Crazy Stupid Love (Blame it on New York)

by Cassie Rocca

  “Well he certainly manages it. He’s such a sweet guy that I’d gladly ask him out on a date!” laughed Sydney.

  “Sorry, but he’s already taken,” replied Zoe in a tone of voice that was the opposite of Sydney’s.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think the two of you… I thought you were with the soccer player?”

  Zoe looked at her in surprise. “Oh, no! I mean, yes, I’m dating… I mean, I was dating Evan. Eric and I are just friends. But he has a girlfriend, that’s what I meant”

  “You said it so seriously that for a moment I thought you must be jealous!”

  Brooke chuckled. “Maybe she’s regretting letting him get away!”

  “I’m going to tell Evan what’s going on,” Zoe said, ignoring their comments. She didn’t understand why, but what they’d said made her feel uneasy.

  Evan didn’t take the news very well at all. He looked around angrily for his replacement, but Zoe said that the new model had already gone to get changed and that he would have to return the wings and bow. With an angry gesture Evan handed them over and then rushed off to get changed. He left without even saying ‘goodbye’ and Zoe knew that she wouldn’t be seeing him again.

  Twenty minutes later, the sound of voices had started to get really loud. Everyone had been in the room for over an hour, the first shots had been successfully taken and the remaining ten models were eager to get into their poses. Sydney was ready, wearing the dress chosen for the photo for February… but there was still no sign of Eric.

  Seeing the impatient look on Brooke’s face as she was being entertained by Clover and Liberty, Zoe headed off towards the small dressing room she had seen her friend enter.

  He’d been in there quite a while. Had he changed his mind? Brooke would be really angry, to say nothing of Liberty…

  She walked confidently over to the dressing room and stopped outside, ready to flatter him again if necessary. “Eric, you’re taking too long,” she began, drawing aside the curtain unceremoniously. Their relationship was such that they didn’t have any inhibitions in situations like this. “I’ve already done January’s model, now it’s your turn and I need you out there as…”

  At the sight of the spectacle before her, the words died in her mouth.

  In the small, dimly lit cubicle, Eric was completely naked, offering her a perfect view of his smooth, well-proportioned back, broad shoulders and muscles that were well-defined and hard without being too big.

  And an ass to die for. Firm, well-shaped…

  “My God,” she whispered as she stared and clung tightly to the dark curtain.

  Eric turned abruptly, giving her a full-on view of his well-defined chest and the rest of his anatomy, just before he grabbed a sweatshirt to cover his modesty, his face turning a bright beetroot-red.

  “Zoe! Damn you, couldn’t you knock?!” he exclaimed, sounding embarrassed.

  “Erm,” Zoe cleared her throat, still unable to remove her eyes from his lean physique, “because… it’s not easy to knock on a curtain?” she stammered. “For Christ’s sake, Eric… why the hell are you naked?!”

  “I’m supposed to be dressed up as Cupid, aren’t I? If you’d prefer me to put my clothes back on…”

  “No, no!” she interrupted, hurriedly, adding, “You go right ahead,” before quickly closing the curtain.

  God…

  Her heart pounded in dull thuds in her chest. She had never been so shocked in her life!

  What the hell had he been doing standing there as naked as the day he was born? She would have imagined anything except seeing him like that.

  Incredulously, she drew back the curtain again, as though to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. But Eric was still there, now wearing the white cotton skirt. Although his nakedness was no longer on display, Zoe still felt an equally hot flush at the sight of the rest of that amazing physique.

  She wasn’t used to seeing him without his clothes on. She couldn’t remember ever having seen more than Eric’s calf or his bare arm in ten years of friendship.

  Jesus, and to think that she had almost been convinced that he didn’t actually have a body at all!

  “Why the hell do you always cover yourself up?” she said, suddenly inexplicably annoyed.

  Eric jumped, quickly pulling on one of the robes that the models had provided for him. “Are you still here?”

