A-List Kiss: A Laugh-Out-Loud Romantic Comedy

  A-List Kiss

  Copyright © 2020 by Brenda Lowder.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including digital storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, specific locations, and incidents are either imaginary or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  Published by Bold Wanderer Press.

  Cover design by Julianne Fangmann at Heart to Cover LLC.

  Editing services by Happily Editing Anns.

  www.brendalowder.com

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my beautiful readers! I’m so grateful that you chose to spend time with Eden, Matthew, and Gavin. And thank you to everyone who helped me make this book what it is today.

  Gigantic thanks go out to my cover artist Julianne Fangmann of Heart to Cover LLC and to my amazing editors, Ann Suhs and Ann Riza of Happily Editing Anns. I couldn’t do it without you!

  Thank you to my early readers Selena Darter, Amy Maclure, Heather Jenkins, Dawn Anderson, Sandra Ho, and Nadia Turner. Thanks to my critique partners and awesome writers Kerrie Turner, Jill Cobb, Jenny Ling, Deena Short, Shelby Van Pelt, and Terra Weiss. Shelby gets an extra thanks this time. She knows what she did.

  Thanks to the Forum Writers who listened when I read this book aloud, chapter by chapter, every week for a year in its rougher earlier incarnation. Y’all rock! Especially Sharon Pegram, Mary Beecroft, Deborah Mantella, Gary Henderson, Jill Glascock, D’Ann Renner, Johnna Stein, Eleanor Egan, Amy Williams, John Witkowski, Harmon Snipes, Gary Smith, Charly S., Robert Snipes, Peter Bein, Uchenna Okafor, Mr. Kim, Dee Huggins, Brooke Metz, Wendee VanOrder, Kathy Powers, and the late Kirk Martin.

  Thanks to my Moms Write group, especially Laura Taylor, Jacquie Bosma, Joanna Borseth-Ortega, Majken Selinder Nilsson, Liz Saigal, and Shekeenah Reynolds.

  Heaps of extra thanks to all-star friend and beautiful person Selena Darter and Rowboat Web Services for my website brendalowder.com.

  Thank you to the wonderful Kelly Harms for advice and encouragement on this book. I wouldn’t have finished it without you!

  Thanks to all my family on both sides—Dad, Brenda, Jeff, Nancy, Rob, Kris, Chadd, Tammy, Ryan, Megan, Katy, Tyler, Austin, Addison, Logan, Landon, Luke, Colin, Lyla, Bryan, Kim, Emily, Tom, Amy, Vance, Josh, Kiki, Dan, Diana, Clara, Shaun, and Morgan. I love you all!

  Additional thanks to writing buddies and amazing authors Jeff Lowder and Karla M. Jay.

  Thanks most of all to my husband, Chris, a real-life Special Agent, and to our two amazing children, my miracles.

  To my readers, I hope you all find your own happily ever afters!

  Also by Brenda Lowder

  Keeping the Pieces

  Body Jumping

  Kittenfish

  For Dad

  Chapter One

  Gavin Braddock? The Gavin Braddock?” My heart thudded against my rib cage, and I wondered if twenty-five was too young to die of myocardial infarction. “The Gavin Braddock who was nominated for an Oscar for Elegy in Autumn but was totally robbed by that no-talent—”

  My assignment editor held up a hand and winced like I was giving him a headache. “Yes, Eden. That Gavin Braddock. But I can shuffle the interview over to someone else if you’re going to be weird about it.”

  I sat up straight in my chair and froze. Afraid to provoke him further, I barely moved my lips when I answered, “Nope. Not going to be weird. I’m a total pro.”

  If one has to say they’re a total pro then they are most likely not one, but Andy let it slide.

  He scratched his head and thought for a moment, during which I ran screaming around the room in my mind. “Fine,” he said at last. “Take Todd.”

  “Done.” I bounced to my feet and squeezed my hands into fists, digging my nails into my palms. My smile was so wide it hurt.

  I was halfway through the door when Andy called, “Less weird than that, Eden.”

  “Got it.” I waved over my shoulder and ran to find my cameraman.

