“I’m sorry, beautiful. I’ve got to go,” he apologizes, but quickly adds, “I can’t wait until I see you again. The things I’m going to do to you will put that night to shame.” The promising words make me wet between my legs before the line goes dead. I let out a frustrated groan as I scurry off into the bathroom to get ready. I’m already late, but I don’t care. I’m going to need the shower to help alleviate my sexual frustration.
“YOU’RE LATE. AGAIN. We didn’t think you’d show up,” a snarky intern, whose name is Charlie and is starting to get on my nerves, remarks.
“It’s not your job to keep me on time,” I snarl back, walking past him as Julio pushes him aside. I don’t bother giving him a backwards glance as I walk my way into the room. The girl who was sitting next to me during the meeting spots me and gives me a friendly wave. I make my way straight over to her, feeling ashamed I never got her name that day.
“Hi,” I greet with a friendly smile. I see her light up with a smile as well.
“I’m Sarah. It’s so nice to meet you.”
“I’m Abigail. It’s nice to meet you as well.”
She blushes as she replies, “I know. I was so excited when I found out I’d be working with you. You’re the reason why I wanted to be a model,” she shyly remarks.
“I like your dress,” I quickly comment, hoping to break the awkwardness I feel between us from her comment.
“Thank you.”
The next few minutes are spent getting to know each other, and within that time I come to admire Sarah. She seems confident of herself, but never shows an ounce of haughtiness from being a model. She’s nothing like the other girls who walk around as if you should be privileged to be in their presence. It makes me wonder if that was how I once treated everyone around me.
She grabs a champagne flute from a passing waiter and hands it to me. “Here, you’re going to need one of these to help loosen you up. Trust me, I’m still drinking mine,” she says, holding hers up to emphasize her words.
I take the glass from her and take a sip from it, allowing the fizzy bubbles to trickle down my tongue. She eyes Julio who is only steps behind me as she looks him up and down.
“Does he follow you everywhere?” she asks in a whisper into my ear. With a chuckle, I give Julio a sideways glance before I answer.
“He has to. My boyfriend wouldn’t have it otherwise.”
Her eyes go wide in amazement. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“Oh, hell, no!” I exclaim, hearing Julio chuckle behind me.
Sarah now looks confused. “Where is your boyfriend, then?” She looks around the room as if she’d find him. I’m reluctant to answer, but from how humble she seems, I would feel guilty keeping it from her.
“He’s in Indianapolis at some sort of football training camp,” I casually answer, as if it’s no big deal.
Her eyes go wide. “Is he a pro football player?” she curiously asks.
Her enthusiasm makes me giggle. “Not yet. But he will be soon,” I confidently answer. She gives me a swooning sigh.
“You’re lucky. Mine is a boring engineering major, but I still love him as if he were the sexiest man alive,” she states as her earlier blush returns.
“Looks aren’t always important,” I tell her, and by the nod she gives me, she agrees. I’m about to ask where she’s from when a gentleman is soon at my side. I can feel Julio close behind me.
“Abigail Adams. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” he states, tilting his head to the side, already holding his hand out for me to shake. “I’m Aaron, the marketing director for the Sprinter Running Company.”
“Oh, the running company I did my first photo shoot for.”
The man laughs while shaking his head. “I know for sure we weren’t your first photo shoot, since it was my jaw dropping when they told me who they managed to book for the shoot. Regardless, I was honored you did the shoot in the first place,” he states.
“I meant since I started doing photo shoots again,” I feel the need to clarify.
“Oh, I remember that one,” Sarah says, bringing my attention back to her. She ducks her head, as if ashamed of her comment. “Sorry. I sort of followed your career since I hope to one day be half as good as you are.”
Her humble words make me blush. “She really was a natural when it came to that shoot.”
Confidently smiling, I comment, “It’s because I was doing something I love to do,” I tell them both.
Sarah looks surprised by my statement. “So you really are a runner? Like for real?”
