Chapter 20

20

Dylan wasn’t really paying attention. Quade knew it from the moment he wrapped his arms around his date and pulled her close. “You in there?”

“What? I’m sorry. I’m just a bit preoccupied. Is everything okay with the movie peeps?”

“We’re going to have a big problem, actually.” And he was trying to figure out how to help Rowland fix it. The man was practically beside himself as it was—something was going on with Rowland’s assistant Jenny, and it had him distracted.

Having four actresses, including the women who had been slated to play the Tyler twins, Perci and Pip, arrested for drug use—hard drug use, including fentanyl—in LA ruined everything. And Rowland wasn’t the kind of man to give up. Rowland and Quade and his brothers and Hunter had invested far too much into this docudrama to just quit now.

“What’s wrong? Do I need to go kick someone’s butt?” Dylan looked up at him, those big green eyes of hers serious. He could almost see her going to battle with nothing but attitude and a big stick to defend the ones she loved. That was one of the things that intrigued him the most about her.

“The actresses for the twins thing is really getting complicated. You sure your sisters won’t do it?” Rowland had had trouble casting the twins’ parts in the first place. The women they’d had weren’t even twins—they’d just resembled enough like that they could be made to look identical. “Rowland is having a meltdown. He’s rewritten the script a little so the actresses won’t even have that many lines, if needed. He’s good at that meltdown thing. Hunter and Nikki are calming him down now. Charlotte flew up a few hours ago and came straight to us. She seems to be able to calm Rowland too.”

“Charlotte is the queen of everything, dear. I have learned. I have learned. And…I have a pair of twins you can borrow if you need them. They take turns regularly annoying me. It’s a sister thing, you know. I’ll introduce them to you tonight. They are both finally in the same place. I just don’t think a movie set is the best place for Dahlia, honestly. I think it would be far too chaotic. And Devvie has classes—a really heavy schedule. I just don’t think they’d be able to make it work.”

He had yet to meet all of her sisters, he thought. He definitely hadn’t met both twins. Quade dipped his little dance partner and lifted her off her feet. Just for a moment. When the song ended, he led her to their table.

Then he looked up.

Fletcher was eyeing him now—like Quade had stolen his woman or something. Well. Quade pulled Dylan a little closer.

Fletcher looked ready to rip Quade’s face off in an instant. That was when Quade got it. Exactly what Fletcher’s problem actually was.

Fletcher wanted Dylan.

And Quade was the man standing in his way.

Quade pulled Dylan closer—just to see what Fletcher would do. Yep. Fletcher had it bad. Did Dylan even have a clue?

This was going to be interesting.