by Tara Lain
As he stood to follow Brock from the office and get a few “shots,” whatever that meant, Red suppressed his apprehension and tried to look forward to a new adventure.
* * *
Nora Ridley stared at the computer screen. Her sigh sounded like a small windstorm in the workstation they’d converted from her large linen closet. Of course, now half her linens were shoved in the bottom of her clothes closet and she had no idea where she’d end up putting them.
Come on, get the fun back. This is important. She sighed again and slumped in her desk chair. Granny in Jammys had always been a bit of slapdash amusement. One week, she’d do three posts and then not show up again for a month. Sometimes, she’d carry on elaborate discussions with her readers and then forget to comment for days. No one really cared, least of all her. The blog was a hobby, not an obsession. But in the two days since Christasy had arrived with her crew, Nora had already seen a big jump in the number of followers and comments. Christasy must be sharing on her social channels, stoking up interest in Granny in Jammys prior to the airing of the video on her YouTube. The result was a huge surge in Granny’s audience—and pressure to treat the blog as a serious enterprise. One of the last things Christasy had said before she left was that they could talk about ways to “monetize” Nora’s blog. Monetize. Nora hated to admit how much she loved that word, and how terrifying it seemed. That idea certainly took the blog firmly out of the hobby category. If people were paying, they had expectations. Dear heaven, Brock had even suggested to Christasy that Nora should write a book. A freaking book!
How can I write a book when I’m so frozen with indecision I can’t get a word on the screen? Knowing people would expect her to be wise and funny and clever turned her insides to ice. She banged out a few words and then erased them. I have to do this. Everything depends on it. She dropped her head in her hand, then looked up. Maybe not everything relied on her so-called monetization. If Red was successful…
The tap on her front door should have been an interruption. Instead, it felt like a reprieve. It was probably one of the people from yesterday. Maybe they forgot something?
She bounded up, hurried to the door, and threw it open.
“Hi.” Mark Woods stood on her porch.
“Oh, hello, Mark.” A strange shower of emotions flowed through her as she smiled up at the big man—boy. She genuinely liked Mark. He was a kind and generous person and smart, too, who’d made a lot of lemonade out of a huge pile of lemons. That didn’t mean she had to like him as a boyfriend for Redmond. Redmond didn’t need a boyfriend. Not now. “Red’s not here.”
“I know.”
“Oh. Would you like to come in?”
“Thank you.” He walked through the entry, dwarfing her with his size, and crossed into her living room.
Nora realized she was chewing her bottom lip and made herself stop. “Would you like some iced tea or water?”
“No, thank you, ma’am. I knew Red was out of town, so I came by to see if you need anything. Groceries? Problems around the house that need fixing?”
For a second, she couldn’t think of anything to say. “Why, thank you. Uh, no. There’s nothing I need.”
“Okay.” He glanced at his work boots. “Have you heard from Red? How’s he doing?”
“No. Not a word yet, but he’d have spent most of this morning so far on the train, so I doubt there’s much to report.”
The soft smile on his face spoke more of sadness than of joy. “It’s exciting that he’ll finally get the kind of recognition he deserves. I imagine he’ll be a big star.” He backed up a couple steps. “So, you have my number. Just call me if you need anything.”
“That’s kind of you, Mark. To think of me, I mean.”
He lifted his big shoulders and dropped them. “I never had a Granny, in Jammys or anything else.” He turned and strode in that purposeful way toward the front door.
The words burst out. “I need an idea.”
He turned back. “What?”
“I need an idea for my blog.” She laughed and it sounded as embarrassed as she felt. “I’ve been sitting back in my little office you created for me, trying to come up with a blog topic, and I’m just stuck.” She ha-ha’d again. “That’s really bad news, since I’m going to have to blog regularly if I expect to keep up the reputation that Christasy’s building for me.”
“Your blogs are always great.”
She gave a soft snort. “How would you know?”
“I read them all the time. Well, a lot of the time anyway.”
“You do? Really?” Funny how she liked him more than she wanted to.
