by Lexi Archer
“Taking pictures is sort of my thing,” I said.
I was still walking on clouds as I made my way out into the park’s backlot. I looked around at everyone walking past and couldn’t help but smile. It didn’t even ruin my good mood when I saw one of the prince’s walking by looking ridiculous in some wig and a getup that looked like it wasn’t very comfortable in the insane heat.
I thought about the scene in the commissary yesterday. I was certain that insanely hot princess chick had been checking me out before she sat with the rest of her asshole supermodel friends, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to associate with someone who thought what that prince prick did to that poor guy was okay.
And now I was going to be working with those types for the rest of the summer. That took some of the wind out of my sails, but not much. Even if I did end up working for some stuck up girl who thought she really was royalty because she put on a costume I could at least look forward to working in air conditioning all day long.
I whistled a happy tune as I made my way to the exit, and the smile stayed on my face when I got back to the apartment I shared with Dan.
“What the hell do you look so happy about?” he asked.
“You’re never going to believe this,” I said.
“What? Did they assign you to something in one of the water parks? I didn’t know they had photography types out there, but I suppose there are worse things than taking pictures of hotties in bikinis all day long,” he said.
“That’s gross. This is a family park,” I said.
“So? Have you seen some of the MILFs who go walking through this “family park” on a daily basis? All I can say is God bless whatever crafty bastard decided that yoga pants were a good idea to push on the masses.”
I shook my head. Leave it to Dan to take something and reduce it down to how hot a girl was. Then again wasn’t part of the reason I was so excited about my new assignment precisely because I was excited about being around insanely attractive women for the duration of the summer?
“Whatever Dan,” I said. “You need to listen to this though. You seriously aren’t going to believe what they assigned me to.”
“If you say you got to work one of the roller coasters I’m going to kill you. They’ve got me leading around one of the actors who’s in a ridiculous cartoon suit. Those guys prance around like they own the place even though they were too ugly for their faces to be seen. Do you have any idea how frustrating that’s going to be?”
I shook my head. “My job is something like that, but not quite. They put me in the princess room.”
Dan’s jaw dropped open. I grinned. Good. It was nice to know he could at least partially appreciate the magnitude of my good luck.
“You’re bullshitting me. They never put first years in the princess room. How did you pull that off?”
I shrugged. “Turns out the guy who does the assigning for that room is a bit of an amateur photography and he liked what I did. Said that I had the talent it took to make it in that room.”
“You lucky son of a bitch!” Dan shouted. He was across the room in an instant slapping me on the back. “I can’t believe it! You get to work the princess room! Don’t they have air conditioning and everything in there?”
“You know it. Can’t have all those pretty princesses running their makeup and ruining the experience for everyone else,” I said.
Dan shook his head. “Taking pictures with the princesses. Talk about having some eye candy around for you to enjoy. Though I don’t envy you having to deal with them daily. It’ll be like that poor bastard at the commissary yesterday, only you get to live the dream every day,” he said.
“Hey, they can’t all be that bad,” I said. “Don’t forget there was that one I was pretty sure was checking me out while we were sitting at our table.”
“You mean the one you were dreaming about? Because there’s not a chance in hell she was looking at you. Maybe there was someone behind you or something. You’re a good looking guy, I mean that in a totally hetero way, but you’re not going to pull one of them. It just doesn’t happen around here.”
I grinned. “Well you never know. I’ll be working with them on the regular now. Stranger things have happened.”
Dan went back over to the kitchen area to finish a sandwich he’d been working on. I didn’t see it until I rounded the corner to get something for dinner for myself.
“I can’t believe it,” he muttered. “Lucky bastard gets to work with the Royal Realms royalty on day one. That’s insane. That’s fucking insane.”
I grinned to myself as I opened the fridge. Yeah, I’d had a stroke of luck, that was for fucking sure. I suddenly found myself looking forward to getting to my new assignment in a way I hadn’t been when I thought I was going to be sweating under the direct sun trying to wrangle kids into standing still in front of their parents as they got into the park for the first time.
Suddenly things were looking up this summer. They were looking up indeed!
“So are you going to the party tonight?” Dan asked from the other side of the kitchen.
I looked over to him. “Party? What party?”
He turned and grinned. A huge wide grin that said I was about to learn something very interesting.
“Oh my boy,” he said. “You haven’t seen a party until you see what we get up to in this massive apartment complex. You’re in for the time of your life tonight!”
4: Party Down
Melody:
“Come on Melody,” Brandy said from the living room. “Are you coming out with me tonight or are you going to spend the whole night in front of that mirror asking who’s the fairest of them all?”
I put the finishing touches on my eyeliner and cast an irritated look out into the living room.
“You can always go down there on your own,” I said. “I’m not stopping you.”
