I hadn’t thought of it like that, but who knew, maybe I did. “Ford thinks that in the beginning, you reminded me of Sierra and the problems I was having with her.” Silence reigned again as we both considered it. Finally, I said, “Maybe Tanner and Ford should butt out of our business.”
She gave a seemingly involuntary laugh. “You’re not wrong about that.” Her quick smile faded. “I was really turned on by the sex scene rehearsal—by you. But I thought it was all an act on your part.”
“Getting an erection isn’t part of acting.”
She threw my own words back at me. “But wouldn’t you have been like that with anyone?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted truthfully. “Dicks have a mind of their own sometimes. But I was turned on because I was kissing you. Touching you. With you.”
Her silence was the longest yet. I got the feeling she was still upset, but when she spoke, her voice was steady. “So where does that leave us?”
I thought about it for a minute. “With really bad communication skills?”
She laughed again.
“Could we call this trip a truce?” I asked, but then I corrected myself. “No, like a fresh start. We’re going to a new state, so that should be a chance to start over. Hopefully we’ll get it right before we have to visit all fifty of them.”
“All right.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“So… you’ll accept me for who I am, even though I’m Mac’s stepson? And even though I’m going to spend the next thirty-six hours pretending to be my twin?”
“Gosh, that’s not confusing at all,” she said, but she looked amused, not mad.
To stay in her good graces, I signed more pictures. By the time we were getting ready to land, I’d gotten much better. You usually could tell that the T was actually a T in Tanner’s first name. Before, it had ended up looking like an X more often than not.
A driver picked us up and took us to the hotel, which turned out to be a real hell hole. “Let’s find someplace else.” There had to be a better hotel somewhere in Des Moines.
“This is where the convention is,” Ronnie said once the driver had stepped out to get our bags. She took a mirror out of her purse and dabbed some makeup on her bruise as she talked to me. “Do you really think Tanner would have a problem with it?”
I sighed. “Probably not. He’s a simple guy who enjoys simple pleasures.” Then I wagged my eyebrows at her in an overexaggerated way. “Want to share some simple pleasures?”
Ronnie looked away, but not before I saw the grin on her face.
The suite in the hotel was about as big as my closet back home, but I channeled my Inner Tanner and dealt with it. I even offered Ronnie the master bedroom, but she declined, choosing instead one of the smaller bedrooms.
And then we went down to the ballroom where the convention had just started. Ronnie introduced me to the organizers while I looked around. There were so many women in so many different kinds of polyester.
Ronnie got me set up at a booth in the ballroom, and I was mobbed by fans. Maybe not as many as Aiden Hunt often was, but I usually had an entourage with me while I was in public. Here, I only had Ronnie. Then I remembered her budding fighting skills and felt a bit better.
Still, the amount these women knew about Tanner was staggering.
“Can you sign this poster, Tanner? It’s from the very first film where you served as Aiden’s stunt double.”
“Look, I drink the same kind of bottled water you do, Tanner.”
“We went to the same middle school, Tanner. There’s still a trophy in the hallway from when you broke the school’s free throw record.”
“Can you do a backflip for us, Tanner?”
I caught Ronnie’s eye after that last one. I could, but the studio would have my ass if they found out I’d done something that had even a small chance of me ending up in a cast.
“Sorry, ladies,” Ronnie said. “Tanner’s not allowed to do any stunts because of liability reasons.” I was fairly sure she was just making shit up, but it sounded plausible.
When the initial mad rush died down—and when I’d passed out half the autographed headshots—it got a little less crazy, and I was able to answer some of the questions thrown at me.
“Tanner, what’s Aiden like?” one woman asked.
I gave her a flirtatious smile and shook my head. “Come now, surely we can agree that you’ve got the best twin right here?”
She giggled like a schoolgirl even though she had to be in her sixties. “I’d still like to know. What’s it like working with him every day?”
I shrugged. “He’s my brother, and I love him, but everyone knows the stunt double is the real hero. It’s my job to make him look good—and let’s face it, he looks really good.”