  “I’ve come to tell you to hurry up and you keep wasting time,” said Zoe, looking straight at him. His hair looked unkempt as if he had been repeatedly running his hands through it and there was some slight stubble on his face that made him look even more charming. He was looking for his glasses, which were on top of a pile of his clothes and she instinctively stepped forward to stop him. “Don’t put those damn glasses on!”

  “I can’t see anything without them.”

  “You’re not blind.” She looked him up and down then, mystified, shook her head. “Why?” She asked him.

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you take all your clothes off?”

  “I don’t know, maybe because I still haven’t learned this trick of getting changed without taking off all my clothes first, but I promise that I’ll learn to master the technique as soon as possible,” snapped Eric sarcastically. “If it annoys you so much, I can just get dressed again right now. I didn’t even want to do this damn photo shoot!”

  “I just didn’t expect to see you completely naked. I thought… well, I thought that you would get undressed like all the other prudes, one piece at a time!”

  “All I’m supposed to be wearing is this ridiculous skirt!”

  Zoe sighed. “Okay, okay. But why do you always have to dress like such a loser when you could be showing off that physique of yours?”

  “I’m sorry to hear that you don’t like my clothes, but they are comfortable and I like them. I’m not a model, Zoe, nor do I aspire to become one.”

  “But…” Zoe continued to shake her head, trying to dispel the image of his naked body from her mind. “Whatever, never mind. Get yourself oiled up, we’re all waiting for you”

  “Oil?”

  “Yes, oil, to highlight those muscles that I didn’t know you possessed!” she snapped, leaving the cubicle. “You damn… cheat!” she muttered as she strode away.

  Clover stopped her. “Is something wrong? Don’t tell me that he’s changed his mind…”

  “Oh, no, not at all! He’s really enjoying himself, standing there stark naked, gazing at the muscles he’s kept hidden from us all this time!”

  “Eric has muscles?” her friend teased her, running after her. “Are you sure?”

  “He also has a nice ass,” Zoe muttered. “And that’s not all!”

  Clover stared at her. “Zoe! How much did you see?!”

  “I saw everything!” she replied, running her hands over her face and rubbing her eyes. “God… I won’t forget that in a hurry!”

  Clover laughed. “Was it that amazing? So why are you angry, then?”

  “It’s Eric! I wasn’t prepared… I mean, he could have let me know!”

  “Let you know what? That he’s well-equipped and has a pretty nice body under those clothes of his?”

  “Under those nerdy clothes that do absolutely nothing for him at all! Heck, with a pair of contact lenses, a sexy shirt instead of those awful sweaters he wears and a tighter pair of jeans he would look totally different!”

  “Yeah, but would it matter? He would still be Eric – pedantic, sarcastic, fussy old Eric,” smiled Clover, looking at her with a strange expression on her face.

  Zoe ran her fingers through her hair. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said, sounding unconvinced. But she continued to feel as though she had been cheated out of something.

  “Eric, it’s your turn,” said Clover, catching up with him as he came out of the cabin.

  He nodded, taking hold of the flaps of robe with both hands. “You owe me a favor. A big favor!” he snapped, glaring at her.

  “Why,
what have I done wrong!?”

  “Your friend Zoe talked me into doing this by telling me how much you would suffer if the news of an irritated Brooke Samuels made it into the gossip mags, seeing as it was Cade who introduced you to her.”

  “I see. And what about Liberty?”

  “She was all set to scalp me when I said I didn’t want to do it!”

  “And Zoe?”

  “Oh, I’ll make her pay,” he growled threateningly, “I’ll make her pay more than anyone else.” Clover chuckled. “By the way, I gather I owe you a compliment, but I’ll keep it for later.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve never seen Zoe so upset at the sight of a naked man!” Clover looked around her, then leaned toward him. “She’s in shock! She could hardly string two words together when she came out of your dressing room. That piqued my curiosity, so I can’t wait to see you on that set now.”

