He’d never wanted to run toward and away from something so much in his life.
“Simon?”
He looked over the railing of the loft.
“Kim said I could use her huge washer. Do you want me to do yours too?”
Part of him wanted to push the chore off on Margo and the other part of him felt weird with the domestic flavor of it. He’d always done his own laundry. Living under a laundromat for a few years had taken the mystery out of the act. He found it strangely meditative.
He looked down at her and shook his head.
“Okay. I’ll be back in a little while. I’m going to go do some shopping too.”
He gave her a salute and dropped down on the bed with a sigh. Paradise was getting boring. He stuffed the last of his laundry in the netted bag he found and tossed it over the railing. It landed on the rug with a silent thud.
He took a shower and threw in a load of whites. Since that was going to take at least an hour, he stuffed his feet into sneakers to go down the trail of a thousand broken ankles. At least he could walk the beach and kill time. If he was feeling particularly inspired, he might run.
Of course breathing hard was on his list of no-nos. Hmm. Probably should have thought about that when he was laying in a heap last night after round number four with Margo.
When he got to the bottom, a few of the restless snakes uncoiled from his belly. He toed off his sneakers and took them to the deck. He waded into the water, groaning a little when the sun-warmed water teased his ankles.
Maybe paradise had a little more left in her.
He took a leisurely walk down the private shore that Margo’s family owned and into the public one on the cove. When the screaming children took over and one too many curious eyes landed on him, he made his way back.
He frowned when a dune buggy with white shields and a crapton of equipment zipped by him. The beach had been nothing but quiet and unoccupied since they’d been there. He knew the private beach was owned by a few other homeowners, but he’d rarely seen another soul.
A tent was pitched a few yards away from the shoreline, a half dozen people rushing in and out of it with chairs and cushions. A man with long dark hair, no shirt, and jeans was crawling around a stunning African American woman.
Photographer.
Simon couldn’t figure out what the little thing was in the guy’s hand until he got closer. Light meter.
Christ. Photoshoot.
He recognized that set up for sure. As the lead singer of Oblivion, he’d been required to do a hefty amount of photo sessions.
The woman looked bored. As soon as the photographer backed up to change cameras, she flung her head back. Simon couldn’t tell if she was actually enjoying the sunshine or was simply bearing it for the sake of a job.
Two other women came out of the tent, both pale as milk. They’d be cherry red by the end of the day unless they had a bucket of sunscreen hidden in the tent of glory.
“For fuck’s sake, Ellie, where did you get that guy?”
“From the modeling agency we always use. A few more tweaks and he’ll be perfect. Just give me a minute, will ya?”
Simon frowned. He knew that voice. He moved a little closer and crouched down. It was probably a photographer he’d worked with before. He had to have been in front of a dozen of them in the last year alone.
“Wait!”
Simon looked over his shoulder as a girl wearing oversized cargo shorts, with what had to be a million pockets, chased after a beanpole of a male model. He was skinny-ripped, the kind that was more from starvation than working out. Model boy-man scooped his fingers through his shaggy hair and turned with a far too practiced move.
Douche.
He had douchebag written all over him.
The cute little blond sprinted over to him with a small comb. She tried to neaten up his face and his almost scruff, but ended up just waving him off. The kid trudged down the sand in red jeans with black flames climbing from the edges of his faux-battered boots.
Son of a bitch.
Roman.
He should have recognized the photographer’s hair. He’d worked with Roman back on their first tour. He’d gotten a trunk full of cool leather clothes. A jacket he still wore was at the Hollywood Hills house. He loved that jacket. Made his shoulders look almost as big as Deacon’s.
Roman turned on his heel from the crouched position, his jeans sandy and wet up to his knees. He’d urged the girl into the water while Simon had been distracted by the man-child pretending he was cool. Roman’s head fell forward in exasperation as he stood up.
Simon wasn’t sure when Roman had started doing his own photography. Then again, he wasn’t really surprised. The guy was a control freak of the first order. Of course he’d want to do the actual photos of his clothing line.
Man-child stood in front of Roman with his hip shot out to the side. He had an impressive V above the snakeskin belt. Simon resisted the urge to go over there and steal it.
Not that he really needed a cool belt since he wasn’t on stage. He curled his fingers into fists. No, he definitely wasn’t going to need that cool belt for a while. Looking at Roman’s made-for-a-rockstar clothing was not what he needed right now. He’d just taken a two-mile walk to get out of his damn funk.
“Have you eaten a sandwich since you were thirteen, boy?”
“I had an apple,” the kid said.
Simon rolled his eyes. The apple probably had more IQ points than that kid.
Roman stood and tipped his head back. “God save me from models.”
“So where do you want me?” the man-child asked.
“Over there,” Roman said with a sigh. “Ellie!” he barked.
She peeked out of the tent. “What now?”
“Is that your idea of ready?”
“I can’t magically give him the rest of the hormones necessary to grow a beard, Ro. That’s as good as you’re going to get without me airbrushing it on.”
