“Are you okay?” he half growled, and I felt a thrill travel up my spine, causing me to fight a shiver at his touch.
Hearing Cannon mutter something vicious under his breath, I reluctantly pulled my hand free and picked up my fork to dig into my rice and beans. “Nothing happened,” I assured him. “The guy was just looking at me. I’m a model. It’s my job to let people look at me, you know.”
“Not the way that fucker was looking at you,” Mom gritted out. “I’m just lucky the redhead was able to keep me from being arrested. It would have been worth it, though.”
I sighed heavily. Whether Mom wanted to admit it or not, we both knew that most of the photos I ended up starring in across the world were used as spank-bank material. It didn’t matter that I’d never done a nude photo shoot. Or that I was sixteen. I’d been modeling since before my teens, and I was aware there were some sick people out there. As did both of my parents. Which was one of the many reasons they had been so reluctant to let me start modeling in the first place.
But even back then, I’d known what I wanted and fought for the chance to prove I was strong enough and determined enough to succeed. At first, Mom had been unhappy with my career choice. She’d been forced into the same profession by her own mother when she was a kid, and she had hated every moment of it. But when she saw how much fun I had, and how good I was at what I did, she’d eventually calmed down and started helping me climb the ladder to the top.
Now, I was one of the highest-paid models worldwide, and it was all because she had my back.
Deciding to drop it, I cut into my chicken burrito and stuffed my mouth with a huge bite, while around me, the conversation turned to something less explosive than the creep from the day before. But while Cannon and Dad talked about the new material OtherWorld would be working on in the studio in the next few weeks, I felt Jagger’s eyes on me.
Chancing a glance at him while my brother was distracted, I found Jagger with a murderous look on his face, but his pale-blue eyes were full of concern.
“I’m okay,” I mouthed, and he seemed to relax, if only a little. I reached forward and stole a bite of his nachos, making him grin and roll his eyes, but he pulled his plate back toward himself and picked up one of his tacos.
“What movie are we watching?” Dad asked as he picked up his and Mom’s now-empty dishes before nodding at Cannon to help.
“I thought watching a movie together was just a suggestion,” my brother grumbled. He took Jagger’s plate and stacked it on top of his own before taking mine and following Dad to the sink.
“Nope,” Mom told him, popping the “p.” “I haven’t had everyone home on a Saturday night in forever. We’re doing this. Decide what you want to watch, and how you want your popcorn, before I start making the choices for you.”
“I vote scary,” Jagger spoke up.
“I second that,” Cannon announced.
I pressed my lips together, knowing I was already outnumbered and there was no reason for me to argue. It made me wish Violet were there so she could back me up and tie the scary-themed movie with a comedy.
“As long as there are no clowns, then fine,” Dad said as he rinsed the plates and started stacking them in the dishwasher.
I bit my lip, knowing he’d made that stipulation for Mom’s sake and not his own. My brother and I had heard the story of how Dad saved Mom from a haunted house clown room enough times to know that her fear of clowns was no joke. But it still made me smile to think about my father valiantly carrying my mother out of her worst nightmare come to life.
“I want M&M’s in my popcorn,” I told Mom before draining the last of my vitaminwater straight from the bottle.
Standing, I rinsed the bottle before placing it in the recycling bin. “I’m going to take a shower before we watch a movie,” I announced. “I assume we have a little time before it starts since we’re having snacks and we just ate dinner.”
Mom glanced at her watch. “You have a little over an hour. I think I’ll grab a shower too, and we can cuddle on the couch in our pajamas.”
“I’ll bring us a blanket,” I promised over my shoulder as I took the back stairs up to my room.
I don’t know why I took my time in the shower; it wasn’t like I needed to impress anyone. Though I wanted to spend some alone time with Jagger, even if it was just to watch a movie with only the two of us, it wasn’t like he would try to make a move. He knew how I felt about him, and despite my seeing the same hunger I felt blazing out of his cool-blue eyes from time to time, he’d made it plain that he wasn’t interested in acting on his feelings.
Instead of drying my hair, I just pulled it into a ponytail to keep it out of my way and grabbed a pair of sleep shorts. Rather than putting on a bra and being uncomfortable, I grabbed a hoodie and the promised blanket for Mom before leaving my bedroom. As I walked into the living room, it was to find my mother in similar attire, except she had gone with sleep pants. But her damp hair was up in a knot and her hoodie was one of Dad’s.
I glanced down at my own hoodie. One I’d stolen from Jagger months before when he’d left it lying on the chair after spending the night. He’d come over looking for it the next day, but I’d claimed not to have seen it.
Noticing it now, he rolled his eyes at me, and I winked as I took my usual spot on the sectional beside Mom. Dad took the seat on her other side, and I spread the soft, plush blanket across the three of us before he handed out individual bowls of popcorn.
Cannon dropped down on the other end of the sectional beside his friend just as the movie started, and I decided watching Jagger watch the movie was more entertaining than actually watching the movie myself. I wasn’t a fan of being scared, so I tried to avoid it as much as possible.
Before the movie was even over, Cannon had fallen asleep, his snoring drowning out the sound of the chainsaw onscreen. Jagger took the chance to stuff candy and popcorn pieces into my brother’s mouth, and a few times, he jerked awake, chewing the snack and not even curious as to how the food got there.
Giggling, I snuck over and grabbed a few Cheetos out of Cannon’s bowl before arranging one out of his nose.
He startled awake again just as the last person was being sliced and diced while some girl screamed in the background. “What’d I miss?” he muttered to his best friend, and I hid my grin as he looked over with the Cheeto sticking out of his nostril like a big orange booger.
Mom snickered beside me but didn’t give it away as she recanted the death of the last few people.
Then he scrubbed a hand over his face tiredly and felt what shouldn’t be there. “Damn,” he muttered and tossed the Cheeto into his bowl disgustedly. “I’m more tired than I realized if I’m feeding my nose in my sleep.”
“Yeah,” Dad agreed, his face completely serious even though he’d been silently cracking up while I’d put food up my brother’s nose only moments before. “Maybe you should head to bed, bud.”
“I think I will.” Yawning, he stood. “Night.”
“Goodnight,” I murmured, giving him a beaming smile that he rolled his eyes at and climbed the stairs to everyone else telling him goodnight.
I heard his bedroom door shut, and then we all burst out laughing. Tears of mirth in my eyes, I didn’t even care that I had to clean up his mess. Mom and Dad went to bed a few minutes later while I was still cleaning up the pieces of popcorn Cannon had spilled during the movie, leaving me alone with Jagger for the first time in forever.