I smiled, thrilled to know he felt the same way. I brushed his hair from his eyes when he rested his head on my chest.

It had been three days since the methamphetamines meltdown and everyone’s lawyer and manager was in town to hold hands and lord over the situation. “I heard you did an excellent job this morning,” I said, kissing his forehead.

He sighed. “You’re banned from hanging around Anna.”

I pushed back a little to see his face.

“Why? She’s the one who gave me the nod of approval on this outfit.”

Ryan held up one finger. “I retract the ban.” He gave me a reassuring smirk. “I figured she’d fill you in.”

He mumbled something about hens and gossip. If he only knew the half of it. After spending so much time with her, I had dirt on half of Hollywood.

“Anna was very impressed with the way you handled yourself. You still okay with the decision?”

His shoulder rose and fell. “Don’t have much choice, do I? She cried again when I said she’s lucky she didn’t get fired today.

Nicole better keep her nose clean this time.

She gets caught using again and that’s it.” His eyes locked on mine. “I’m almost hoping she messes up. I told Jonathan you’d be a good replacement.”

Surprise and some annoyance jolted into my chest. “I’m not an actress, Ryan. You shouldn’t have done that.”

He propped his head up. “Why? What are you afraid of?”

Oh, not much. The media making a huge production out of my transition? False accusations of me using you to get ahead? Incorrect theories that this is some sort of publicity stunt? Having your career negatively impacted because of it?

“It’s a bad idea.”

He frowned at me. “You’re a natural, you know.”

The thought made me shiver, knowing his view was biased. “If I’m going to ever go that route I want to earn it, not have it handed to me.”

Ryan’s lips twisted. “You’re the only person who would see it that way.” Somehow I highly doubted that. “The gossip magazines would have a field day, Ryan.

You know it as well as I do. You don’t need that looming around your public persona. It will be bad enough when things are said about my small cameo.”

“Could be your debut.”

I rolled my eyes.

“What?” he sniggered, dropping his arm onto my paper pile. He picked up a few of the pages I was reading and glanced at them. I saw his eyes turn skeptically quizzical.

“What’s all this?” He scrutinized the papers.

“Anna gave me some documents to look at; financials and stuff.”

He flipped through several of the sheets, becoming more and more intrigued as he panned through. “This is for Slipknot. Why the hell do you have . . .? Are you . . . are you supposed to have this stuff? This is the agreement with their production company, Light Reel Pictures.”

He toggled from gaping at the pages in hand to gaping at me, as if I’d committed a horrendous crime. “Production agreements, Light Reel’s contract . . . Holy shit, Taryn.” I took some of the pages from his hand, trying to lessen the breach, knowing that even he wasn’t privy to some of the agreements made to get Slipknot filmed. “She gave them to me in confidence. We’ve been talking a lot and I had questions. I think she’s made a pet project out of me.”

“Don’t let anyone know you have these,” he advised, admonishing my risky behavior.

I snatched the last few pages from his hand, incensed that he’d think I was that careless. I made a nice, neat pile, forgoing the last page I studied for the betterment of recouping the evidence. “I know. Don’t you tell anyone I have them, either.” His head tilted. “Why do you have all of that?”

I looked over at him. “Someone’s got to run our production company.” Hoping to sidetrack his reproach, I pulled from the bottom of my pile the log home ar-chitectural design book he had asked me to get. “Here. I got this for you. Build me a house, oh Captain, my Captain.” Shiny object diversion. “Oh cool.” He flopped over onto his belly, thumbing through it. “Did you see any designs you like?”

I shook my head. “I like them all.” A faint noise caught my attention. “Is Mike downstairs?”

“No.”

His voice was tinged with a hint of sadness, as if he missed his friend.

“Ryan, I really don’t mind if he hangs out here with us. He’s not just your head of security anymore. Why don’t you call him and tell him to come over. I’ll make some of those quesadillas you guys love so much.” Ryan stalled, appearing apprehensive.