  Eric felt his heart beating more and more rapidly. When Zoe had marched into that cubicle whilst he was getting changed, he had almost passed out. It had been the thought of posing half-naked in front of her that terrified him more than anything else. He knew his body was average – he was agile and slim, but considering Zoe’s tastes, which were oriented towards roided up athletes, he felt unattractive and puny. But she had actually seemed quite flustered, and Clover’s words had confirmed his impression.

  His friend seemed to be reading his thoughts. “Just keep your head up and enjoy yourself. You’ve got everything these other guys have got and I’m sure it’ll go great. Didn’t you know that the wiry look is terribly fashionable nowadays?”

  “Fashionable or not, I just hope I don’t look ridiculous”

  “You certainly won’t look any more ridiculous than the model playing May!” laughed Clover. “He’s wearing a thong with a fig leaf on the front and a garland of flowers on his head!”

  “I’ve been lucky, then.”

  Before he could get closer to the brightly lit set, Clover took him by the arm. “Can you do me a favor?”

  “Another one?”

  “This one is for both of us,” she said, mysteriously. “Imagine you’re an Adonis – a man who can get anything he wants. Then think about Zoe and what you would say to her, do with her, how you would like her to feel about you – and when you’ve gotten properly into your role, lift your head up and look at her.”

  “Are you trying to ruin me?”

  “I just want to do an experiment, that’s all. I’ll explain later.” Clover began to walk away, but then turned back and grabbed hold of him so that her lips were almost touching his ear. “And hey – when you think about her, don’t go into too much detail. Remember you’re only wearing a skirt!”

  Eric suppressed a giggle at her rude joke as he watched her walk away.

  One of the seamstresses approached him, holding out her hand for his towelling robe, and his desire to laugh disappeared, immediately replaced by a heightened sense of anxiety. Undressing in front of all those beautiful women and those perfect professional models made him nervous. He took a chance and glanced over in Zoe’s direction, but she seemed to be totally focused on her camera, so he took a deep breath and relinquished the robe. Immediately, one of the makeup people came over to cover him with oil, which made him grimace with disgust.

  Sydney, who was sheathed in a fiery red evening gown, walked towards him. She was beautiful, her loose black hair falling onto her shoulders in perfectly formed curls. She looked at him with frank admiration.

  “Wow, what a stud! You’re even better than I thought.”

  “Well that’s very kind of you, but I don’t believe it for a minute!”

  “Well I’m sorry but you’re mistaken. It’s a shame that you’re already taken, you know?” She winked at him, then waited for her orders from Zoe, who was at that moment walking towards them.

  “Is everything OK?” she asked while Eric slipped the white angel wings on.

  “Remember your promise. No more than ten minutes,” he said, staring at her.

  “You’ll like it, trust me!” smiled Brooke, who was standing nearby. “You just have to think about how beautiful you are and how beautiful Syd is, and the rest will come naturally.”

  Zoe cleared her throat to attract his attention. “Sydney already knows what to do. As for you, you need to wield your bow as if you were about to fire an arrow at her, with your legs planted firmly apart planted on the ground and I want you to look at her as if she is the thing that you want most in the world.”

  Eric grimaced but didn’t answer her. He just raised his bow, holding it awkwardly as though it were red hot. “Which way round does this thing go again?”

  Rolling her eyes, Zoe positioned his hands and arms, then she bent down to push his legs apart. Eric held his breath at the touch of those warm, slender fingers. “There, you’re perfect,” she murmured, passing a finger over the quadriceps that the stance he was holding made stand out proudly. Eric focused on all the unpleasant things he could think of to stop himself from getting excited.

  Zoe got up quickly, took a step back and bumped into Brooke. “Oops, sorry!” she stammered. Then she spun round and went back to her position behind the camera. “Ok, let’s get a move on. If you can give me the right pose straight away, it’ll only take about ten minutes.”

  Sydney sensed the tension in his body and smiled, placing a hand on his back. “Just relax, Eric. You’re not doing anything illegal.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Sydney, can you mess up his hair a little?” asked Brooke, who was now standing next to Zoe. “Let’s make this handsome devil look a little more evil!”

