I was damn near giddy when we finally got to wardrobe. Dressing up reminded me of doing music videos with the guys. It was strange to not have them here with me…but cool too. No one could hog my spotlight if it was only shining on me.

Ace’s outfit mainly consisted of weathered jeans with a studded belt, a V-neck T-shirt, and a dark brown leather jacket. As I examined myself in the full-length mirror, I got a little turned on; I was bad-assed hotness. Anna better get out her boxing gloves, ’cause chicks were gonna go nuts for me.

Damn. This was gonna be so amazing.

Once wardrobe had a bunch of pictures of me in my ovary-blowing outfit, Harold herded me off to hair and makeup. They were experimenting with Ace’s look today. Making him even hotter, if possible. “We need to lose the blond,” the makeup girl said after inspecting me for all of five seconds.

“Excuse me?” I told her. Surely I’d misheard that. Girls dug blonds just as much as dudes.

“No blond,” she bluntly stated. “Your character is dark, your hair needs to be dark.” She tilted her head. “Not black…but deep brown.”

I looked at myself in the mirror and tried to picture me with brown hair. I couldn’t get there. “Umm, I don’t think so,” I told her.

She shrugged. “Your opinion doesn’t really matter. You signed away the rights to your looks in the contract you signed. I could give you a pink Mohawk if I wanted. But I don’t, so you should be grateful. That hairstyle does have to go though…” She made a face like she was pained just looking at me.

“Fuck that!” I exclaimed, pulling my hair into a tiny ponytail. It had taken me forever to get it that long.

Pushing her glasses up her nose, she let out a long exhale. “I’ll sedate you if I have to, but I am cutting that mop. Something fun and shaggy…Kellan Kyle–ish. He’s got great hair.”

Narrowing my eyes, I grabbed a pair of scissors off her counter. “If you give me Kellan’s ’do, I’ll cut you.”

She didn’t look too intimidated by my threat. “It probably wouldn’t work on you anyway. Not everyone can pull off that style. Now sit.” She indicated her chair and I pouted in refusal. Snapping her fingers, she repeated, “Sit!”

I did what she said that time, but I made sure she knew I wasn’t happy about it.

Two hours later I had brown fucking hair. She’d chopped it too. It was longer than Matt’s, shorter than Kellan’s, somewhere in between like…Denny. Fuck. I looked like Denny now. Anna was gonna flip when she saw this.

After my hair was completely fucked, Harold took me to meet the rest of the cast. As I shook hands with the two girls and two guys who would be my bandmates, a sense of rightness flooded through me. The four of them looked at me like I was the most amazing thing they’d ever seen. I already felt like a star, and we hadn’t even recorded anything yet.

After a few practice run-throughs, we began filming. It was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, but with the help of the director and my castmates, I got through it, and a few days later, the pilot was in the can and I was flying back home to my wife.

Even though I told her I would hire a car, she picked me up at the airport. She was a sight to behold when I spotted her in baggage claim, but knowing what I’d done behind her back instantly made a knot form in my stomach. When Anna saw me, she did a double take and her jaw dropped. She was grinning when she walked over to me though. “Oh my God…your hair…”

With a sigh, I told her, “I know…I look like Denny, right?”

Biting her lip, she shook her head. “No…you still look like you…the sexiest man on earth, but it does give you a little…edginess. Like you’re a badass.”

“I am a badass,” I told her, my lip curling into a grin. And I truly felt like a badass under her praise, but then the knot in my stomach tightened, sending a jolt of guilt and remorse through me. My smile dropped. Maybe I should just tell her now and get it over with. She’d be crushed though, and she was so happy to see me. Later. I’d tell her later.

Misinterpreting my expression, Anna tossed her arms around me. “Aw, babe, don’t worry. I like it! In fact, I think you should keep it that way for a while.” Grabbing my cheeks, she told me, “I am so proud of you, Griffin.” Then she smothered me with kisses. Good thing too, because if she’d stared at me a moment longer, those big, trusting green eyes would have broken me. But she ended up unintentionally distracting me with sex appeal, and I was able to firmly lock away the guilt. It was over and done with anyway, and it was all going to be okay. I was sure of it.

I knew Harold was busy shopping the show around to networks, but waiting for him to call and tell me it was sold was making me antsy. Anna thought my jitters were for the new D-Bag album releasing in the spring, and because I wasn’t ready to fess up to her, I let her think that. But the minute Harold gave me the green light, I’d have to break the news to Anna and the guys, and the thought of what I might tell them was chewing up my insides.

Every day, I mulled over things I could potentially say, but none of them sounded all that great. As it was, all I’d told the guys about my jaunt to L.A. was that I’d gotten a bug up my ass to cut and dye my hair. They’d rolled their eyes and made some joke about blondes not having more fun after all. I didn’t react to their jibes, because I knew when they found out the truth it was going to be a shitstorm. On both fronts—home and work. While I hated the fact that I’d purposely kept Anna out of the loop, I was glad I’d gone through with it. I was making new dreams for myself, since Matt and the guys had smashed my old ones into the ground.