Chapter Sixteen
Stefan
“Show me where you want my hands,” I said to the blonde draped over my arm, staring down into her green eyes. She giggled a bit and shifted against me. She’s actually pretty hot, I thought, holding her gaze. Not as hot as Emma, but not bad at all. Of course, she’d have to be beautiful.
“Wherever you need them to be, handsome,” she replied, wiggling her eyebrows up and down for a moment. I chuckled and shifted, leaning in to almost bring my lips down on hers. I had to be careful; the sand under my feet made it hard to keep upright, and that was especially difficult holding her like I was. Don’t get too creative with it, but you know your back looks great. Work that angle. Maybe move your leg up a bit, hike up her skirt.
“You look stunning,” I told her, moving so that my lips were right next to her ear. I could feel the beginnings of a bit of strain across my shoulders, but it wasn’t bad enough to need to change positions. I leaned in closer to her face, feeling the warmth of the sun on my back, hearing the ocean crashing onto the beach we stood on a few yards away from us.
“That’s the shot!” I held my position for as long as I could, waiting for the telltale sounds: the shutter clicks, the sound of the lamps flashing.
I’d barely made it to the flight to get to my shoot on time, the morning after Valentine’s Day. At first, I’d been worried that Emma had apparently left without saying goodbye and had left the five hundred dollars I’d paid her for the date itself behind as well, but then I’d been in too much of a hurry to get what I would need packed and get out the door.
“Okay, we got it,” the photographer said. “Change positions!”
I pulled Lucy up onto her feet fully and took advantage of the brief break between shots to stretch my neck a bit and shake out the tension in the arm she’d been draped over.
“Do you need a break, Stefan?”
I shook my head in response to Katie, the AD for the shoot. “I’m fine.”
I was; but I was definitely feeling the effects of being up most of the night before, even if the sex had been more than worth it. If I’d spent the night before Valentine’s Day with blue balls, the day after Valentine’s Day had me feeling as though I might never be capable of feeling that horrible lack of fulfillment again. It had been a near thing, but I’d kept up with Emma the whole time.
“Another coffee, maybe? You look tired,” Katie said. I rolled my eyes. “Stefan! You’re normally such a pro at this.”
“I don’t know why you’re worried about my face; no one ever sees it,” I pointed out.
Katie, Lucy, the photographer Natasha, and the few assistants hanging around the set all laughed.
“That’s true, but I still don’t like you looking this tired,” Katie said.
“I’m fine,” I told her. “Let’s get this next shot.” The next one on the list required me to be on top of Lucy, in the sand, pretending to make love to her, or at least, pretending to be about to make love to her. We got into position, and I rolled my head around, cracking my neck as I shifted to make the most of the blocking. The whole point of the concept was that Lucy’s face would be visible, reacting to me, but my face would be a mystery; my body was the fantasy they wanted to portray. That way, the shots could be used for any number of covers, since there wouldn’t be specific facial features or eye color or anything like that for people to get caught up in.
We got that shot, and then another, and finally, it was time for a break. I grabbed the seat that I’d been assigned to catch a few minutes of rest, pulling my phone out of my bag. It was dead. “Shit.” I hadn’t plugged in my phone the night before, and when I’d gotten up, I’d been in such a rush to get ready to go to the airport that I hadn’t double-checked to make sure that my charger was in my bag. I looked for it, pulling almost everything out, but no luck. “Anyone have a charger for a Samsung?”
“No, sorry,” Natasha said, fixing herself a cup of coffee.
“Sorry,” Lucy echoed. “We’ve both got iPhones.”
“I’ve got a Sony,” Katie told me apologetically.
I groaned. It was going to be a long day, if I couldn’t even listen to music or do anything on my phone during the few breaks there were. Lucy sat down and helped herself to some of the fruit salad the crew had put out for us to eat between takes, and I thought about doing the same.
“You know, I actually got recognized the other day,” Lucy said.
I grinned. “Was it by a woman or a man?”
“A guy, actually,” Lucy said. “But only because his girlfriend is a romance novel fiend. She had a book that I’d been on the cover of, and apparently, read it two or three times. He asked if he could get a picture of me to send to her.”
“Lucky you,” I said.
“Luckily for you, unless you go around shirtless, no one will ever recognize you out in the world,” Lucy pointed out.
“Just how I like it,” I told her. I’d gotten into modeling for covers because it had seemed too funny to turn down the opportunity; it wasn’t the only modeling I’d ever done, but most of the rest of the gigs I’d had had ended up more or less drying up, while the romance covers were coming faster and more frequently. I figured I’d be able to quit my side job at the bar altogether within a year or two—become the next, faceless Fabio.
It was good money, which was why I’d kept it up, but after the initial thrill of pretending to seduce or make out with beautiful women, it had gotten boring. Most of the cover shoots didn’t vary that much: there were some stock poses they wanted me in, whether I was by myself or with a partner, and mostly they wanted “neutral” locations that could apply to a bunch of different book settings, so it was the beach, or an office, or some lavish fake mansion.
But it got me out of town for a day or so at a time, and it paid me really well, so there was no reason I could see to stop anytime soon.
“Did you say a Samsung?” I looked around and spotted one of the assistants. “I’ve got a Samsung charger.”
“Awesome,” I said.
“Break’s over!”
I cursed in my head, but I was there to work: I’d ask the assistant later in the day to borrow her charger, and maybe get to use my phone before it was time to head to the hotel.
We shot four more sets, and I completely forgot about the charger the whole day, since we needed to fit in as many shots as possible before the clouds turned into rain and before the afternoon light turned too dark to be worth anything for Natasha’s film. I remembered the charger only when it was time to pack up and head back to the hotel, and by then I pretty much figured I could wait until I got in, see if the hotel gift shop had anything, and charge my phone in my room.
By the time I got up to my bed away from home, I had a charger that would never leave my travel bag. I would keep it there and not use it at my house, and that way, I’d always have a charger while I was on location, without even having to remember to pack it. I plugged my phone in and after a minute or so, it let me turn it on. I had a few missed texts from the guys, busting my balls a bit about the night before, and one from my manager, updating my schedule. No missed calls.
I might not have thought about Emma right away, except for the texts from my friends; I was bone-tired after not getting enough sleep, rushing to catch a plane, and then working the rest of the day, most of it in the sun. But apparently, Emma had made an impression on my friends, and she’d definitely made one on me, too. I wasn’t sure how to take the fact that she’d left the money behind, or that she’d left without saying goodbye, but I definitely wanted to talk her again, if only to find out if she’d meant leaving the money behind to be her goodbye. But I didn’t have her number. Call the flower shop, idiot.
But when I checked the time, it was too late. Any flower shop would have been closed at least an hour or more earlier, so there was no way that Emma was there still. I’d just have to wait for the next day to call her at the shop and hope that either she was working, or that I’d be able to get her number from one of her coworkers.