by J. A. Huss
I catch him scrubbing his hand down his face from the corner of my eye, like I’m frustrating him. “OK, I’ll start then. How’s that? Because I really didn’t mean to have this conversation with you, like ever. But since I’ve unleashed it—maybe unconsciously, maybe not—I’ll just say it.”
Holy fucking shit, he’s gonna go there.
“I want you. I have it pretty bad, in fact. I knew the fucking moment I saw you come into Antoine’s office that day we went out to dinner. I went out of my way to make sure you were sitting next to me. And you, you… you just… there was just something about you that drew me in. I had no idea what it was. At least back then.” He stops and swallows and then looks over at me and stares hard, straight in my eyes. “But I do now. I know what it is that draws us together and I think you do too.”
“I’m not talking about this.”
He ignores me and continues. “I’d never make you cheat on Ronin, Rook. I’m not like that at all.”
“Take me home.”
“But you’d make my year if you admitted to me that you feel this too.”
“Oh. My. God! Shut the fuck up and take me home!” I shout it and I expect some reaction to this lapse in emotional control, but a laugh isn’t quite it. “Why are you laughing?”
“You do like me, don’t you? Enough to leave Ronin? Not that I’m asking,” he adds hurriedly. “I’m not asking you to do that, OK. I’m just—”
“You’re just playing with me, right? You think you’ve guessed something about my past and that gives you the right to mess with me? Play concerned friend, take me running and then flirt and make me uncomfortable. Get me to spill my guts and then stomp all over my feelings and rub it all in. That’s what you’re doing, right?”
“Rub all what in, Rook?” he asks, confused.
“The fact that you could dangle that teeny-tiny carrot in front of me and I’d jump.”
“Do you like me?”
“Of course I like you. Why else would I spend so much fucking time with you?”
“Do you want me?”
I take a second to think this through because this question is much harder to answer.
“Do you, Rook?”
“No, Ford. I don’t.” I look over at him and let my defenses drop a little. “You have this power over me, you make that rotten carrot look like spun sugar. And I’ve been there already. I know it’s an illusion. I’m not looking for that kind of relationship again, OK? But…” I’m not sure I want to say the rest, so I stop and chew on my nail as I watch the people in the parking lot.
Ford stays silent for a while, but there’s no way I’m getting out of this now, so when he pushes I’m not surprised. “But what? Just tell me, Rook. If you want me to keep it from Ronin, I will. I won’t tell him any of this.”
I continue my silence, my mind racing with what Ford is asking me to admit. I’m not sure I’m ready to do that, in fact, I might never be ready to do that. But I need to tell him something. I swallow down my fear and turn to look at him. “If you were to ask me to leave with you. To just walk away from all of it. The show, Ronin, school… all of it.”
He raises his eyebrows in surprise.
“I’d go. Because you’re right, there’s a part of me that finds that dominance shit attractive and you control everything. Every encounter we have, you are always in charge. So that draws me in, and I’d go if you asked because you… you know how to make me want to do what you ask. And giving in to what I was is so much easier than taking control and becoming something else.”
Ford huffs out a laugh and turns in his seat to stare out the front window.
“But if I actually did that, you would ruin my life.”
He looks back, any pleasure he got from my revelation instantly gone.
“You’d ruin my life because there’s a huge difference between you and Ronin, and regardless of whatever insecurities you have about your looks, that’s not what’s different, Ford. You’re plenty good-looking. You practically sweat sex, and there is something very frightening, yet compelling about you that makes me want to… to give in to you—to submit.” I throw up my hands. “There, was that what you were waiting for? That word? Fine, you can have it, consider it a gift. It changes nothing for me, because the difference between you and Ronin is that you’re looking for the girl I was and he’s looking for the girl I want to be.”
I wait for him to respond but he’s the one who looks away now.
