Toby walked away to change his lens and Lex the stylist came over with her damned comb in hand. As she reached to fuss with my hair for the umpteenth time, I took that as my cue to relax my arms and push a disgruntled sigh from my nose. My eyes shifted toward the cluster of familiar faces standing off to the side. Cee and Shane watched with amusement creasing their eyes and pulling at their lips, and I felt the temptation to tell them they wouldn’t find it so funny if they were the ones with some strange woman raking their hair back. But I maintained my silence as my eyes fell on Audrey.
She had come by over forty minutes ago, when we had just started with the shoot, and I’d stopped everything to greet her with a sheepish grin. She had been so serious then, encouraging me to get back to work, but now, her pale blue eyes lit with laughter as she bit her bottom lip. Cee said something to her, and I saw Audrey’s mouth move with her reply. Dammit, I wish I knew what they had said, because Audrey doubled over with an eruption of giggles and Celia clapped a hand over her mouth. They were laughing at me, I knew that much, and not even the defensive part of my brain could stop me from basking in the glow of that sound.
“Your girlfriend is cute,” Lex commented, following my gaze.
I damn near jumped at the insinuation. “What? Celia’s not my—”
“No, I know; Shane’s into her. I mean the one in white. What’s her name? Audra?”
“Audrey,” I corrected. “And she’s not my girlfriend.”
“Ah.” Lex brushed my hair back and strategically laid a few strands against my forehead before declaring, “Okay, Toby, he’s good.”
“He better be,” Toby replied and came back to instruct me into a few other poses while I mulled over my brief exchange with Lex.
This thing with Audrey had begun coincidental, was damn near accidental, but it’d quickly become something close to habitual. We had exchanged numbers. We’d slept together. Hell, she had even spent the night. Everything about that was screaming relationship to me, yet I still wasn’t sure that was what I even wanted. Maybe all I wanted was someone to fuck every now and then, now that Cee was clearly out of the picture. Maybe I just wanted someone to make me feel the way Audrey did when she was around.
Actually, she left me terrified.
Terrified of letting her in. Terrified of letting her go. Terrified of the day she’d finally open her eyes and see me for the person that I am—paranoid, surly, hateful.
Terrified.
“Okay, man. Let’s move it inside,” Toby instructed irritably. “This goddamn wind is pissing me off. I don’t know how you guys can stand how cold it is.”
“Cold?” I laughed, incredulous. “This isn’t cold.”
Toby’s grey eyes met mine, unamused. “I’m from Virginia. Trust me. This is cold.”
Audrey quietly sauntered over. “Cold is the middle of January in Minnesota,” she jumped in, taking a place at my side. “This, right now, is perfect.”
“Whatever you say,” Toby snickered, shaking his head and heading inside.
Lex, Shane, and Celia followed closely behind, taking quick glances in our direction before disappearing into the sanctuary of the shop. Audrey and I were left alone for the first time since she’d arrived, and even as the cars drove by and the pedestrians passed, I felt wrapped and secluded in her energy. My mind settled and my lungs worked easily, breathing in the cool air and granting myself a moment to simply feel alive and good.
Audrey’s head tipped back and her eyes met mine. In this position, I wanted to forget about the photoshoot and just spend the next twenty years of my life kissing her. But I stood there, frozen, just drowning quietly in her gaze.
“Cold,” she snickered, breaking the silence. “This isn’t cold.”
I laughed at her eyeroll and playful demeanor. “Minnesota, huh?”
“Yeah. My whole family went on this big trip to Minneapolis when I was fifteen. They were so excited about the great deals they got, until they realized why they were so great.”
Continuing to chuckle, I shook my head. “I bet that was fun.”
She barely nodded as her eyes dropped to my lips. “Yeah. It was. I mean, it was freezing, don’t get me wrong. But we had fun.”
She wanted to kiss me, and hell, I wanted to kiss her. But my attention was pulled toward the window and I saw Toby pitching his umbrella lights while Lex laid out her supplies. My gut churned with apprehension, thinking about this and what it meant, and where it would take me. It was a good thing, only a good thing, but fuck, the rolling in my stomach was so uncomfortable, I wanted to run and forget about the whole damn thing.
“You okay?” Audrey asked, grasping my attention and tugging my gaze back to hers.
There she was, still wearing a smile even while her tone dripped with concern. She was the embodiment of calm, a soothing beacon to lure me into comfort, and what that meant, I wouldn’t think about right now. I just needed her to be here, to work whatever power she had over me, and she was.
“Yeah.” I nodded slowly. “I am.”
For now.
***
With some equipment and a very small crew of people, Salem Skin had been transformed into a photography studio. Audrey and Celia had found themselves a seat on the waiting room’s couch, while Shane directed Toby and Lex. Gus had perched himself at his daughter’s station. He overlooked the process with a shit-eating grin plastered to his face, and I could only imagine the dollar signs prancing around in that brain of his. I couldn’t even blame him, knowing the coverage the shop would get the moment the magazine hit the stands. Both of our pockets were going to be comfortably lined in cash and the confusing blend of emotions coalescing in my gut had become unbearable by the time we were finished.
“I am fucking starving,” Shane declared with an exhausted sigh.
“Well, if y’all wanna grab something to eat, I’m finished here,” Toby replied, packing his camera away before disassembling the umbrella lights.
“Thank fucking Christ,” Shane muttered, pushing himself away from my counter as he asked me, “You wanna grab some food?”
With a quick glance at the clock, I noted the time. The poetry club was going to open in just an hour, and I knew that getting dinner would mean skipping an integral part of my routine. I’d been going to the club for at least six years, but I was also starving. To say I was conflicted was a big understatement.
So, I peeked through the open door at Audrey and nudged my chin toward her. “Hey, Audrey,” I called, feeling her given name was somehow too impersonal but not knowing why.
She glanced my way, smiled, and instead of simply answering from where she sat, she patted Celia’s knee and got up to walk my way, giving me her full attention. “Yeah?”
“What do you wanna do tonight?”
It was so presumptuous of me to ask her that. The question was one a man in a relationship might ask his girlfriend, and why I thought she’d even want to spend her night with me, I don’t know.
“Well, what are my options?”
I scratched uncomfortably at the back of my neck. “Uh, well, I didn’t know if you were going to the poetry club or not, so if you wanted to head over there, you could—"