“Cross has already seen you,” a voice behind me says. The photographer’s sprawled out on one of the huge windowsills on the other side of the warehouse with an open laptop resting on his stomach. He snaps the lid closed and gets up, sauntering over to us. He laughs when he gets a close up look and sees the state of me.
“Split lip. Beginnings of a black eye. Scraped up knuckles.” He pouts. “What else you got?”
“What else do you need?”
“Couple of stab wounds and a broken arm would be nice, but I doubt you’d be standing here, sassing your agent if you were that fucked up.”
“You obviously don’t know him well enough.” Hilary rolls her eyes. “He could be moments away from death and still find the energy to give me attitude.”
“She’s not wrong,” I confirm. Slipping out of my jacket, I dump the denim over the back of the velvet chaise longue next to me, and carefully, oh-so-carefully wriggle my way out of my t-shirt—lifting my arms over my head fucking hurts.
We’re all on a journey of discovery together; I haven’t seen the damage Jonah inflicted on me before I knocked his ass out, so the black and blue bruises blooming like death flowers across my ribcage are a treat for us all. Pulitzer prize winning photographer Callan Cross circles me like I’m the best Christmas gift he’s never received. “Sorry, kid. You’re not going anywhere,” he says.
“Ralph Lauren is not going to be okay with this!” Hilary looks like her head might explode. “They have a very clear aesthetic for this campaign, and that does not include—”
“Fuck Ralph Lauren.”
Even I do a double take at that.
Hilary does this thing when she’s very, incredibly stressed. She gets very quiet. Extends her pointer finger, ramrod straight, and, as my mother would say, winds her neck out. This is precisely what she does when she faces Cross and says, “With all due respect…have you—” She stabs with her taloned pointer, “—lost your fucking mind? ‘Fuck Ralph Lauren’ is not a sentiment I can endorse. Ralph Lauren is one of our biggest clients. Do you have any idea how many dicks most agents have to suck to land a sweet deal campaign like this? There is no way in hell that—” This is right where she hits boiling point, “—Fuck Ralph Lauren should ever be spoken out loud in my presence—”
Hilary’s caught some steam now. Left unchecked, she could rant for a solid thirty minutes, but Cross nips that in the bud.
Turning to me, he says, “What are they paying you?”
“I beg your pardon?” Hilary cries.
“Thirty-five grand,” I tell him.
Cross laughs. “Fuck. Okay. That’s a lot of money. I’ll give you forty if you do a private shoot with me. Today. Right now.”
“This is absurd,” Hilary says. “He’s not gonna do that. He’s contractually bound to this campaign. To us. The Van Kaiser Agency owns him.”
Two seconds is not enough time to process what’s going on. My mind’s working way slower than usual given all of the ridiculous shit that’s happened in the past twelve hours. But this is the one thing Hilary should not have said. Through the miasma of exhaustion clouding my head and the dull, persistent thrum of pain from…everywhere…those words cut through everything and hit me fucking hard.
Van Kaiser doesn’t own me. Hilary sure as shit doesn’t own me; I’ll be damned all the way to fucking hell and back if I let that shit slide. I narrow my eyes at Cross. “I’m gonna need more than the money.”
“Areyounotlisteningtothewordsthatarecomingoutofmymouth?” Hilary runs all of the words together, saying them quickly but enunciating very clearly at the same time—the way you might talk to an irritating child who just won’t do as they’re told. “Van Kaiser will fire you if we don’t get this shoot down and have some preliminary shots to send off to the rep by the end of the day. If you pick up a private shoot, halfway through one you’re being paid an awful lot of money to model on, then they will fire your ass so quick your head’ll still be spinning a week from Friday. No one will hire you again, Pax. We’ll still have exclusivity over your images and likeness until the end of the legally binding contract you signed with us. That means you can kiss goodbye to modelling for anyone else for the next two years. Two years, Pax. You really want to throw away the best years of your career for—for one day shoot with a photographer whose work, I personally think, is grossly overrated?”
Neither me nor Cross look at Hilary. Hilary, who’s always gone straight for the jugular when feeling threatened instead of trying to be fucking reasonable. Cross curves an eyebrow again. “What else do you want?”
“I’m done with this shit,” I tell him. “I don’t want my face plastered across a billboard every time I’m in an airport. I’m a photographer. I’m decent, but I don’t wanna be decent. I wanna be fucking great.”
“Oh, please. Everyone and their dog is a photographer these days,” Hilary seethes. “Scroll through your Insta feed. How many people—”
Cross smirks. “You wanna be my PA, then?”
“Fuck no. I’m no one’s assistant. I want you as my mentor. My teacher.”
He shakes his head. “You want that, you start out as a PA first. And I don’t do distance learning. You wanna learn something from me, you’ll have to move to Virginia and live out in the sticks, halfway up a mountain. You think you can handle that?”
Hah! He really has no idea who he’s talking to. “I already live in the sticks, halfway up a mountain. You’re not gonna dissuade me. But the PA thing—”
“Is non-negotiable.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, glaring at him. His eyes are piercing. Unblinking. Evidently, he’s not the type of guy to back down. “Fine. I’ll be your PA. And when you see what I can do, you’ll let me shoot with you instead and find yourself another lacky.”
“Maybe.” He seems amused by this negotiation we’re engaged in. I’m deadly serious, though. He won’t be so amused when he sees my work and understands what I’m capable of.
Hilary throws her hands in the air. “What, am I invisible now? Jesus fucking Christ, working with the guys was supposed to be easier than the girls. Can someone please regain an ounce of sense so we can get back on track here? Callan, we can cover most of the damage to his face in make-up. The split lip can be taken care of in post. The light’s great right now. If one of the guys can get—”
Callan composes himself and faces my agent. “That’s a wrap for today, Miss Weston. Pax and I have a busy day ahead of us, and I’m sure you want to get back to your agency. You’re gonna be fielding some urgent calls by the sounds of things.”
Man, if only I could collect this moment up and bottle it, I’d be sipping on Hilary’s devastation for years to come; the look on her face is fucking priceless. This is one of those situations where any normal person with a functioning conscience would feel sorry for someone. This could end Hilary’s career. Me being me, I can’t seem to bring myself to care, though. All I can think about is Chase, falling apart in her father’s arms, and I let my cruelty take me.