The Real Me (How to Tame a Heartbreaker Book 4)
Read The Real Me (How to Tame a Heartbreaker Book 4) Online
Authors: Casey McMillin
The
Real
Me
By:
Casey McMillin
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author.
Copyright © 201
4
Casey McMillin
All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
"Neil's blowing
up my phone," Jason said as he opened the blinds.
Cam moaned as he sat up and squinted at him. "What time is it?"
"Apparently it's time for you to make an appearance at a charity thing, because Neil's shittin' bricks trying to find you. Why aren't you answering your phone?"
Cam looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand. "It's only noon," he said, collapsing back onto the bed. "That thing's not till two."
"Well, dude, you need to tell that to your assistant, because he's called my phone about twenty times this morning trying to get in touch with you."
Cam was o
n Jason's yacht. Technically, it was his dad's, but he never used it, so everyone just thought of it as Jason's. Cam didn't even know how to drive the boat, but he often went there when he didn't want to be bothered. Besides Jason, no one knew he used it—including his assistant, his publicist, and his agent. It was the only place he could truly be alone. There weren't many places in the world where Cam could get away, and as his best friend, Jason, would never give up one of his favorite hideaways.
"
I wasn't gonna forget," Cam said stubbornly. "I had the alarm set." He walked over to the table where he found his phone and picked it up. There was a whole stream of texts and voicemails from Neil, and Cam just called him back without reading or listening to any of them.
Jason could still smell whiskey on Cam, so he went to the kitchen
to make a pot of coffee while Cam talked to his assistant.
"Where the hell are you?" Neil asked, answering the phone.
"I'm having lunch," Cam lied. "What's up? That thing's not till two."
"What's up is that Brian saw you leaving your apartment wearing a
mustache last night. He said you told him you were going to Vegas. Then you wouldn't pick up your phone the
thirty times
I called you this morning."
Cam laughed. "I was just messing with Brian when I said that. Obviously, I didn't go to Vegas."
"Did you have on a
mustache
?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Why not? Because I wanted to."
"Where are you?"
"I told you I was eating."
"You have to be at the Belmont Mansion at one thirty."
"I know."
"How are you getting there?"
"I have a ride."
"Don't be late."
"Neil, I never am."
"I'll see you there."
Cam looked down at his bare chest. "Hey, can you bring me some clothes?"
There was a long silence. "Be there at one thirty, Cam. Don't be late."
"Bring me a shirt."
"I will. Don't be late."
Cam pressed the button to disconnect
and collapsed back onto the bed until Jason came into the small cabin carrying a mug. He extended a hand to give it to Cam.
"Thanks," Cam said
, reaching for it. He set it on the bedside table before falling onto the bed again.
"
You have some hair sticking out of your lip," Jason said. He noticed the fake mustache when he walked in, but he was just mentioning it for the first time.
Cam reached up and
used his thumb and forefinger to stroke it. "I know. It's pretty good, huh?"
Jason crossed to the edge of the bed and stared down at him. "It's really good, actually."
Cam gave him a wry smile as he sat up on an elbow. "I got it from the girl who did my sideburns on that video shoot a few months back. She's really good." Cam started to peel back the edge slowly, cringing as if he feared it might take some skin off with it. He got it about a quarter of the way off before he stopped to let his lip rest for a second. "I told her it had to stay on come hell or high water, so she put about three layers of that glue stuff on it." He went ahead and took it off, touching his upper lip afterward to make sure all the skin was still in place.
"Did you have her come over and put that on for you, or did you just buy it from her and do it yourself?"
"There's no way I could do this myself," Cam said, looking at Jason like it was a ridiculous question. "It's a whole process. She has to put these little individual hairs on the edges by hand to make it look more real."
Jason stooped to inspect the place where the
mustache had been. Sure enough, there were twenty or thirty individual hairs still in place. "That's crazy," he said.
Cam felt the remaining hairs. "Oh, that's nothing, dude, most of them fell off last night. There was a ton of that shit. It took her like an hour to get it on right." Cam sat up, grabbed the coffee from the nightstand and took a drink. Then he plucked the remaining hairs off of his lip without the benefit of a mirror.
Jason crossed to the other side of the room where he opened the blinds on the one remaining window. "The question of the day, Cam, is why did you have a professional mustache girl come to your apartment to painstakingly put individual hairs on your face?"
"She's not just a mustache girl. She does beards, eyebrows… pretty much any hair you can think of."
"You know what I mean. Why'd you have her put this thing on?"
"Because it's fun for me to
screw chicks without them knowing who I am."
"Did you have a girl over here last night?" Jason looked around as if he might have missed her presence in the room.
"Of course I had a girl here. Did you think I came all the way out here to sleep by myself?"
"Where is she?"
Cam shrugged. "She left at like four in the morning—right after we were done. Girls don't stick around when they think you broke into someone's yacht to fuck since I was just in from out-of-town and I'm staying with my parents."
"She thought you were breaking into the yacht?"
Cam laughed. "I think she
liked
that part of it."
"I can't believe you went the whole night without her recognizing you."
"I wore a pair of glasses too. A few people at the bar told me I looked like Cam Bishop, but I just laughed it off and said I get that all the time. It was one of those hipster places where no one gives a shit about country music anyway."
Cam put on the shirt he had on the night before and fastened a few of the buttons.