“Sure. Why don’t you write about how you felt yesterday having all those people in your house, or maybe how scary it is to suddenly have your blog leap to light-speed, when you always thought it was a little skimmer.”
She really laughed at his Star Wars references. “Those are good ideas.”
“People like that you’re honest and straightforward. You don’t have to worry about changing anything. Just be yourself.” He started toward the door again and then stopped. “Do one of your exercise videos. Those are always great.” He waved a hand and walked out.
Nora felt her own smile and then let it fade. The lure of the familiar and ordinary. That’s what Mark Woods was. One of those cozy, safe spaces that kept people from expressing their talents and spreading their wings. Just like Quentin Ridley had been.
Get to work!
She pressed a hand to her chest and took a deep breath.
* * *
Mark sat in his truck and gazed at the steering wheel as if it were a wheel of fortune. When the fuck will I learn?
Anytime, as a kid, that he’d set his heart on something, his father had made sure he never got it. He’d wanted to play football. His father wouldn’t give him permission because of potential brain damage and then had smashed him in the head with a wrench for asking. Mark had wanted a dog and found a stray, mangy animal that he desperately begged to take care of. His father took the dog to the kill shelter. When Mark had gone in, forged his father’s signature on his dog adoption application and then dragged the poor pooch all over Ever After until he found a home for him, his father had beaten him with an old dog leash.
Even the best thing the old bastard ever did for Mark was a way of denying him. Mark desperately wanted to go to college. First, his father saw to it Mark missed a lot of school due to being injured. Then, while he was busy dying, his father gave Mark the garage. It looked generous, since everyone knew that old man Woods only loved that damned business, but he knew having to run it while taking care of him would force Mark to drop out of school. When the old man finally died, Mark was so far behind in school, it made no sense to try to go back. Not when he had made Woods Auto a going concern.
And here he was, trying again. Wanting a lady that he really liked to like him back. Maybe having someone he could care about. But she had Red. Why would she want Mark around? Especially since she was smart and had to know what else he wanted. And what the fuck? He was a small-town grease monkey with a lousy past and a mediocre future. He couldn’t ask someone to give up an amazing, superstar life for something like that.
“What the fuck was I thinking?”
From the corner of his eye, he saw the curtains wiggle at Mrs. Ridley’s.
Yeah, I’m taking up space on her curb and in her life.
Give it up, Woods.
* * *
“Red, look this way.” Click. “Over the shoulder.” Click. Click. “Give me some teeth.” Click. “Perfect.” Click. “Okay, jump.”
“Jump?” Red stared at the photographer named Strausberg and wrinkled his nose against the itch of the makeup.
“Yeah. Jump.” He had to yell over the blaring techno music.
“How?”
“Any which way.”
Red shrugged and hopped in the air.
“Good. More.”
Red threw his arms up and leaped like a cheerleader. Then
when no other directions came, he did it again and again.
“Okay, enough. I think you’ve got it.” Brock’s voice rose above the din. “Let’s get this man something to eat.”
Abruptly, the music, if you could call it that, ended, and Strausberg, who hadn’t stopped moving since they’d walked into the studio three hours before, flopped into a ratty director’s chair. “You got it. Good job, kid.”
Red propped his hands on his knees and took a big breath. Who knew models worked so hard? He’d started out kind of posing, like he’d imagined a model must do, but real fast he figured out that he should just keep moving. It was up to Strausberg to capture the magic in a box.
Brock slid his arm around Red’s shoulders. “He’s right. You did well. Go get cleaned up and we’ll go to dinner.”
Red straightened up, which caused Brock’s arm to be dislodged, leaving a cool tingle. How do I feel about that? Confused. Truthfully, Brock did attract him—but in a scary way. It was like being on a high bridge, when you just knew that if you didn’t back up, you’d jump.