  I found him two texts and one hundred forty seconds later. “Hey, Todd. Almost ready?” I called as I approached the back of the news van in the station’s parking lot.

  “Yep,” Todd answered without turning around. He finished his call and tucked his phone in his pocket. How he could be calm enough to make a personal call right now was an unsolved mystery. I peered at myself in the sideview mirror, checking hair and makeup. I’d prepared to be on camera today—just in case—so I was ready. If I could ever be ready enough for this.

  Todd climbed into the driver’s side and buckled his seat belt with one hand, the other hand otherwise occupied with stuffing a chocolate mousse muffin in his face. “Mmm…Eden, these cupcakes you made are to die for,” he said, spewing crumbs.

  “Where did that even come from?” I scanned the dashboard. His hands had been empty a second ago.

  “The break room. I was lucky to get the last one. Fletcher came in—”

  “Todd?” I interrupted. “Just drive.”

  He stuck the empty muffin paper into one of the cup holders and swallowed the last bite, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “What’s with you?” Todd tucked an errant lock of his shaggy dark hair behind his ear and turned his head to look at me. “You’re never anxious to go out on a story. Not that they ever send you on one to get excited about.” He adjusted his neck with an audible pop before turning the key in the ignition.

  Todd had a point. The biggest story I’d been assigned to so far was a last-minute pardon issued to Timmy, the Thanksgiving turkey. Timmy the turkey had been so adored by Orange County Fair attendees that his owner was threatened with castration were he actually to kill and eat Timmy for Thanksgiving dinner as planned. Thank goodness for the pardon. Now Timmy was living out his life on borrowed time at a picturesque farm in Oak Glen, as was revealed in my follow-up story in the segment, “Where Are They Now?” I wasn’t sure the follow-up Timmy was the same turkey I’d met originally, but considering the threats to Timmy’s owner, I went with it.

  Since I hadn’t figured out the notes function on my brand-new phone yet, I took a pad of paper out of my purse and started composing my questions for Gavin. It wouldn’t take long. I’d been preparing for this interview my entire life.

  Todd cocked an eye at me as he maneuvered the van out of the station parking lot. “You like this guy or something?”

  Uh, yeah. But I didn’t want to tell Todd that. I didn’t want anyone in the newsroom to know that I was a star-struck, butterflies-in-the-stomach, hold-me-down-or-I-am-going-to-jump-on-top-of-him-and-embarrass-myself fan of Gavin Braddock. The Gavin Braddock. The Gavin Braddock whose last five movies grossed a combined $21.9 billion, foreign and domestic. The Gavin Braddock whose disarming smile and dreamy blue eyes appeared in dozens of pictures I lovingly cut from entertainment magazines and artfully arranged into a scrapbook when I was thirteen years old—and still kept under my bed. The Gavin Braddock who starred in my fantasies for ah, only the last twelve years of my twenty-five-year life. I’d been in love with Gavin Braddock for almost half my life. Yes, Todd, I like the guy. But instead I said, “I admire his body of work.”

  Todd snorted. “I bet you do. All the ladies admire his body. Especially his ass, from what I hear.”

  “What?” I feigned shock. “I am a serious journalist!” I was not a serious journalist. Not even close. I found the news either boring or heartrendingly tragic, so I didn’t even watch it. There was a reason I was al
ways assigned the fluff pieces. The only reporting I’d actually enjoyed were the cooking segments I did in Atlanta. Those résumé tapes got me this job in Los Angeles. My dream was to have my own television cooking show, but I’d need to be a celebrity chef to achieve it. Or a chef. Or a celebrity.

  I posted my own weekly cooking video on YouTube, though, and had twenty-two devoted followers and an even more modest following for my cooking posts on Instagram. Thirteen wasn’t a lot, but they commented so much I counted them double.

  “I’m only doing my job.” I intoned the right level of professional detachment and self-righteous indignation with a touch of sanctimony. A serious reporter. Not at all like someone only interested in seeing Gavin’s ass.

  “Whatever.” Todd rolled his eyes.