  “Aren’t I supposed to be the god of love? What’s evil got to do with anything?”

  “Knowing Brooke’s taste in men, it’s got everything to do with it all right,” chuckled Sydney, running her fingers through his hair.

  “That’s enough,” shouted Zoe. “I don’t want him to look too unnatural.”

  To Eric’s ears, those words sounded like the greatest of compliments.

  He started posing and looked at Sydney, trying to feel like a fierce, sexy archer, which was surely just how Evan Lewis would have felt in his place. The satisfaction of having been judged better than that hulk made him feel bolder and his self-confidence showed in his posture, which was much straighter than usual. Sydney smiled encouragingly and, just as Clover had suggested, Eric imagined for a moment that he was a confident, attractive man who was able to get what he wanted with ease.

  “Put some more passion into it and it’s perfect,” said Zoe, clicking away like a mad thing from all angles. Eric closed his eyes for a moment, imagining that it was her he was aiming his arrow at instead of the model, and his heart skipped a beat. Wearing that dress, Zoe would have looked like a fairy tale come to life…

  His eyes turned automatically to the object of his desire, his eyes filled with emotion. Zoe remained transfixed, her eyes on his, and time seemed to stop… at least until her fingers lost their grip on the camera with its telephoto lens and it ended up crashing to the ground with a thud.

  In the anxious silence that followed, a female giggle was distinctly heard in the room and Eric knew, with certainty, that it was Clover.

  “Shit!” Zoe snapped, picking up her camera quickly.

  “Is it broken?” asked Brooke, sounding worried. “No, no… it’s all right.”

  Eric looked around, catching Clover’s eye and raised his eyebrows. In response, she gave him the thumbs up.

  “Ok, I think that’ll be enough. You can go,” muttered Zoe, walking rapidly away.

  Eric didn’t need to be told twice. Breathing a sigh of relief, he gave his wings and bow to one of the assistants and then he turned to Sydney and took hold of her hand. “It was a pleasure,” he said, bending down to place a kiss on it. He was feeling playful now that he was free to leave the set.

  “It was for me too!” she said with a smile. “And if you are ever single, call me!
” she added with a giggle, as he walked away.

  Eric didn’t answer and left the circle of lights. Passing near to Zoe he couldn’t resist the urge to place his hand on her shoulder, and he felt her stiffen under his fingers. “Was I ok?”

  “Yeah, you were fine!” she nodded, avoiding his eyes.

  “Thank you for making it quick,” he murmured, winking at her.

  “Go and get dressed, for God’s sake,” she muttered, staring at him.

  Although he wasn’t sure what was going on in Zoe’s mind at that moment, as he walked out of the room, Eric felt a kind of euphoria the like of which he had only experienced a few other times in his life.

  *

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the computer screen. Eric’s face was so intense, so beautiful… she still couldn’t get her head around how good-looking he was, but most of all she still couldn’t understand why it had taken her so long to notice.

  Giving in to an impulse she ran her fingers along his features, going down his neck and along his clavicle, running them as far down his chest as the shot allowed. After years of friendship she knew the texture of his skin, she knew it was warm, smelling of shower gel and a subtle masculine scent the name of which escaped her but which she had always associated only with him. But he had never, until now, aroused in her this uncontrollable desire to feel her body against his.

  The photos from that afternoon had left her feeling full of overwhelming desire, not simply because the theme of the shoot had been passion, but because they were of Eric, that shy and bashful boy for whom she had always felt only an almost fraternal affection.

  When he had stared at her in that way, full of vibrant passion, she’d felt an intense heat wash over her. In a flash she had seen herself in the model’s place, wearing that wonderful dress, with that semi-naked man, a man who represented love in every way, intent on possessing her…

  She jumped up from her chair, fanning herself with her hand. Maybe it would be better if she waited a few days before going through the photos she had taken that afternoon. She still needed to recover from the surprise of seeing her best friend naked – and of having ardently desired him.