Red smiled at Brock to cover his discomfort, then walked quickly back to the small dressing room Strausberg kept for his models. A glance in the floor-length mirror gave him a minute to sigh over taking off the gray wool suit he had on for the photos. Damn, the thing was as soft as cream and crisp as the first apple of fall. They’d layered the impeccable suit over his bare skin, so his pale, flat chest shone out from under the luminous wool and his deep red hair fell around his face in uncombed wildness. The look was so weird and unfamiliar, he could hardly drag his eyes away.
Come on. Get real.
Carefully, he stripped off the suit and hung it on the clothing rack, then wrapped a headband he found sitting on the counter around his hair and slapped on a handful of cream to take off the makeup. Black smeared around his eyes and down his cheeks like a sad raccoon, so he wet a washcloth and started wiping. It took a couple minutes, but finally a Red he recognized stared back at him in the mirror.
Stripped to his boxer briefs, he got one leg into his good, black jeans when there was a tap on the door. Eep! Red grabbed the jeans to try to cover his junk, tripped, and hopped on one leg as the door opened, and he landed flat against—Brock, of course.
“Whoa, cutie.” Brock propped Red upright and flashed his white teeth. “I might want you to fall for me, but maybe not so hard.” He laughed.
Red tried to straighten up but didn’t want to drop the jeans and so managed to stay bouncing on one foot like some game of hopscotch gone wild. He managed to prop his hip against the counter and remain standing. “Uh, yes?”
Brock was clearly suppressing laughter, the beast, but said, “I just came to tell you that you should wear the suit. The designer will be ecstatic to see it all over Twitter tomorrow. Put your white sweater under it. That should look good.” He raised a hand. “See you in a second.” Laughing softly, he closed the door as he slipped out.
Propping his butt on the counter, Red released his death grip on the jeans and let them fall to the floor. Man, I better get over myself. He’d seen enough episodes of Project Runway to know that models got no privacy and preserved no modesty. “I’m not a model—yet,” he murmured and pulled the suit back off the rack. The idea of wearing it in front of people did give him a thrill.
This time, he managed to get the trousers all the way to his waist, before another quick tap on the door preceded the arrival of Shauna who barged into the small space carrying her makeup case. “A little primping before dinner.”
“I just got that stuff off.”
“Not so much this time.” True to her word, she added a tiny subtle shadow to his eyes, some black to his lashes, and the tiniest bit of color to his pale cheeks, that managed to make his already prominent cheekbones even more noticeable. Then she ran her fingers covered with some kind of shiny gunk through his hair and made it separate into random pieces that hung around his face in a messy curtain. She spread her hands. “Voila!” She patted his cheek. “Man, that’s one great face.”
“Thanks.”
She whirled out of the dressing room, leaving the door open.
Red forced himself not to look back in the mirror and just walked into the studio. Having people appreciate the thing that had made him separate his whole life—his face—kind of confused him.
Brock looked up. He’d been talking to Strausberg and paused in midsentence. His lips formed the word, “Wow.”
Heat blazed into Red’s cheeks and he cleared his throat. “So, are we going to dinner? I’m hungry.” That wasn’t really true, since his stomach was tied in knots, but it was something to say.
Chapter Fifteen
Jeez, I’m not at Mom and Pop’s anymore.
The club wasn’t big, but it defined elegant and cool. Redefined for Red, since he’d never seen anything like it except in photos that didn’t begin to capture the gleam, the glow, the shine of the rich and powerful.
Red stood sandwiched between Brock and Coyoten who’d walked into the studio a few minutes before they finished the session and never smiled once. Man, if Brock was counting on Coyoten to approve of Red, he’d probably be waiting a long time. The dude stood by the reception desk with his arms crossed and his nose in the air.
The maître d’ said, “I have your favorite table, Mr. Wolfe. Right this way.”
As the maître d’ led them between the tables draped in white linen, heads turned and faces lifted to stare at them. These might be the so-called beautiful people, but they mostly looked like regular jerks in way better clothes. Scattered in with them, though, were truly beautiful humans of every and no gender. Perfect faces. Gorgeous bodies. It was like they paid for their places in the club with their looks. One striking dark guy raised both eyebrows at Red, then narrowed his eyes in an icy glare.