Her questions make me laugh. “Yes. My boyfriend actually got me into running. I love it.”
“We appreciate that you do. It’s rare when we get a model that is an actual runner. The new line we had you wear that day for the shoot has helped our sales skyrocket. But I’m pretty sure it’s because you were wearing them,” he claims. “So, thank you,” he adds.
“It’s my pleasure.”
“Have you ever considered sports modeling for your permanent career? We may not be able to pay you as much as these big shots do,” he says, waving his hand around at the crowd of people. “But from following your running events, I’m sure you’d be happy doing it. We’d love to have you be our official model, but it would mean being in a contract with our company.”
I consider his words for a moment, but with a heavy sigh, I answer, “As much as I’d like to take you up on your offer, I think the runway is where I’m meant to be. But thank you anyway,” I inform him.
He grows disappointed before reaching into his coat pocket to retrieve a business card, handing it over to me. “If you ever change your mind, please don’t hesitate to give us a call,” he says with a smile. “Good luck with your career and don’t ever give up your one true love. Running.”
“Never.”
Sarah and I both watch him walk away, but her eyes stay locked onto him as she says, “Damn, if I wasn’t already a girl spoken for, I wouldn’t be ashamed of convincing him I can be his model,” she states.
I love how Sarah can easily make me laugh. “There isn’t anyone who can convince me of leaving my man,” I say, still half-laughing.
“Is that so?” I hear a deep voice ask from my other side, startling me. When I turn around to see who it is, I’m greeted with another suited man, but this one makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Julio had kindly backed away after Aaron had introduced himself, but my body language must have alerted him, because he’s at my side once more. Normally Julio’s hovering can annoy me, but from the way my stomach is turning, and not in a good way, I couldn’t be happier he’s invading my space.
The man gives me a smug smile before he reaches for my hand and lifts it to his mouth. The action makes my nervous stomach turn. “It’s a pleasure to see you here tonight, Abigail,” he coyly says. From the way he said my name, it’s as if he knows me.
“I apologize, but I don’t seem to recall who you are.”
He brushes off my remark with a wave of his hand. “That’s perfectly fine. I do understand the circumstances. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Evan Donovan.”
The name instantly sends a shiver down my spine. He looks over to Sarah and takes her hand to kiss it next. Instead of the forced smile I’d given him, her face still holds her bashful blush from his cavalier move. He’s facing me again, and against all protest to run, I stay rooted to the spot with my fake smile as I desperately search my mind as to how I know him.
“And what is it you do exactly, Mr. Donovan?” I ask with a curious tilt of my head.
“I’m in advertising, Ms. Adams. It’s how we knew each other so well in the past. It’s a shame you don’t remember.”
His words stab at the open wound everyone in this industry seems to remind me of. “Obliviously you must have not been important enough for me to remember,” I smugly say with a smile. My comment doesn’t faze him at all as he chuckles at my words. “If you’ll please excuse us, Mr. Donovan, Sarah and I a
re required to mingle throughout the room. I’m sure you understand,” I say, already tugging Sarah away, not bothering to wait for an answer. Sarah happily follows, but when we’ve put enough distance between us, I manage to glance over my shoulder to see his watchful eyes still on me.
“That was awkward,” Sarah draws out from my side. “I take it you didn’t like the guy?”
“No,” I grimly answer. “ I’ve been in more awkward situations than that,” I mumble. Julio lets out a groan while I blush from head to toe from my own comment, remembering how many times he’s apologized to me since last night.
“Oh, look! There’s Hans,” Sarah excitedly says. Finding him amongst the crowd, he is walking towards us, an artificial smile plastered on his face. My reaction is far from Sarah’s. I’m ready to bolt as his eyes focus on me. I already know it’s for a reason I may not like.
Reaching me, his high pitch voice squeaks out, “There she is. Just the girl we were looking for.” Exactly what I was expecting.