“Yes, you have it in you to compel me to do a lot of things, Ford, simply because you know the right way to ask for it, you know how to manipulate my emotions because of the way I was tr… tr…” I search for another word because that one just won’t come out of my mouth. “You know how to manipulate me because of how I was treated in the past. But if you did decide you wanted me, you’d get that other Rook and you’d be stuck with her forever, because regardless of what you think, I did save myself back in Chicago. I did it once, but I’m not sure I could do it again. And I’m not saying you’re anything like Jon. Maybe you treat that pet of yours nicely. Maybe she even loves you and maybe I would too, but I’d never have it in me to walk out again. Being with you would be a total surrender for me. You would ruin me.”
He thinks about my words for several seconds and then looks over to me. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“For what I said and did earlier. I was just having some fun with you back there. It really was just a flirt. I never expected it to make you feel like this. I do like you and if you wanted to be with me, I’d be in for that. I would. But I don’t want that other Rook.” He stops to sigh and look out the window for a few seconds before continuing. “I want nothing to do with that Rook and I’d never be able to live with myself if I dragged you backwards and made you surrender. I’m into your potential, I love your strength, and I’m in awe of your struggle to overcome these things in your past and be a new person.”
“I’d rather die than go back to being that other girl, Ford. I’d rather die. I need Ronin’s gentle hand and I need to make these mistakes because I had all my choices taken away from me back in Illinois. I had no free will at all. So to answer your question about why I refuse to accept Ronin’s good advice, it’s because he gives me the choice to refuse. He lets me be me. And he stands by me, even if he’s unhappy with what I’m doing. I need that so badly right now. I need all this freedom but I also need to know someone will set me straight when I stumble. And that someone is Ronin.”
We sit in the silence for a while, his eyes darting back and forth as he takes his turn watching people in the parking lot. And then he abruptly shoves the key into the ignition and starts the engine. “Would you like to go see the math building at your little college so you know where to meet your tutor tomorrow night?”
I huff out a breath. “Yeah, sure.”
“And then we can take a drive down to Boulder and look at the university, it’s not that far. I’ll show you the new building they have for film studies. It’s a great facility.”
Fucking Ford. “Sounds like a plan, let’s go.”
“Well, first we have to get breakfast bagels.” I release the built-up tension as a laugh and look over at him. He’s smiling at me. “Because this stupid fucking CSU stadium has no open concession stands for its early-morning trainees.” He pulls the Bronco out of the parking lot and looks over at me. “We miss Coors Field already, don’t we?”
“Yeah, we do.” I pick my camera up from the floor and turn it on, recording some B-roll of the drive as Ford talks about application deadlines for CU Boulder and summer internships.
Ford and I have a lot in common and one of those things is denial.
We do denial well.
In fact, we’re exceptionally good at denial when we do it together.
I like that about Ford and I have a feeling he likes that about me too.
Chapter Seventeen - RONIN
“I think these girls will be a good fit.”
Clare
leans down over my shoulder, her hair brushing past my cheek as she touches my arm with one hand and rests the file folder gently on the desk in front of me. I look up at her and she smiles. It’s not seductive, and believe me, I know that look well. She’s never done sexy shoots like the other models, but you don’t need to be naked to have bedroom eyes. This is not her being seductive. And even though she said straight up the other night that she was still very much interested in having a relationship with me, the typical game-playing I could expect from the old Clare is missing.
“Thanks,” I tell her with a genuine smile. I flip through the folder and look at each girl.
“I chose seventeen, do you want me to set them up for test shoots this week?”
I shuffle through the resumes. All these girls are beautiful and they are all experienced. “Yeah, we’ll probably keep at least twelve, just in case someone doesn’t work out. Nice to have back-ups. And make sure they understand the contract before the test shoot, OK? I don’t want any surprises. Find out if they have any… issues.” I try to be gentle, but she knows what I’m saying. If they’re on drugs, I’m not interested. “And make sure to tell them about the scale. Billy’s in charge of the closet and the girls for this shoot.”