Coyoten smiled. “Hey, Paz. Long time no see.” He stopped and shook hands with the slender, perfectly-dressed man, but Brock pulled on Red’s arm and they kept moving.
As they got to their table and a waiter held his chair for him, Red whispered to Brock, “Who’s that guy? He looks familiar.”
Brock did a quick side-eye. “He should. That’s Paz Luz. Two covers of Vogue.”
“Wow. He’s gorgeous.”
Brock shrugged. “Don’t gush too much. He’s also one of the only really famous high-fashion models who isn’t represented by BrandFace.”
Red grinned. “So, we hate him.” He made a hissing sound.
“He was one that got away.” Brock looked more serious than usual. “But I let him go. He interviewed with us before anyone. I knew that face could go far, but he had a serious drug problem and didn’t show a lot of interest in getting clean. I said good riddance.” He raised an eyebrow. “I can’t seem to persuade Antonio of that fact, though. He always acts like we want Luz, even though he knows I’d never take him.”
“Looks like he managed to get off drugs though.” Red glanced quickly toward the dark-haired model, then back at Brock.
Brock shook his head. “Nope. If you get close, you can see the effects of booze and drugs on his skin and eyes. He can’t be more than 24, but he’s quickly slipping into that gap model’s hate where they’re too old to be perfect and too young to be interesting.”
“Oooh, harsh.”
Brock looked at him levelly. “This is a harsh business. But if you’ve got the brains and the look, you can make enough money before you burn out to build a nice nest egg.” He slid a strand of Red’s hair between his fingers. “I think you’ve got both.”
“I don’t look like that, Mr. Wolfe. Not even close.”
“Brock.”
“Brock. It’s still true.”
“No, you don’t look like that. You look like you, which is much, much better. You don’t have to believe me. Just watch.”
Coyoten came back and sat in the empty chair at the table. Immediately, the waiter was there offering drinks. Coyoten asked for a dirty martini, but Brock ordered a bottle of champagne.
“Will you join me in drinking it, Red?”
“I, uh, don’t drink much.”
He flashed that heart-stopping smile. “It doesn’t take much.”
Red swallowed hard. “I’ll have a glass, thanks.”
When the waiter walked away, they perused their menus until another server brought Coyoten’s drink and poured the champagne. Coyoten leaned forward. “Paz mentioned something interesting.”
“Oh?” Brock held out his glass and clinked rims with Red, then held it toward Coyoten who’d already drunk a big mouthful of his martini. Still, he held out the half-full glass and toasted with Brock. “What did he tell you?”
“Giuliani is looking for a new face. New to him, I mean. He must be interested in Paz, because he called Jedrun first. But, I was thinking Elbey’s got a different look for Giuliana.”
“Hmm, he’d be good in Giuliana’s structure.”
“They.” Red almost bit his tongue. Where did that come from?
Brock looked at him. “What?”
“Sorry, nothing.”
“No, what did you say?”
“I said they. Elbey’s nonbinary and uses they and their pronouns.”
“Right.” Brock nodded.
Coyoten literally sneered. “We can’t confuse our clients with that pronoun bullshit. He wears men’s clothes so he’s he.”
Brock frowned but had his cell phone in his hand and he hit send. The sound of ringing echoed through the phone, then Brock said, “Paolo, ciao. It’s Brock.” He listened. “Well, isn’t that a coincidence? I’ll go first. I’m having dinner at the Wellspring with Antonio and a new friend. I heard you were in town, and I thought I’d invite you to join us.” Another pause. “Oh grand. How soon can you be here?” He chuckled. “Grand. I’ll have a fresh bottle of bubbly waiting. See you in ten.” He winked at Red. “So why were you going to call me?” He nodded and smiled. “Excellent. I’ll look forward to it. See you soon.” He hung up.
Coyoten threw his head back and laughed loud enough that several people turned and looked. Coyoten said, “You sneaky devil. As if you were going to invite him to dinner.”
