Page 2 of The Route to You

“I’ll grab the Starlink phone from video village,” she said. “Anything else you need while I’m there?”

“Nah, I’m good. Tell Tomas he owes me, though. Possibly a whole new lower half.”

“You’re the ass who threw yourself at a football in a cactus field.”

“For the team.”

“For the highlight reel.”

Davy helped him onto the floral-print bedspread of the trailer he’d been calling home since the film crew had arrived at the desert five days ago. Seven days of intensive shoots exploring the best, unique locations in the Mojave for the show that had turned him into a YouTube star— Pathways.

“You’re lucky Antony didn’t insist on filming your DIY medical care. Your viewers would eat that up,” Davy said as Kyle settled onto his stomach, legs dangling off the bed.

“Don’t go putting any ideas in his head,” Kyle said.

“Oh, while I have you. I hate to bring it up again, but we need to talk about the Cabo shoot.”

Kyle groaned into the bedspread. “I already told you. My family is really upset about that. I can’t do it.”

“I get it,” Davy said gently. “I don’t want to do it either, and my family doesn’t even celebrate Christmas. But it’s not Antony’s call anymore. The company’s change of hands messed everything up. I’ll keep fighting it, but it’s their first big request under the new contract. They’re not going to love you saying no.”

Fucking contract. While Pathways had been in control of the Travelog Channel—a small UK-based firm that helped bankroll YouTubers like him—he’d had a lot more flexibility. But a major telecom company, Helixnet, had bought them out, and they had strict rules and an even more rigid contract.

And it wasn’t like he could afford to walk. People assumed he was rich because his face was everywhere lately. In reality, he was just very well-traveled and aggressively overworked.

He grimaced at her. “Can we talk about this when I don’t have cactus spines in my ass?”

She gave him a chagrined look. “Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to take advantage of your compromised state.” She took one step, then stopped and turned back with a devilish smile that made him immediately suspicious. “Actually, I changed my mind. I do have one more thing to ask you.”

A groan left his lips. “And what would that be?”

“I, uh—I need to borrow you. As a date. To a wedding.”

He raised a brow. “What about Amy? Doesn’t she want to go?”

Her fingertips twitched at her side. “My parents are going to be there.”

Ah. Got it. He wasn’t sure if Davy had even told her Indian parents about her girlfriend or whether they all knew and had just mutually agreed not to discuss it.

“It’s an old family friend from Connecticut, and I want to go see him, but I don’t want to spend the entire weekend fielding questions about when I’m getting married. So, I figured if I take you as my date, my parents won’t bring it up as much.”

“All right. I’m in.” He reached for the glue.

Her face lit up. “It’s in January, in Vail. You obviously don’t have to stay with me and really, feel free to do whatever you want while you’re there. As long as my parents see you at the rehearsal dinner and the wedding, they’ll be hap⁠—”

“Davy?”

She gave him a questioning look.

“You have about ten seconds before I moon you and reconsider going.”

“Message received,” she said, backing toward the door. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Once she was gone and the trailer door had closed, Kyle pinched the bridge of his nose. One of the gaffers had tried using duct tape earlier—resulting in a leg waxing job he hadn’t consented to—but the little spines hadn’t wanted to budge.

Here goes nothing.

Kyle gritted his teeth, pushed his shorts down over his hips, then wiggled out of them. He’d known that flip-flops and shorts were a bad idea. Unfortunately, “bad idea” had basically been his brand the last three years.