Chapter Ten
Evan
“You gotta come out sooner or later,” Delilah hollers from outside my door. “Come on, Evan. I want to show you my shoot from today. I’m really proud of it.”
After my shower, I pulled on sweats and burrowed myself in my covers. I plan on staying like this for the next seventy-two hours or so.
“Try back in three days,” I tell her.
“Evan….”
I don’t respond to her whining, and she doesn’t try again.
My life is over. Four years believing that I was destined to get into UC Berkeley—four years working my ass off—for nothing. Without it, I’m nothing more than an undergraduate degree and a stack of erotic magazines.
If I didn’t get into Berkeley, who’s to say that I won’t get into anywhere else I applied for? Who’s to say that I won’t, at the least, make it into East Park’s program? If I don’t make it into East Park’s program, then I can’t even be an EPE model.
I’m done for. Everything I’m good at—I’m done for. I can’t do shit with a Bachelor’s in Biology.
I might as well get into the porn industry.
Someone knocks on the door. Again.
“Go the fuck away.”
“Evan,” Dallas calls. “Open up.”
What the hell is he doing here? “Especially you. Go away.”
“You could make this easy, or I could climb into your bedroom window.”
“You couldn’t.”
“Try me.”
“Fuck off,” I say, shutting my eyes tight. Maybe he’s like a monster under the bed. If I pretend he isn’t here, he’ll just go away.
I fall asleep. I don’t know for how long, but when I wake up, it’s dark. My mouth is dry and I really have to pee. I slide out of bed and trudge across the room, opening the door.
Dallas sits before me with his back against the hallway wall. In his lap, he holds a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos. “I had to put the beer in the fridge and the ice cream in the freezer because you were being such a stubborn bitch,” he says.
I burst into tears.
^^^^
The spoon that Dallas brought from the kitchen is, I swear to God, the size of my face. Both us sit cross-legged on top of my bed. I let him use the spoon for the ice cream because I’m dipping Cheetos into the goodness and chasing it with beer.
“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he says.
“You say that when you’ve been vegan for five months straight with no cheating,” I counter.
He laughs, a noise I can’t help but love. “Touché.”
“I’m going to need to shit all of my insides out in about fifteen minutes.” I dip another Cheeto into the pint of ice cream.
“Christ, Evan.”
“What, that statement too unlady like for you?”
“No, totally turns me on. I’m getting a huge boner just thinking about it.”
“I can tell from that massive bulge in your pants.”
“Having a battle of sarcasm with someone as stubborn as me is the most fun I’ve had in years.”
I can’t help it—I crack a smile.
Then his face grows serious, and not the sarcastic kind of serious either. “This isn’t the end of the world, you know.”
I shake my head. “You don’t get it.”
“I do get it,” he says. “East Park wasn’t my first choice, you know. I mean, it’s not a bad school. And I still have my PhD. What I’m trying to say is—you have options, Evan. Tons of them.”
“If posing for Hot Skanks R Us is what you call options.”
He narrows his eyes. “How many schools have you heard back from?”
“Berkeley. It’s enough.”
“What about Harvard?”
“HA. HA,” I say obnoxiously.
“You applied, right?” he asks. “You’d be an idiot if you didn’t. It has the best biochem program in the nation.”
I take a huge gulp of my IPA. Somehow, Dallas knew my favorite brand. I haven’t had beer in ages, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.
I snap back to attention. “Of course I applied to Harvard. As a joke. I’m not even counting that as a real application.”
“Well you should, Evan.” He twirls a Cheeto between his fingers. “I’ve graded enough of your work to know you’re destined for grad school. So what, you didn’t get into Berkeley. You’re brilliant and beautiful and healthy. You can’t have a perfect life, Evan. That wouldn’t be fair for the rest of us.”
I grin. “Well thanks for making me feel like a dick.”
“You’re welcome. And to put you down even more, all of that crying has given you sad raccoon eyes.”
Damn mascara. Won’t come off with a shower, but so-help-me-God, if I cry a little….
“Raccoon eyes are totally in fashion,” I say. “I’m going to sport them for the next shoot.”
“Yeah, sure,” he says, reaching forward. His knuckles brush against the side of my face, and my heart flutters in my chest. He opens his hand to rest the palm against my cheek, and I willingly lean into it. The pad of his thumb brushes beneath my eye, and it starts to burn.
“Fuck, Dallas.” I squint. “Cheeto dust.”
“Oh, shit.” He hops off the bed. “Fuck. Shit, fuck. Are you okay? Wait here.”
Before I can argue, he’s bolted out of the room. All I have to do is blink a few times and rub at my eye with my clean hand and the burning stops, but by that time, Dallas has already returned carrying a wet hand towel. He hops on the bed again and scoots close, cupping the back of my neck and gently pressing the towel to my eye.
I giggle. “Stop it. I’m fine, I swear.”
“Shut up and let me play Prince Charming, okay?”
He dabs the towel to my eye a few more times and puts it down. When my vision focuses, I notice how close he is. Close enough for me to study every curve of his beautifully-sculpted lips. I bite my own, waiting for him to pull away. But he doesn’t. He just waits stoically, his breath against my skin, icy eyes penetrating mine.
Britain clears her throat.
I jump back from Dallas and turn toward where she stands, in the doorway with her arms crossed, an eyebrow raised. “So I take it your ready for tomorrow, then?” she asks me. “Not going to hide in your dark cave for the rest of the week?”
I open my mouth, but not before Dallas responds, “She’s ready.” I glance at him and he winks at me.
“Good, because you guys aren’t shooting tomorrow.” She breaks out into a full-blown, toothy smile.
I cock my head. “Not following.”
“I just got off the phone with A.J. Harrison—CEO of Amora Acquisitions. He wants to take us out to dinner tomorrow night.
My mouth drops. Amora Acquisitions…. “Holy shit.”
“I’m lost,” Dallas says.
“Amora Acquisitions is a small branch of a media conglomerate that has been buying up school-run erotica magazines across the country,” I explain. “If they’re interested in us…”
“It means we’d go national,” Britain continues for me. “It means that your modeling careers would be set in stone, and you’d have more money than you knew what to do with.”