1
Keaton Holt avoided the blonde’s palpable stare by riveting his gaze to the ball game playing on the television above the bar.
“They’re looking at bringing a big league to Austin,” he told the newest Renegade, Cameron Riggs, sitting beside him.
“Your chatter ain’t gonna work,” Cameron said, humor bubbling in his voice.
Cam had been Keaton’s fight protégé for the last six weeks. With sixteen-hour days on the same set, doing the same job, and staying at the same hotel, they’d been, more or less, in each other’s face constantly. On the upside, they got along. On the downside, the guy had the opportunity to see the dark side of Keaton’s love life, something he’d been trying to forget for the better part of several months without success.
“Manfred’s talking about expanding the league by two teams,” Keaton continued without taking his eyes off the game, slowly spinning his glass on the bar. “They’re saying Montreal will get the first.”
“You can babble all you want, but it ain’t gonna keep her on the other side of the bar.”
Cam thought it was funny. So did all of Keaton’s other friends. And for years, Keaton had found it amusing too. He could walk into a bar, a party, onto a set, and for reasons he’d never quite figured out, the woman with the biggest tits, the wildest tats, the most piercings, or the most crazy filling the space between her ears would zero in on him. So crazy, the Renegades had collectively nicknamed the women who hit on Keaton “them crazy bitches,” a la Buckcherry’s song “Crazy Bitch.”
But the novelty had definitely worn off. Even the entertainment value had plummeted. And recently, Keaton’s interest had flipped a one-eighty and now bordered on derision.
While he knew acting absorbed in baseball and conversation might be a delusional attempt at discouraging the triple-E—tattooed from shoulder to wrist—from hitting on him, he hoped it would allow him to at least finish his beer before he bailed.
This might have been one of Austin’s many trendy downtown hotspots, but Keaton liked the bar anyway. Corner was upscale but not pretentious. It had great food without the snobbish foodie flair, and a wide variety of clientele sans the lowlifes and the nerds. The drinks were strong, the bartenders were honest and the barstools had cushy leather pads.
The location was also awesome for people-watching. With two of the walls making up the building’s corner location missing, the bar became a foot-traffic funnel. And he was more than a little annoyed he couldn’t just come here after a long day on the set and enjoy Austin’s beautiful early fall weather, a beer and a ball game without dealing with the inevitable bullshit some Crazy Bitch would come up with.
“Some think Austin’s a sure thing for the second team,” Keaton said. “Others don’t think this town can support a major league ball team. They think it should go to San Antonio, where they have a proven track record with the Spurs.”
Cam took a swig of his beer, then started laughing with the liquid still in his mouth—which was how Keaton knew Crazy Bitch was on her way over.
Dammit.
Cam swallowed and bent his head toward Keaton with a raspy “How do you do that?”
Keaton had wondered the same thing so long, he’d finally asked the most outspoken and streetwise of all the Renegades women—Rubi. When Crazy stopped to talk to the bartender, Keaton told Cam, “Rubi said I managed to pull off some sort of confidence that she says sends a fuck-you attitude. Says I intimidate people who don’t know me.”
“That’s very true.”
Keaton frowned at Cam. “What the fuck? Next to Wes, I’m the easiest-going Renegade in the bunch.”
Cam lifted his brows. “To people who know you. Looking at you from the outside—especially when you’re working, trying to get a stunt down right—you’re intense, dude. Don’t you remember it took me a month to talk to you?”
“I thought that was because Jax always had you working with one of the other guys.”
“Some. But the other part was because you are fucking intimidating.”
He sat back and held his arms out. “How? I don’t have tats and piercings all over. I only have extreme haircuts when I need them to double someone for a long shoot. I shave my beard at least twice a week. I tip well. I say please and thank you. I open the door for others. I answer any question asked of me.” He absolutely did not get this. And if his mother knew, she’d be mortified. “How in the fuck do I intimidate people?”
“But you’ve got your share of scars, which are even scarier.” Cam grinned. “And look around you right now.”
Keaton darted a look around the bar and found several people shooting nervous covert looks his way. But Crazy had her gaze homed in on him like a target, a hot little smile on her lips.
He dropped his hands to the bar and leaned on his elbows. “That’s just ridiculous.”
“You’re built like a tank, but you move like a fucking panther. You’ve got a stare that could cut steel, and you use it whenever you’re thinking about something. And I can’t even tell you how many women who’ve told me how hot they think a guy’s scars are.”
Keaton cut a look at Cam. “Are you telling me I have perpetual asshole face?”
“Like that right there.” Cam chuckled and pointed at him. “I wish I had a mirror. And you carry yourself with a don’t-even-think-about-fucking-with-me air. A real one, not one you trumped up for the occasion. One that makes people take a step back. You’re just an intense dude, man. Nothin’ wrong with that. And it sure has been working like magic on the chicks.”
No, it worked like magic on the crazy chicks. The chicks who dug trouble and drama and extreme shit.
“What can I say?” he muttered. “It’s a fucking gift.”
One he wished he could regift to someone else.
Anyone else.
“I don’t get why you’re not jumping on that shit,” Cameron said. “Hey, I’m not complaining. I score every night you turn them away. But, dude, they’re smokin’ hot.”
Keaton looked at Cameron. He was in his midtwenties, built, talented, smart, and good-looking. Coming on board with Renegades as a stuntman was going to net the kid a shitload of women. Keaton had been there. Done that. And had a few dozen T-shirts to show for it. It had been fun for a while. Those women had introduced Keaton to a whole different side of sex. A whole different side of himself. But it wasn’t what he wanted anymore. If he were honest, it hadn’t been what he’d wanted for a long time.
But that didn’t keep the crazies fr