Simon dropped onto the sand cross-legged. This was better than the Spanish soap operas he found the other day. Roman had always been a bit of a fire-breather. Simon had only worked with him once in the studio. He’d mostly just agreed to wear his first line of leather and denim because it was free. Win-win as far as he was concerned. Especially back then when they’d had very little money.
“Jase! Are you done with that chair yet?”
“You want me to move a freaking three-hundred-pound chair down the beach, you’re going to have to be goddamn patient.”
Simon leaned back on his elbows as the dune buggy came back down the beach. A huge black and red chair was strapped to the back. It had ridiculously cool carvings and looked like it belonged in a throne room. The back was high and had a gothic look to it that made Simon’s fingers itch to own it.
He’d never coveted furniture before.
The hulking blond that had been driving the buggy jumped out. Three other beefy dudes helped him lift the chair out and they muscled their way down the beach to the water line. Roman was shifting around them barking orders.
Finally, the cool ass chair was placed in the water.
In the goddamn water.
Simon shook his head. Absolute perfection in dark-stained wood and it was going in the ocean. Where was the justice? When Roman started kicking sand around the huge legs, Simon curled onto his side on the beach to watch the show.
The four guys proceeded to dirty up the chair and make it look like it had been found in the sand. Roman whistled to man-child to come over and sit in it.
If Simon had been able to laugh out loud, he would have. The kid was tall enough to not have his feet hanging off the chair like a child, but he filled in about half of the seat itself. No matter how Roman positioned him, he still looked like a preteen playing at the big kids’ table.
“Christ, take fifteen, everyone. I need to think.”
Jase bent at the waist, his hands on his knees. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’
t,” Roman said pleasantly.
“If you make me move that chair again, I’m gonna kill you.”
“I want Meredith to sit in it with him, but I swear to fuck she’s bigger than that sorry excuse for a male model.” He paused. “Did you bring your paints?”
Jase sighed. “Yeah.”
“Can you add some turquoise or blue to some of the carvings? I like the red, but I think the blue will pop with all the water.”
Jase shrugged. “Can do.”
Roman clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You always can, Jay.”
Simon rolled over onto his back and crossed his arms behind his head as models and assistants scrambled around. Evidently when Roman said break that only meant the model types. He closed his eyes and let the sun bake into his bones.
A few people came up the beach to see what was going on. Simon tipped his hat down and got to his feet. That was enough for him. He really didn’t want to get recognized by anyone.
He tried to sneak around the chair into the water to get to the dock on the other side of the madness. No way would he get up the path of doom without his sneakers.
“Jesus, Ellie, get this dude out of my shot.”
Simon froze. Fifteen minutes sure didn’t mean the same on Roman’s watch.
Ellie jogged over to where he was. “Sir, I’m sorry, we can’t have you on the set.”
Simon held his hand up that he was moving along.
“Wait.” She sloshed through the water to him and tipped his sunglasses down. “Oh, hell no.”
Ellie clamped her hand around his forearm. “You are coming with me.”
Simon pulled back and shook his head.
“C’mon, Simon. We’ve been arguing all morning about this kid trying to be a rockstar and we actually have one right here. What, are you on vacation or something?”
How the hell was he supposed to say without a goddamn voice?
“Okay, don’t say. I don’t care. I just need you for like an hour. Maybe two.”
Simon snatched a hairbrush out of her hip pocket and stopped her when they got to the packed sand.
She turned around and looked at the brush. “Don’t worry, I’ll do the primping for you.”
He held up a finger and crouched down. He scrawled: had vocal surgery—can’t talk in the sand.
“Perfect! A model that can’t talk. Hallelujah.”
He tipped his head and stared her down.
“You got nothin’, babe. I work for Roman. Your stare is child’s play.”
He rolled his eyes and stood.
“Roman!”
“What? I finally have a goddamn decent shot and you’re bugging me?” He looked over his shoulder. “I thought I told you to get rid of him?”
“Roman, come here.”
He sloshed through the water to her. “If you make me lose this shot, I’m making you deal with the overgrown toddler.”
“Ro, shut up and look.” She turned Simon so he was standing in front of Roman.
Roman snatched off his glasses and hat. “Well, fuck me. What the hell are you doing here?”
Simon sighed. Evidently he was going to be modeling.
Chapter Seventeen
“Simon?” Margo called out. It wasn’t like he was going to answer her, but he usually popped up so she could see him. Where the hell was he?
She put away the groceries she’d picked up and looked for a note.
None.
He was usually pretty good about at least leaving her a note. Even if it was rude or perverted.
She stopped at the small washer and frowned. The clothes were warm, definitely not freshly washed. She dumped them in the dryer and turned it on. She went upstairs, expecting to see him passed out on their bed.
Nope.
She took out her phone and texted him. When she heard a buzzing on the table, she frowned at his phone. He hadn’t taken the phone so he couldn’t have gone far. She opened the closet and his sneakers were missing.
Maybe he was down at the beach.
She traded out her sandals for her Sketchers and headed outside again. The distant strains of music made her frown. There was no one around for miles. The only other person that was still in this section of the island was Kim and she was pretty sure she didn’t listen to Iggy Azalea and Britney dueting it out.