“Got it,” she says, then dips down and pecks me on the cheek real fast and skips out of the room.
Watching her makes me happy these days. She is so pretty. Her blonde hair is long and lush, her eyes are blue and bright, her body is curvy instead of rail thin, and her skin is glowing. She’s not the girl I knew back in high school, not at all. She’s better. “Hey, Clare?” I call out before she gets too far away from the office door.
“Yeah?” she asks, turning around.
“I’m glad you’re home.”
She beams at me and lets out a long sigh. “Me, too.”
I kick my feet up on Antoine’s desk and think about Rook. I know she’s running with Ford—this is a habit I’ve come to accept, even if I don’t like it. She likes him, it’s clear. But how far that affection stretches, I’m not sure just yet. Her attitude towards me hasn’t wavered. She’s always interested, she’s always happy to see me, and her playfulness has only increased since the whole Jon thing before Sturgis.
But I’m desperate for more from her. I’m desperate for something more permanent. And I do understand that it’s totally selfish of me to expect her to give up her dream to make me happy, so that’s something I’d never ask her to do. But it eats away at me. Her lack of permanence. It’s like she’s fleeting, like she’s a moment. Something that comes and goes. I want marriage, I want kids, I want everything I never had as a child, and I want it desperately.
But I want her more.
I will wait, that was not a lie. I’ll wait forever if I have to.
“Elise is back!” Clare yells from the studio.
I jump up from the desk, rush out to the studio and wait in front of the elevator with Clare. It dings pathetically just before the doors open and Elise and Antoine appear.
“Well?” Clare exclaims.
“I told you, they won’t know for another month. This ultrasound was just to check on things.”
“Oh, please! I happen to know for a fact that they can tell at seventeen weeks. My roommate Jamie from rehab was pregnant, so I heard all the scary details of bun-baking while I was up there.”
Elise smiles coyly. “Well, the tech did give us a hint.”
“What is it?” Oh fuck, I’m so excited I can barely stand it.
Elise defers to Antoine who lets out the biggest fucking smile I’ve ever seen on that asshole’s face. “Boy,” he laughs. “It’s a boy!”
“Ahhh! That’s great!” We high-five and then clap each other on the back, then look down at Elise, who is frowning. “A girl would be good too! But it’s a boy, so hey, what can you do?”
“I’m just happy it’s OK. I’m so stressed out. I’m tired, my feet hurt, my back aches, and I’m not even five months yet. I don’t think I’m a very good mother.”
I look up at Antoine to see what this is about but he’s got a strange look on his face. “Oh, come on, Elise. It’s normal to be all those things when you’re pregnant, right, Clare?”
Clare’s about to shrug it off, but she catches my look. “Oh, yeah, Ellie, mothering is natural, right? You’ll be a natural.”
But I can see Elise’s mind whirling as these words sink in. Our mom was not a natural. She was pretty terrible at it, actually. And she picked a bad dude to have babies with, hence the whole beaten to death and prison sentence outcome. I take Elise’s hand and tug her towards the stairs. “Come on, I’ll watch girly TV with you if you want.” She smiles at me and lets me lead her away. I steal a look back at Antoine as we walk up the stairs and he mouths ‘thank you’ at me.
“Let’s watch at my place, sis. I have a better TV and besides, you never visit me at home anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Ronin, I’m a bad sister too.”
“Please. This is definitely hormones talking.” I punch in my code and unlock the door, then wave her into the living room but she heads straight to the bathroom. I plop on the couch and kick my feet up on the table, then flip through the DVR and find some Ellie shows. She likes all the typical shit that I’d normally never be caught dead watching, but this is how I spent my childhood. Sticking to Elise’s side like glue as we navigated our way through a very fucked-up home life. She had a little TV in her room and six nights out of seven I was in there sleeping with her instead of my own bed. We’d watch Jenny McCarthy and Jackass, then the Top Model show later, after Antoine took us in. It was kind of a joke, right? Since we lived with Antoine and half the time I had famous models taking me on tours around foreign cities and Elise was in a position to make and break careers with a whisper in Antoine’s ear.