  He was not wrong about Gavin’s ass. The way that man looked in jeans inspired sonnets—which I had written. I had an entire secret Pinterest board devoted to Gavin’s rear view in jeans. Seventy-nine images. You wouldn’t think there’d be that many, but he’d done an Acqua Di Giò by Giorgio Armani campaign, and there were a lot of shots of him in the water in jeans, jogging on the beach in jeans, standing in the white-bubbled surf in wet jeans…you get the point. The man was a god in denim. And a god in anything else he wore…or didn’t wear.

  That’s right—I’ve seen Gavin naked. Really. I’ve seen his penis. I like to think that I’m one of only a few people in the world who, when watching his seventh film, Elegy in Autumn, was devoted enough to watch the sex scene frame by frame to see the money shot. It was worth it. When he got up from the bed the sheet did not quite cover all of his business. Now I know that actors are supposed to wear flesh-colored body socks covering their naughty bits when doing a sex scene, and he probably did during all the kissing and rolling-around parts. But I swear that when he rises from the bed to go fight the attacking Visigoth swordsman, he moves the sheet to the right—his right, screen left—causing it to billow and you can see his penis for four frames. So far no one else has posted this online anywhere. I periodically check. Solid proof that I’m Gavin’s biggest fan.

  “Gavin’s old.” Todd broke into my Gavin screen memories and tilted his head toward me.

  I sucked in a breath. “He’s not old. He’s classic. Besides, he’s only fourteen years older than I am. And everyone knows celebrities don’t age at the same rate.”

  Todd smirked. “Uh huh.”

  I shook my head at his ignorance. “Can’t we go any faster?” Traffic was at a standstill, but I was not. My knees bobbed up and down independent of both body and mind. With as much suppressed energy as I contained, I could have sprinted to the interview—in heels—and beaten Todd and the van there.

  “Maybe we could borrow a little space from the shoulder of the road and go around all these cars?” I craned my neck and raised my eyebrows at Todd, hoping he was going to seize on my suggestion and start some illegal driving maneuvers on my behalf.

  “Calm down. We’ll get there when we get there.” Todd’s fake-Zen attitude was to be expected. Most men were threatened by Gavin’s chiseled looks, raw sexuality, and philanthropic nature. Gavin was very generous and civic-minded. In fact, that was the whole reason that I was being sent to interview him. He was in Pasadena promoting the fundraiser for his charity, Rebuilt by the Stars, which gave aid to Californians affected by earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires, and other natural disasters.

  I’d been praying for a natural disaster to take out my apartment ever since I’d moved to Southern California a year and a half ago. I figured it would be worth it to meet Gavin. But here I was, meeting Gavin and getting to stay in my apartment without it collapsing down on me. #livingthedream

  “I just need all these people to move. Here, let me help.” I leaned over and honked Todd’s horn and yelled out the window, “Move it, y’all!”

  “Easy, Eden! Your Georgia’s showing.”

  Although I was born and raised in Georgia, like most Georgians from the Atlanta area I do not really have an accent—unless pressed. Todd put both hands on the wheel with his elbows jutting out, blocking me from any further honking attempts. “I’m the only one that touches the horn when I’m driving. Got it?”

  “I just have too much journalistic integrity to sit in traffic when real events are happening to real people all over the world and going largely unreported.” I crossed my arms and sat back against my seat, willing my jittery legs to still.

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s what your problem is,” Todd said with a tone. I looked at him sharply. He stifled his smile. “Aha! Here’s a break up ahead.” He inched the vehicle forward into a microscopic gap in the left lane, at last making progress on the 110 Freeway. Within minutes we were exiting and turning off at South Oak Knoll. We pulled up to the stately Langham Huntington Hotel.

  The Langham Huntington Hotel sat atop rolling verdant lawns against the majestic backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains. The Spanish Mission Revival style building evoked quintessential California elegance with its red-tile roof and sun-warmed stone.

  Although Gavin was a huge Hollywood star, in the sixteen years since he’d moved here he had yet to buy a home. Instead, he lived at the Chateau Marmont in the hills of West Hollywood. He’d been quoted as saying he liked the freedom that came with living in a hotel. But apparently the seventeen miles from West Hollywood to Pasadena was too much of a commute for him, so he was staying here for now. Which was fate.