Margo picked her way down the path. Halfway down, between the trees, she saw a dozen people on the beach and in the water. Three women were on the dock, sunning themselves as a photographer flitted around from one side of the dock to the other.
Her dock.
What the hell?
She got to the end of the path and a blond woman raced by, camera in hand. She handed off the camera to a man with dark hair scraped back into a stubby tail. He definitely wasn’t dressed to be on the beach. Okay, so the top half wasn’t so bad. He was tanned and smooth-chested with a sleeve of skull and flame tattoos down his left arm. A huge SLR camera was draped around his neck and another in his hand.
Again, what the hell?
“Excuse me.”
The blond barely stopped. “This is a private beach. Closed set too. Could you move along?”
“I know it’s a private beach. It’s mine.”
The blond backtracked with a camera case in her arms. “Oh. All yours?” she asked carefully.
“Well, no. I share it with two other families.”
She sagged. “Okay, good. That would have been a bitch to get paperwork done again. We got the permissions and paid for time from the…” She trailed off and pulled a paper out of a plastic pouch around her neck. “The Morrisons.”
“Yeah, Sam and Kathy.”
“Right. We were told no one would be here.”
“I was looking for my…” Crap. She was twenty-five, did she still call a man she was involved with her boyfriend? “Boyfriend,” she finished lamely.
“Simon?”
Margo’s eyes widened. “Yes.”
“Oh, hi. I’m Ellie. I work with Roman.” She pointed over her shoulder to the man in the jeans thrashing through the water. “He’s trying to finish up the dock shoot before the tide comes in all the way.”
“My dock.”
“Oh. That’s not shared? Simon said it was okay.”
Margo waved her off. “It’s fine. If someone falls, I’m not signing for it though.”
Ellie laughed. “You must be Margo.”
“I am.”
“Simon told us about you. Didn’t you get my text?” She looked down at her phone and flicked it on. “Never mind. The signal down here sucks. It never went through.”
Oh, did he? Margo crossed her arms and sighed. “Yeah, not surprising.”
“We were having trouble with our male model. He was supposed to be all rockstar-looking for our new line and he looked more One Direction than badass.”
Margo snorted. “Wait. Roman, as in the designer Roman?”
Ellie nodded. “Yeah. He’s my boss and the bane of my existence.”
“I know that feeling all too well.”
She flashed her a smile and dimples dug into her rounded cheeks. “Jase is just finishing up the chair and—oh, there they are. Simon agreed to do the shoot for us.”
Roman slogged through the water with his two cameras, belting out instructions.
“He did?” Margo peered around Ellie and saw Simon climb into a chair that could be in the great room of The Game of Thrones. He was in a pair of black leather pants that had been made for his long, strong legs. Sand and salt water marks were crawling up the bottoms of the pants and black motorcycle boots were completely ruined.
She had a feeling they were ruined on purpose. They looked like they’d been on a ten-year motorcycle trip and now were waterlogged and just as sandy as the leathers. He had one boot hooked on the bottom rung of the chair and the other leg flung over the arm.
All of it was hot as hell.
The part she wasn’t overly thrilled about was the elegantly slim woman that looked like she�
��d walked off the pages of a Barbados magazine. Tight curls were shorn up the back of her head and a few red spirals slid over the front of one eye. She was perched between Simon’s legs with her hands on his naked chest and her lips at his neck.
“Um,” Ellie held up a finger, “that’s staged.”
“I’m sure.”
Ellie winced and rushed over. Roman was crouched in front of Simon and the woman with his camera going a mile a minute. A pair of lanky guys in their early twenties were splashing through the water to change the angle of the white shields.
Simon lifted his chin and did this effortless smoldering thing and she had to cross her arms over her chest. Wow.
“Yeah, wow” a woman said from beside her.
She must have said that aloud. Margo looked at the woman. She was one of the girls who had been on the dock.
“I can’t believe he was just on the beach. I mean, Simon Kagan. Just wow.”
Used to the adulation that Simon got when they’d been on the road, she didn’t respond to the girl. She wasn’t going to lust over her boyfriend with some strange girl who may or may not be over eighteen.
“Did you hear about what happened? He’s so brave to be out here after his surgery.”
“Yeah, really brave.”
The girl turned huge made-up blue eyes on her. “You don’t think it’s amazing?” She blinked at her. “Oh, you’re…” She snapped her fingers. “I can’t remember your name. Violin something. I saw you guys in New York. You’re so fucking hot together.”
Margo’s eyebrow shot up. Someone actually recognized her? She cleared her throat. “Yeah, he likes to call me Violin Girl.” She held out her hand. “I’m Margo.”
The girl shook her hand. She looked eerily like Taylor Swift. “I’m Naomi. It’s my first shoot with Roman.”
Margo glanced at her outfit. It was a white leather bikini and she had turquoise and red watercolors painted across her mile-long torso and equally long legs in swirling flames. Roman’s signature flames to be exact.
“Do you like him?”
Naomi shrugged. “He’s bossy, and he only made one person cry.”
Consumed Page 17