She had wanted to be a model, even though she’s so small. She knew the high fashion stuff was a no-go, but the erotic stuff didn’t have those kind of requirements. And that’s how she ended up here. Well, Antoine had a much smaller studio over in North Denver, so that’s where Elise dragged me that afternoon, about six months after our family disintegrated. She was so nervous and I was only ten years old, too young to understand what she was about to do for money. So I was just scared. And when Antoine came to get her from the front room Elise started to tremble and I just flipped out and refused to let her go with him. I tried to fight him, in fact.
I can laugh now, but I was so fucking afraid for her. I thought for sure this guy was gonna do something horrible, why else would she be so scared? And then I’d be alone, totally alone.
But Antoine let me come back into the studio and he took so many pictures of her that day—fully clothed—that I fell asleep on the floor. The next thing I knew, I was being homeschooled in India while he photographed important people and used Elise as his make-up artist.
It was surreal how Antoine changed our lives.
When we came back from India he bought this building. We lived in a high-rise apartment during the renovations and I had private tutors because every few months we’d pack up and go somewhere else. I’ve been to more countries than I can count. And we always did fun tourist stuff when we were there, even though I could tell Antoine hated all that shit. He took us anyway.
I tell myself he’s not like a father to me, or a brother. And that’s true. Because there isn’t a word to describe how much Antoine means to me. Father just doesn’t cut it because my father was such a bastard, I’d never saddle that moniker on the guy who literally saved me and my sister. Antoine is like… like a best friend more than anything else.
When the building renovations were finally over three years later, Elise and I grew accustomed to this life and forgot all about the violence and fear we left behind. That’s when Antoine enrolled me in Saint Margaret’s for the end of eighth grade and I met Spencer. Ford was already in high school, so I didn’t meet him until the next year when Spence and I started ninth grade. Antoine, Ellie, and I still traveled, but not as mu
ch. Things settled down little by little, and pretty soon Antoine was just… sorta famous. I’m not even sure how it happened. He was well-known in certain circles before this transition, but at some point he became someone you had to book a year in advance to get your fucking picture taken. That’s when all this contract shit started. And that’s when I started modeling seriously myself.
I’d been discovered way back in India. Everywhere we went someone wanted a picture with me in it because, well, I was a handsome fucking devil, what can I say? But when I was almost seventeen I was approached by big-name designers. Jeans at first, then underwear, then sportswear, and once I turned eighteen, some of the more tame erotic shit. Then the woman who was running the closet got pregnant and quit. So I was in. After that the FIRE contract came up and they wanted Clare and me to model together, but Clare opted for fashion and glamour contracts and signed with an agency that took her all over the world for the next two years. And she came back an anorexic addict. So the girl I ended up doing that FIRE contract with was Mardee.
Mardee.
You know when you see a group of guys and they have the token girl? The tomboy who they never see as a girl, so she gets a pass into their inner circle? Well, that was Mardee. The little sister in our con circle. Spence, Ford, and I were only doing stupid pranks back then, not the major hacking we did later. And we used Mardee for a shitload of small-time money-grabs. I liked her, sure. But Ford really liked her, and Mardee and I were a little bit drunk one night… so. Yeah. We did the drunk fuck and were too young to understand we were supposed to back away gracefully the next day. She wanted to give modeling a try and Antoine actually thought she was perfect so… the rest is history.
I’ve spent the last few years trying to understand all the mistakes I made that year, but even after all my recent hardcore introspection, I’m still not sure I could have changed things. I could’ve let Ford have her, but I’m not convinced she would’ve listened to him if he told her no modeling because the girl could only be described as a whirlwind. She blew into our little group and twisted us all up, then left all the damage in her wake.