From the tone of his words, I’m already dreading what will come next. “Ms. Ackerman here is from The National Society of Saint Smith Prep, a boarding school here in New York. She was just informing me she needs someone to present an award at their next social event and of course I thought of you, Abigail,” he says, eyeing me with the same smile he walked over with.
It’s taking every ounce of patience I have in my veins to not blow up in front of the sweet, old lady standing with us.
“That would be just wonderful!” she says as she claps her hands together with excitement. My mouth is already opening to conjure an excuse, but Hans is already answering for me.
“She’s honored to do it. Aren’t you, Abigail?” I’m now piercing him with my signature glare.
Before I can deny her request, she’s adding, “Wonderful. I’m going to go let my colleagues know,” before quickly walking away.
My heart is pounding while my blood rises. “Why the hell do you keep doing this to me?” I angrily throw at Hans, ready to pound the smirk off his lips.
“We need good publicity for the show.”
“You do, but I don’t,” I clip out.
His eyebrow slowly arches as he tilts his head and slowly lifts his finger. “This,” he remarks, his finger swirling around at my body. “This is the old Abigail you didn’t want to be, but are proving you still are,” he retorts before turning to walk away, leaving me to stand there with my mouth gaping open.
“Do you want me to take care of him?” Julio amusedly asks from behind me, making Sarah laugh.
“I like him,” she says, tilting her chin at Julio.
Lifting the glass of champagne up to my lips, I tilt the glass up and completely empty the contents into my mouth. The alcohol is warm and has lost its fizz, but at this point I don’t care anymore. The least I can hope for is that it does its job so it can help calm my temper. If not, I may just walk over to Hans and strangle him. Looking down at my phone, I’m already counting down the minutes until I can leave and pray I don’t kill someone before I do so.
STILL SMILING FROM Abigail’s open mouth gasp as I ended the call, I leave it lingering in my mind as I exit my hotel room and catch up to my roommate.
“Is that the girl who you have to keep checking in with?” Kevin, my roommate for the duration of camp, asks as we start to walk away. I’ve adapted to calling him, “Crazy Kevin.” From the moment we met, he’s been nothing but crazy. There hasn’t been anything he wouldn’t attempt to try to succeed in getting noticed while the scouts have been watching us.
“Yeah, it was my girl,” I answer as we step into the elevator. “But it’s not like that,” I push, somehow feeling the odd need to defend myself.
He grunts at my response. “You’ve spent more time on the phone than you do going out. It’s a miracle I managed to get you out tonight.” I keep silent, not daring to tell him the only reason why I agreed to go out was because I knew Abigail was going out as well. It was a mocking waiting to happen. “So, how long have you been with her?”
“A little over six months.” He cocks his eyebrow, wearily looking at me. “Yeah, well, if you knew how lucky I am you’d want it too.”
“So, it’s that serious?”
“I’m going to marry her one day. She just hasn’t agreed… Yet.”
Shaking his head again, he asks, “You serious?” Again, I keep silent, knowing it isn’t worth arguing over. “I don’t know man. I don’t see the point of wanting to settle down. You’re still young and you’ll have plenty of women throwing themselves at you soon. Why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of that?” His last words come out more of a statement than a true question, but I ignore them. I know deep down inside Abigail is worth settling down for. “Trust me, dude. There isn’t any girl in the world that’d make me change my mind. Even if she was hot.”
“Trust me, I’ve had girls throwing themselves at me and it wasn’t worth losing her over,” I say as I pull out my phone to show him a selfie of Abigail and me on my locked screen. He tugs the phone up to get a closer look of the picture and I watch his eyes go wide.
“No. Fucking. Way!” he says, his face whipping from my face to the phone in disbelief. “Is that the model? What’s her name?” he asks snapping his fingers.
“Abigail Adams,” I answer with a nod as he continues looking at the phone as if he can’t believe his eyes. “Is she the reason why you were naked the other night?”