"Thank God you told Neil to bring you a shirt, because he'd
kill
you if you showed up in that," Jason said.
"I know. It was part of the costume."
"I can't believe you got laid in that."
Cam smiled. "She was hot too. Chicks dig this kind of thing."
"She
must
have known who you were," Jason said skeptically.
"I swear she didn't, dude. If she knew who I was she'd still be here right now, wouldn't she?"
Jason nodded, knowing Cam was right. "Who'd you go out with?" he asked.
"What do you mean? I just told you."
"No, I mean who'd you go out with? Who went with you to the bar?"
"I went alone," Cam said as if it were obvious. He used a hand to gesture to Jason. "It's not like you and Nick come out with me anymore."
"What about Manny or Eric?"
Cam shook his head. "No way. They'd crack under the pressure.
They'd let the cat out of the bag since they have a better chance of scoring if they tell the truth about who I am. There's no way they could make it all night without telling people—especially once they start drinking."
"So you just went to a bar alone?"
Cam shrugged before downing half of the coffee in one gulp. "It was fun being someone else," he said. "I plan on doing it again."
"You think she was hot or were you just too drunk to notice?"
"She was hot dude—smoking hot. Here, I took a picture." He scrolled through his photos and then held out his phone to show Jason a selfie he'd taken of the two of them at the bar.
Jason looked down at the screen before looking back at Cam with raised eyebrows. "She's cute," he said.
"I told you."
"What's her name?"
"Maddie, I think—or maybe Morgan. Something with a M."
"What was your name?"
"Owen."
"How'd you come up with that?"
"There was a Wes Anderson movie playing in the background when I was getting my mustache put on."
Jason smiled, knowing Cam was saying he got his inspiration from Owen Wilson. "What was your last name?"
"She didn't ask, but my plan was to say Matthews if she did."
"That's a good one."
"I know."
"You're gonna get caught if you keep doing it, you know."
"So what? The worst that could happen is that the girl finds out that I'm rich and famous instead of just being devastatingly handsome like she originally thought. I'm a winner either way."
Jason couldn't blame
Cam for wanting to blend into the background any chance he got. Cam was currently the biggest name in country music, and it was virtually impossible to have a normal existence where you go to a bar and pick up chicks like a regular guy. Cam could just say the word and have literally any girl he chose, and the challenge must have been a fun change for him.
"What'd you drive?" Jason asked, knowing that none of Cam's cars could pass for something a regular guy would own.
"I bought a truck." Cam said. He mumbled it as he stood up, but it didn't get past Jason.
"Please tell me you didn't buy a truck for the specific purpose of pretending to be someone else."
"Okay, I won't tell you, but that's what I did."
"What kind of truck did you buy?"
"It's an eighty-five Chevy."
"You're kidding me."
Cam took the keys from his pocket and dangled them in front of Jason. "I love it," he said. "It's been rebuilt. It's seriously my new favorite ride."
Jason knew what the truck looked like. He noticed it parked at
the marina when he pulled up. They were both silent for a few long seconds while Jason stared at the few remaining hairs on Cam's lip and contemplated everything.
"You're crazy," Jason finally said.
"Are you just figuring that out?" Cam laughed as he stretched. "I'm going to splash some water on my face. Do you wanna grab a bite to eat?"
"I have to pick Hannah up from work at one."
Cam breathed a humorless laugh, but didn't voice his frustration. He could see why Jason would want to cut back on having sex with other girls now that he was dating Hannah, but quitting it completely was something Cam didn't fully understand. As a mega-star, Cam had his choice of women, and being able to change it up was something he thoroughly enjoyed—something he didn't want to give up.
"Let's go by the coffee shop," Jason said. "I'll
tell Hannah to make us something to go and bring it out. By the time we get back into Nashville, you won't have time to sit down and eat anyway."
"You sound just like Neil," Cam said taking off toward the bathroom. "We'll have plenty of time, but you can still call her. I want one
of those Thai chicken things—with extra chicken."
Cam followed Jason to the coffee shop, but they left Cam's truck there so Jason could give him a ride
to the charity event. He'd get Neil to give him a ride back to his truck later. It was easier to have someone else driving when he was trying to get in and out of an event.
Hannah was waiting in the little alleyway parking lot when Jason and Cam pulled up. There was only room in the lot for one, and Jason pulled up far enough to let Cam pull
the Chevy into the spot. Hannah and Cam both climbed into the front seat of Jason's SUV before they took off.
"Who's truck is that?" she asked.
"Mine," Cam said. He didn't explain why he bought it, and she didn't ask.
She gave Cam the food
she'd made for him, and he opened it and took a bite with no hesitation whatsoever. She had food for herself and Jason as well, but instead of taking it out, she rolled the paper bag closed and stashed it by her feet.
"Why aren't y'all eating?" Cam asked around a mouthful of Thai chicken.
"We're going on a picnic," Hannah said.
Cam huffed
a laugh that almost made him lose the bite of food he was chewing.
"What? Picnics are fun," Hannah said.
Cam sat up and looked around her at Jason, who ignored him and kept his eye on the road.
"You going on a picnic, bro?" Cam asked sarcastically.
"Oh, so it's better to shove it in my face in the truck?"
Cam smiled. "I just never pictured you as the
picnic
type," he said. He took an extra big bite of Thai chicken wrap just to show Jason he didn't see anything wrong with shoving it in his face.