Her head popped into the bathroom. “Come on Melody! You know I’m not going down there without you. Now hurry your cute ass up and let’s get going! I want to make sure I get there early enough that I can get my hooks into that William guy.”
I rolled my eyes. “I can’t believe you’re seriously thinking about going out with that guy,” I said.
“Why not?” Brandy asked with a pout.
I held up a hand and started ticking off reasons with my fingers. “One, he might be straight but every girl in the program is going to throw herself at him once she knows he’s straight. Two, he’s a self-absorbed egotistical prick who thinks the whole world revolves around him, and three he’s a complete asshole! You saw the way he treated that poor guy in the commissary!”
Brandy shrugged. “So? I don’t have to like the guy. I just have to think he’s hot. Anything we do here is just for the summer anyways. It’s not like I’m going to find marriage material or anything like that in a summer fling.”
I let out a frustrated sigh. There was a certain elegant logic to what Brandy said. I could think of a few things I’d like to do with that prick if we were just having a fling for the summer, but at the same time I had a hard time seeing myself with anyone who acted like he did. He was just such an insufferable prick!
“I don’t care what you say,” I said. “I don’t want anything to do with him.”
“Suit yourself,” Brandy said with a shrug. “You should know that word on the street is he’s one of only four princes in the program this year who play for our team, if you catch my drift. He seemed interested in you too. If you don’t snap him up now then I’m going to, and you’ll be all on your own the entire summer.”
“Seems like a fair enough trade,” I said. “I’d much rather be with my vibrator than with him. Besides, it’s not like the princes are the only guys out there this summer.”
Brandy fixed me with an irritated look. “Come on Melody. We’ve already been over this so many times! You are not going to go out with one of the guys working in another part of the park. If you do that it’s going to be the end of your social life f
or every summer you come out here!”
I shrugged. “I figure it’s like you said Brandy. There are only four guys for all the most gorgeous women at the park to compete over for the entire summer. What social life am I killing? A chance to get with William the Asshole? No thank you.”
Now it was Brandy’s turn to let out a frustrated growl. She grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the bathroom.
“Come on. We’re going down to the party and you are not going to say another thing about getting with someone who isn’t in the acting program.”
That was fine with me. I’d rather not listen to Brandy bitching anyways. Besides, I figured I didn’t have to say anything about getting with someone who wasn’t in the acting program, but I could sure as hell think it. It’s not like she could police my brain or anything.
“I see that look on your face,” she said.
“What?” I replied, trying my best to look sweet and innocent. I was convinced that was the look that had ultimately gotten me the job here when I auditioned last year.
Brandy growled again and pulled me to the door. Five minutes later we were down in a massive open area at the center of the equally massive apartment complex Royal Realms owned for the express purpose of housing unattached people who worked at the park. It was known as the best party in the state, and with good reason.
As soon as we got there Brandy made a beeline for a group of princes and princesses. Everyone was dressed perfectly and everyone was so fucking hot. I saw a couple of the princes I wouldn’t mind getting with, but of course they were already paired off with each other.
It was unfair. They bring some of the hottest guys in the country down here to play these roles and they’re only interested in each other. It was frustrating enough to almost have me considering a fling with William.
Almost, but not quite.
Brandy wasted no time getting beers for both of us. Technically we weren’t supposed to have alcohol on the premises, but I’d discovered that the company turned a blind eye to this sort of thing unless there was a bad headline to make them take action on it. Which meant that these parties tended to be a lot safer than a similar party might be at a college campus somewhere.
Everyone here knew we didn’t want to poke the bear. No one out there wanted to ruin the good time.
I took a sip from my beer and frowned. It’s not like I was a beer snob or anything, but this stuff tasted like the people down at the liquor store had given whoever bought the keg the stuff that had been sitting on the shelf since the last summer party ended last August.
“Is something wrong with my lady’s drink?”
I shivered at that voice. Turned to see William staring down at me. He seemed to positively loom over me. It was a good feeling even as it annoyed me. There was something about that cocky smile, the way he stared at me, that made me want to reach out and slap that smile right off his face.
“What do you want?” I asked.
His eyes ran up and down my body and it was no secret exactly what he wanted from me. Without thinking I took a step forward. It was as though my body wanted to give him exactly what he wanted. Damn it. Stupid traitorous body trying to get me to get with a complete asshole!
“I think you know what I want. The only problem is you haven’t realized what you want yet,” he said.
I rolled my eyes at that. Hard. “Are you serious? Do lines like that really work with girls? Because if you think it’s going to work with me you have another thing coming.”
He shrugged and once more I was treated to a gorgeous view of those muscles rippling under his shirt. God it was unfair for a man to look that good. To be that gorgeous. That put together. I realized my mouth was hanging open and I quickly pulled it shut. Damn it. Damn him. I needed to get out of here.
“You’ll come around to me eventually,” he said. He grinned and chuckled. “They always do. These places are what you might call a target rich environment.”