“Yeah,” I reply with a chuckle now that I can laugh about it.
Now looking suspicious, he asks, “How the fuck did you manage hooking up with her?”
The question should irritate me, but my smile returns as I think about the day she showed up at my door. “She found me, and it was the best day of my life,” I reply.
He snorts before saying, “Good luck trying to put a ring on that girl’s finger. It’s all about the career with them,” he utters, nodding in the direction of my phone.
This time my silence is due to the recognition of his words, and how it pertains to our current situation. Our love has endured many obstacles, and because of them our love is stronger. As much as I keep telling myself I have to let Abigail follow her dreams, is this only a glimpse of what our future will be like if I go pro? Us spending most of our relationship with distance between us? Somehow it feels like it will. Breathing deeply, I remind myself that the distance will only make our love grow stronger. It just really sucks that I have to keep reminding myself.
LOOKING DOWN AT my phone, I stare at the email confirming my plans for this weekend. Shooting off a text message to Julio next to make sure everything will be ready, I receive a confirmation from him telling me everything is set to go. Next, I’m placing another order of flowers to be sent to her, something I’ve been trying to do every couple of days to keep her smiling. They’re not enough to show how much I miss her, but they will remind her I’m still thinking of her every moment of the day.
Turning my neck, I wince from the soreness in my muscles; a reminder of yesterday’s brutal practice, but not as excruciating as the entire week as a whole. When the recruiter mentioned I’d be putting my skills to the test, he failed to mention I’d physically be torturing my body. But, I should have known from the details in the package he’d left me.
We’d been put through one test to another, our bodies barely getting a chance to rest. From dashes to test our speed and agility, to testing our strength by having us repeatedly bench press two hundred and twenty five pounds until we can’t lift anymore, to going straight into jumping into the air to test how far up we can jump. That test was my favorite. Rolling on my side, I feel an aching pang shoot up my body. Add a slight hangover to the mix and I’m ready to be put out of my misery, which is what most likely will happen at the end of today.
This week I’ve been pushed beyond my limits, but I knew it was their way of testing us and in the end, it was all worth it. In all reality, I’m surprised I made it through until the end—not the case for more
than half the candidates attending. Since today is the final day of the scouting trials, ending with interviews, I’m happier than when I’d arrived.
The blaring of All of Me announces Abigail’s call. Instead of answering it as I usually do, I push ignore on the screen.
“Shut it up!” Kevin hollers from his end of the room right as my finger made contact. His resistance to wake up reminds me of Abigail, guilt stabbing at my heart for ignoring her call, but I have my reasons.
Kevin sits up as he yawns. “I thought you said she isn’t an early riser,” he groans, standing up to scratch his chest as he refers to our conversation last night. After several beers between us, the conversation ended up turning back to Abigail and I couldn’t help but brag about how I liked waking her up on the days she was reluctant to rise early.
“She’s getting ready to go on her run,” I comment as I check the time, already grimacing from the thought. I’m not happy with her decision to be running again so soon, but regardless of the many times we’ve argued about it, she disregards my lecturing and somehow manages to always change the subject on me. That was one thing we were definitely going to discuss this weekend, whether she liked it or not. I blame the stubbornness in her for her defying everyone’s advice to wait.
I force myself up and out of bed, heading straight for the shower. With the water running, I step in and allow the coolness to help further awaken me. With every deep breath I take, I can feel the alcohol threatening to come up from the hangover I’ve woken up with, but I force it back down reminding myself I need to pull my shit together before I leave for my interviews.
An hour later, I’m walking into the stadium, and as usual, I’m led in the direction of where I need to go. Today it’s the conference room. For the next four hours, I’m interviewed by several different teams and asked question after question of what I expect out of my future as a professional athlete and what I plan to potentially give their particular team. After the second time of being asked the same routine questions, I learn to repeat the same answer with a smile on my face. It’s what they expect and want, and I’m happy to deliver.
Unspoken Endings Page 5
