IN PLAIN SIGHT
By DixieHellcat
She was rushing to her next stop when she ran the man over. He had stopped flat footed in the middle of the busy sidewalk, staring into the plate glass front of the building they were passing, and in the instant before they collided she would have sworn he was messing with his hair. “Oof!” she grunted when she slammed into him, pulled back and tried to straighten herself as well as her messenger bag and uniform. “Fall in love with yourself much?”
“Huh?” He grabbed her to keep her from falling. He had nice hands, big and strong and not gropey.
“Primping in public is very poor form,” she snapped, although with one good look at him she realized there was a lot there worth primping. His jeans and white shirt showed his tall slim body to fine advantage, and his handsome fair face and hazel-green eyes were emphasized by a head full of modishly styled dark hair. All in all, he was one legitimate hottie.
“Oh—oh no!” He raked his bangs out of his face. “I just got my hair cut and I’m tryin’ to get used to it. I’m so sorry!”
She tried to stay angry, she really did; but his obvious distress and that Southern accent couldn’t be rejected out of hand. “You’re not from around here, are you?” Oh, my God, one of the lamest pickup lines in history just came out of MY mouth!
He shook his head, sending hair flying again. “I used to live here, but I just come back for, uh, work.”
“Let me guess. Work, as in trying to get work in show business?” He nodded, with a half-bashful grin that made her insides giggle and caper about. What a charmer! “You shouldn’t have a hard time with that, as good looking as you are.”
“Thanks.” He ducked his head, his grin widening and seeming now both abashed and pleased.
“I can relate. I came here to try the show biz thing too, but it’s just too damn fake. They promise you the moon and end up owning you if you don’t know any better. You do it their way or not at all.” She gestured toward her courier’s gear. “So I gave up and got a real job.”
“Performing is a real job too!” he objected. “Especially if you’re determined to do it your way, or not at all.” His striking eyes narrowed a bit, and took on a hard glint of resolve she found extremely sexy. Hell, everything about the man was sexy.
She dragged her mind out of the gutter—she had work to do, and she had NEVER picked up a date from a casual chance meeting. “More power to you then.” She started to walk, but found him beside her, easily keeping pace with his long legs; he was meeting some friends around the corner, he explained.
They chatted lightly about nothing until she reached her destination and halted. “Listen, I’ll be in town all week,” he burst out. “Would you like to get together? Lunch, or dinner, I guess. I’m not much of a partier.”
“Neither am I,” she said, and wrote her number on the back of a company card. He took it with a big grin and vanished into the walking crowd, shaking those stubborn bangs out of his eyes again. She watched his broad shoulders and firm ass recede, and chuckled to herself, wondering how his hair had looked before and whether he’d ever get used to it this way, and whether she’d ever hear from him. She hadn’t even told him her name, or asked his. She sighed, and turned to return to work.
+++
Clay walked up to the black SUV and opened the passenger door. Behind the wheel, Steeve was nearly bubbling with excitement. “Well?” he demanded.
Clay grinned at his new hairdresser. “You win. Nobody knew me.”
Steeve squealed with self-satisfaction. “C’mon, get in, your entourage’ll be waiting. And don’t you have to pick up that suit for tomorrow night? Those fools at Idol won’t know what hit ‘em. I am the greatest, I tell you. Hah!”
Laughing, Clay got in. As he settled into the seat, his fingers found the card in his pocket. It was the first time in literally years he’d walked down a street in broad daylight, with no disguise, and no bodyguard, and not been mobbed. After Wednesday, he was sure he couldn’t get away with it, but having this chance had lifted his spirits and his confidence. No less buoying, though, was the fact that a girl, a very pretty girl, had given him her phone number, not because he was Clay Aiken, pop star, but simply because, apparently, she’d liked him. And his looks. He gazed at the hipster looking back at him from the rear view mirror. That was going to take some getting used to, but at last, he thought maybe he could manage it. He just hoped she wouldn’t cuss him out and hang up if he called. When he called, he corrected himself. The guy in the mirror looked a lot bolder than he used to.
+++
Thursday morning, her cell rang. “Uh, hi,” he said. “We met Monday, on the sidewalk downtown. You were deliveirn’ something to a law office, I think. I didn’t even get your name—“
“Neither did I,” she retorted. ‘But I got yours last night.”
Silence. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I felt terrible about not tellin’ you, after what you said about show biz bein’ so fake. I’m not that way, honestly. But I really had just gotten the hair cut, and I haven’t been able to get out and walk around and be normal for a long time, without bein’ stared at, and I was really enjoyin’ it. So it was selfish of me, I know.”
“Oh, you were being stared at, but only because you were so damned hot looking. I didn’t get your name off American Idol, by the way. I spent an hour trying to call friends and hunting around online. Why didn’t that little idiot of an MC introduce you?”
He laughed a little. “I don’t know. Maybe they thought I didn’t need an introduction. Anyway, I called to apologize—and I’d still like to get together, if you’re not too mad at me. I have to work tonight, but maybe lunch Saturday? I’ll have to bring my bodyguard though, since my incognito’s kinda shot now.”
She heard him shift, and pictured him anxiously raking those bangs out of his eyes again, and then pictured herself doing it for him. “After the way you rocked that theater last night, I imagine it is,” she replied dryly. “So, when Clay Aiken says he has to work tonight, what exactly does that entail?”
“Um…the president of Mexico is comin’ to LA, and the governor’s office asked if I’d sing at the state dinner.”
”Wow.” She absorbed that. “I delivered some film to Steven Spielberg’s office one time, and he said thank you,” she offered after a minute. “Doesn’t quite measure up though, does it?”
Now he laughed out loud. “Is that a yes, you’ll go out with me?”
“Yes,” she smiled. “With you and your bodyguard and your new hair. But mostly you.”
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You can contact the author at theleewit@mindspring.com.