“Tell me about your name,” I say with a smirk when he ducks behind the shelves in the back of the room.
He spins me up against the wall and pins me there by the upper arms. “I’ll give you the whole story only if you trade me something for it.”
“Trade you something…?” I repeat, wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.
He’s not quite a foot taller than my five-foot-three and probably outweighs me by a hundred pounds, but I’m not afraid. I learned how to defend myself against perverts and creeps on the streets of San Francisco before I was ten. If he turns out to be one of those, he’s going down.
He nods and lets go of my arms, but doesn’t back away. “A story for a story. I want to know how someone as hot as you ended up a stage rat. They’ve got you hauling sound equipment or whatever when you should be on the other end of the camera.”
“Why are you so sure I’m a stage rat?”
He shrugs and leans a shoulder into the wall next to me. “Who else would be hiding in the sound crates?”
“Someone who was trying to pull her shit together.”
“Boyfriend shit?” he asks with a questioning raise of one dark eyebrow.
I shake my head. “Don’t have time for that.”
His wicked smile is back. “Knew I liked you.”
“How? You’ve known me for thirty seconds.”
“Call it a sixth sense,” he says, leaning closer.
His breath feathers across my cheek and I force myself to keep my cool. I refuse to give him the reaction he’s looking for. I’m sure he’s shocked I haven’t dropped to my knees and unzipped his jeans yet. “So, you knowing you like me before you have a single fucking clue what I’m all about has nothing to do with me being hot, then?”
“I never said that.” He rolls off the wall and plants a hand on either side of my head. “You are scorching, by the way. Feel like I’m standing five inches from the fucking sun right now. But I also like your attitude. Most people wouldn’t just walk out on their job because a stranger asked them to. Which means we must not be strangers.”
I shove him away, ignoring how solid his biceps feel under my hands. “We are definitely strangers.”
He shakes his head as a smile ghosts over his face. “I know your name, and that you’re tough and tenacious and you know what you want and aren’t afraid to do what it takes to get it.”
“Why would you think that?” I ask, suddenly wary he really does know who I am and he’s playing the same game with me that I am with him.
“Because you’re young, but you’ve managed to land a job at one of the biggest studios in New York,” he says with a shrug of his shoulder at the door we came through. “This is the big time, little girl.”
“Tell me about your name and I’ll tell you what I was doing backstage,” I say.
He leans wearily against the wall next to me. “My mom was the hometown rodeo queen. Guess she thought Trotte was clever.”
“You’re a country boy?” I ask, my eyes raking over the open plaid button down hanging loose over a black T-shirt, torn black jeans, and black biker boots. “Never would have guessed.”
“Nope,” he says with a stiff shake of his head. “Left that behind years ago.”
“Your family?” My heart lodges in my throat at the thought of having a family and walking away. “Why would you do that?”
His voice drops lower and something dark clouds his face. “Sometimes, family’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say, my irritation coming through loud and clear. All these fucking people who bitch about their families just piss me off.
“You’re better off.” He leans a shoulder heavily against the wall. “Course, you end up with my gig,” he adds, waving an arm at the door we came through, “every fucking person in the world wants to be your family.”
He stops talking and his eyebrows shoot up when he realizes he just blew his cover.
“So why do you go by Tro?” I ask.
His smile turns skeptical. “You knew who I was this whole time.”
It’s not a question, so I don’t answer.
His eyes flick over my face, catching for a moment on my lips. He licks his. “And here I thought we were connecting like normal people do.”
“Huh,” I say, scratching my head. “That’s what we were doing? Connecting? ‘Cause it felt more like hooking up.”
“I’m all for hooking up, but…” His eyes darken as they lift to mine. “Yeah. Seemed like there might have been something clicking.”
“You could tell that in thirty seconds?”
He leans closer and traps me in his gaze. “I could tell that in three.”
“Shiloh!” Billie’s frantic voice from the other side of the door shakes me out of his spell.