“So does quoting cheesy ‘80s movies work for you?”
He blinked in surprise. “You’re the first girl to ever catch that. I’m impressed.”
“Not as impressed as you are when you look in the mirror every morning,” I spat back at him. God. How could one man be this insufferable? Be this full of himself?
“You’re right. I am pretty impressed when I look in the mirror every morning,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he completely missed the sarcasm dripping from my voice or if he’d decided to ignore it and take what I said as a compliment. He leaned in closer and winked. “Now wouldn’t you like it if you got to see what I enjoy in the mirror every morning?”
I blushed. I felt heat running through me. True, part of me very much would like to see what he looked like in the mirror every morning. The only problem is I didn’t want to see it bad enough to put up with him acting like this. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how much I wanted this.
“You’re an egotistical prick. I’d never go out with someone who treats people the way you do,” I said.
He shrugged again. Again I was transfixed by the way those shoulders rolled. By the easy way his muscles moved this way and that. There was so much power hidden in there. Again the vision of him over me pumping in and out of me while those sweaty muscles glistened moved through my mind and again I stomped down on that pesky vision.
This was not happening. No matter how turned on I was.
“I’m not asking you to go out with me,” he said with a chuckle. He made an expansive gesture that took in everyone around us. It also showed off his biceps, and let me tell you he had biceps to spare! “I’m not interested in going out with you. All I’m interested in is one or two nights. A bit of fun now and then. I’d even give you more than the one night I plan on giving all the other girls here.”
“Why on earth would you do that?” I hissed.
Outside I was trying my best to sound pissed off. Inside, though, was another story. I was a mess of contradictions. On the one hand I wanted to slap that confident smile off of his smarmy face. On the other hand there was a part of me that was flattered. A part of me that very much wanted to know why I was getting more than one night when it sounded like he was going to do his best to leave a trail of broken hearts behind him with all the other girls on princess duty.
He leaned in close. I was well aware of his smell. So masculine. So hot. It woke something primal in me. Something that wanted to reach out and claw his T-shirt off of him where he stood. Something that I managed to hold back despite those urges that went back to the dawn of time when the only concerns people had were food and fucking.
“Why because you’re the fairest of them all,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously? How many girls did that line work on out in California? Because I can tell you at least one girl here in the sunshine state that it isn’t working on.”
His eyes went wide and he held his hands up. It was a pretty good approximation of complete innocence. I had to remind myself that he was an actor, even if he was an actor who mainly spent his time acting like a prince in a theme park.
“I promise you that’s not a line. Look around. Any guy here’d love to be with you,” he said. He grinned and leaned in close. “And I can guarantee you that I’m going to be with you before the end of the summer. Mark my words.”
He put a finger to his nose, grinned one final time, and then he was melting into the crowd before I could tell him in no uncertain terms that there wasn’t a chance in hell that he would ever get with me. No matter how much I wanted it. No matter how much my heart was fluttering. No matter how many butterflies were beating their wings in my stomach. No matter how weak in the knees I suddenly felt as I watched him disappear into the crowd.
No matter how wet I was.
“What was that all about?” Brandy asked.
“William is an asshole. That’s all you need to know,” I said.
“Yeah, but he’s a fucking hot asshole,” she said with a sigh.
Yeah
, he certainly was. Too hot for his own good. I needed to get out of here, but not before one last lingering look. I thought about everything he’d said. About his plans for the summer. I turned to Brandy and grinned.
“Don’t worry. From what he said it looks like you’re going to get an evening with him at some point before the summer’s over,” I said.
Brandy arched an eyebrow. “And what about you? It seemed like he spent more time with you than anyone else at the party.”
“Not a chance,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I believed it.
5: On Assignment
Isaac:
I paused for a moment to look at the backside of the princess building. That’s what everyone called it even though its official name was far more elaborate than that. For the cast it didn’t have some of the same magic that it had for people who were dropping thousands of dollars for the privilege of waiting in line for hours to meet an actress dressed like a girl from their favorite movie.
Probably a good thing. If that was the case then I’d be suffering from magic overload at this point. I’d seen a couple of people in the orientation classes who acted like that. They were easy to spot. Walking around with starry-eyed expressions and acting like every little thing they saw behind the scenes was wonderful.
I liked working here, but I wasn’t drinking the Kool-Aid like some people who’d dreamed about working here their entire lives.
Still, I couldn’t deny that the prospect of working in the princess building had me excited. I moved into the back entrance, camera in hand, and as I felt the air conditioning washing over me I let out a relieved sigh.
Yeah, the air conditioning alone was a nice enough perk to make me thankful where I’d ended up even without the added benefit of knowing I’d be around insanely hot girls all day long. I’d passed a couple of poor bastards who were stuck sweating in the sun taking pictures of families who were out enjoying themselves. Not my idea of a good time. No, not at all.
