were between shootings, and he was supposed to be drumming up scripts for the next two seasons they’d signed for and going through all the scenarios the writers under him were working on.
But instead he was here, in the back of a cramped van, edging past the border into Argentina and then bouncing through the countryside, full of eggs and toast and coffee and juice and the warm touch of a smart, funny, beautiful American by his side.
It was agony to sit there listening to talk about the show and all he’d left behind. But there were worse places to be.
And worse ways to be reminded of Kelley and Liam and the mess he still had to sort out with them on and off the screen. In retrospect, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to cast his girlfriend as Celia and his best friend as Reese and make a slow and steady attraction build between them over each episode. By this point, the characters were so enmeshed in the storyline that he couldn’t cut one or both of them out. Much as he wanted to.
Chris, though, was shooting daggers at her boyfriend. Jamie looked like he wanted to eat his shoe for letting slip his curiosity about Celia and her love interest, Reese. It wasn’t Jamie’s fault, though. Blake was going to have to learn how to deal with Kelley and Liam professionally, at least while she and her new boyfriend were both on the show. If he could get used to talking about the characters, then maybe he’d finally be able to face going back.
“Don’t worry,” he reassured Jamie—both about the plotline and about the slip he’d made in bringing up Kelley and Liam’s characters. “I’ve still got some tricks up my sleeve.”