  My luxury-lacking apartment was located a scant three miles from Gavin’s hotel. Knowing how close Gavin was geographically would keep me up all night with wild imaginings.

  “Here we are, ready to report life-changing world events.” Todd pulled the van around the front circle to the curb.

  I hopped out before he came to a complete stop. “See ya in there!” I yelled over my shoulder as I trotted through the automatic doors, my Chanel slingbacks clicking out a rhythm on the stone entryway that sang out, Gavin’s here! Gavin’s here! Gavin’s here!

  I headed straight to the reception desk and was greeted with a smile from employee “Braden,” if his name tag could be believed.

  Braden adjusted his maroon tie. “Good afternoon, ma’am. Welcome to The Langham Huntington Hotel. Will you be checking in?”

  “No, I…” and I completely blanked. Being the huge Gavin Braddock fan that I was, I knew that he did not stay in hotels under his own name. How could he? He’d be stalked by crazy penis-viewing fans—not pointing any fingers here. So he always stayed under a pseudonym. And my assignment editor told me that pseudonym as Todd and I were leaving, but I didn’t have to write it down because I am the biggest Gavin Braddock fan in the entire universe and would never, ever forget it…except I just did.

  “Er…” I started again, clicking my fuchsia-painted fingernails on the edge of the desk in a desperate symphony. Braden’s hands hovered over the keyboard, ready to meet my every request if I could only come up with one. “Um, I’m here to see the big guy…the one who’s not really here.” I whispered this last part and winked at Braden for emphasis. Todd came up behind me carrying the news camera. Braden’s confusion began to clear.

  “Ah, you’re with the press,” Braden said. “They said there might be interviews later. I understand it’s going to make quite the headlines.”

  “Yes. I’m press,” I said. “I mean, I’m with the press. I’m not the whole thing myself. It’s an institution. I’m just one woman. One small soul, doing my part.” I tried to look humble. “Eden Perry with KLLA News. What room, please?”

  “408,” Braden replied without hesitation.

  What service. “Thanks!” I waved Todd over as I made my way to the bank of elevators.

  Inside the elevator, Todd and I didn’t speak as I watched the lighted numbers go from one to four. All I could think about was how every moment in my life up until now had led me to this point. The move here from Georgia, the college major my mother chose for me, even the two-tone Chanel slingbacks on my feet were all important because they
had carried me to this moment in time. This event. This soon-to-be crystallized memory. My life would forever be divided into BG and AG—before and after Gavin.

  The doors dinged open on the fourth floor. With a hop-skip, I exited the elevator with Todd. I knocked on the door to Room 408, waiting for destiny. Destiny did not answer. I knocked again. Still no destiny. I pulled my phone from my purse to see if I’d missed any messages about a time change. No messages.

  Todd sighed his impatience—probably more from holding heavy equipment than from any eagerness to see Gavin—and pounded hard on the door. It opened a crack.

  “Now’s not a good time,” croaked a froggy voice through the crack.

  “What?” I inched forward. I didn’t come eleven miles and twenty-five years to be waylaid from my goal with a curt dismissal.

  “Who is it?” demanded another voice behind the door. Maybe Gavin’s agent? He sounded bossy. I stuck my Chanel slingback into the crack of the doorway and twisted my way into the room. A man—Froggy Voice?—stumbled into the wall and glanced around like he didn’t know who to look at. As I watched, he seemed to settle for freezing in place, a human hanger for his crumpled gray suit.

  Three other men in suits were in the room, none of them Gavin.

  “Hello!” I called out, with my most winning smile. “If I could just get a moment, we’ll get out of your hair.”

  One of the men was seated on the couch. He appeared to be in charge since he was sitting and everyone else was standing and facing him. His suit was dark navy and more expensive than Froggy’s. He was handsome in an older-gentleman soap-opera star kind of way. Behind him to the left stood a third man who crossed his arms and glared at me with narrowed eyes. His buzz-cut wheat-colored hair made him seem less business and more action than the other men.