by K. A. Linde
“Yep! We’ll be there. Hopefully, it’s only one day though because, from here on out, we’ll have four to six hours of practice every day to get ready for the NCA national competition in Orlando.”
“Think you guys will bring home first prize this year?”
Stacia nodded vigorously. “Getting fifth last year was an embarrassment. We can do better, and we will!”
“I believe it.” Trihn grabbed her purse. “I have to get to class. So much work to do on top of this fashion show. It’s going to keep me plenty busy. I’ll see you guys at three.”
“See you then!”
Trihn left the house, and the weight of all the work she had to do before the end of the semester crashed over her. It was well and good that she was wrapped up in her boyfriend, but she couldn’t let everything else slip.
By the time the afternoon rolled around, she was already mentally exhausted and had three new papers to work on for next week.
Bryna and Stacia showed up ten minutes after her, and the visual arts major she’d gotten to photograph the models appeared right behind them.
“Hey, thanks so much for showing up,” she said, shaking his hand. “I’m Trihn.”
“Jasper.” He swept his longish mop of hair out of his eyes and itched for the ponytail holder at his wrist. He was lugging a giant camera bag, a tripod, and some other equipment, including one that looked like a boom.
She wasn’t entirely sure how he was carrying it all around.
“You can set up in there. We’ll send models in to you after their interviews and measurements,” Trihn told him.
“Cool.” He nodded and then disappeared.
He’d had experience working with the fashion design school in the past, so she was sure that he would get the shots she wanted. It would be different when they did the photo shoot with her designs. She’d want to be there to see what was going on. But, right now, he could handle it on his own.
“Where did you pick him up?” Bryna asked, sitting down on the desk and raising an eyebrow.
“He’s working for free.”
“You get what you pay for,” she said.
Trihn rolled her eyes. “And that’s why millionaires pay for your time.”
“Because I’m worth it, of course.”
“Okay. Girls should be showing up soon. I’m going to sit out in the waiting room with the girls, so I can observe them without them knowing who I am yet. I’ll need one of you checking people in. Stacia, probably you since you’re friendly.”
Stacia skipped over to Trihn and took the clipboard. “Got it.”
Bryna rolled her eyes. “I’m friendly…when I want to be.”
“Right. Let us know when that time comes around this year,” Trihn said.
Bryna flipped her off.
“Once everyone has shown up, I’ll work with you on interviews, and Stacia will direct people into the room.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll just sit here and wait then,” Bryna said.
Stacia went out to the front room as girls came in to audition for the model call. Trihn came in shortly afterward and pretended to sign in with Stacia.
Trihn observed the girls and even made friends with one gorgeous redhead. Trihn had gone to dozens of model calls before being selected to model for Gucci. She could pick out the bitchy girls, the divas, and the high-maintenance girls who wouldn’t listen to anyone’s critiques. It was cut-and-dry and made her life so much easier once they got into the interviews.
The looks on the girls’ faces when they saw that Trihn was interviewing with Bryna was priceless. Modeling was so competitive that everyone should be on their best behavior at all times.
By the time they had gone through most of the girls, Trihn and Bryna were both in pissy moods. These girls just were not up to the caliber she had been hoping for.
The redhead was the last girl to come through. Trihn had high hopes for her, and even though she didn’t ace the interview like Trihn had hoped, she sent the girl through to the photo shoot anyway.
Jasper returned after the final model had finished and laid out all the images in front of Trihn. After selecting the girls to move on to round two, she realized it wasn’t that many. She would need at least twenty girls for her line, and of the nearly hundred who had come today, she had sent through only twenty-three to the next round.
“Shit,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” Bryna agreed.
“Guess you’ll have to use us after all!” Stacia cheered.
“Excuse me. Is your open call over?” a woman with a thick South African accent said from behind them.
Trihn hadn’t even heard anyone come into the room.
“Yes, sorry, we’re done. We finished promptly at eight,” she said without looking up.
“Well, what a pity.”
“Trihn,” Bryna said, nudging her, “I think we should open the call back up.”
“What? Why would we—” The words died on her lips as she turned around to see the woman standing before her. “Francesca!”
Trihn ran across the room and pulled her friend into her arms. She and Francesca had modeled for Gucci the summer after her junior year of high school. They’d worked together on a few more campaigns before Trihn had decided to quit the work to go to college.
“What are you doing here?” Trihn asked.
“Well, you messaged me, and I’m in between jobs. We wrapped up the new line earlier this week. I thought I would come help out a friend.” She flipped her stick-straight blonde hair to one side. “And I brought in some reinforcements.”
Standing in the entrance to the design studio were nine other gorgeous models, all girls who Trihn had worked with at some point in her time as a model.
“Thank you so much for coming. I can’t pay you though.”
Bryna cleared her throat. “That’s not exactly true.”
“You cannot pay for this!”
Bryna shrugged. “I can do what I want.”
“Well, that’s not necessary,” Francesca said. “We’re doing this for fun. I just wish I could have gotten a few more people together for you.”
“No, this is perfect. I just have to pick another ten then,” Trihn said in wonder and bewilderment.
“Oh, let me take a look,” Francesca said. She leaned over the images they had been sorting through before she’d shown up. “Hmm…”
With ease, she went through them and picked out nine. After a minute, she selected the redhead as their last model.
“That’s who I would go with. They seem to fit the Trihn I know. And we can work with them in the meantime,” Francesca said. “It’ll be like a three-week mini vacation.”
“This is going to be amazing,” Trihn said, feeling more excitement than ever for this project. For the first time, she really thought that she could do this.
Trihn reached for her phone that she hadn’t looked at in hours with all the interviews they had done. She had missed a few texts and a video message from Damon. She clicked on the message and was transported to LA where he was standing in what looked like the midst of a recording studio.
“Hey, love. I just got into the recording studio. Chloe wanted to show me around. Here’s Chloe. Say hi, Chloe.”
The camera veered over to Chloe with her dark hair piled up into a ponytail on the top of her head. She was in dark jeans and an oversized sweatshirt. She waved at the camera. “Hey, Trihn!”
Damon flipped his phone back to face him. “We have to work bright and early tomorrow morning at eight a.m. I have no clue what I’m going to do with myself that early in the morning. All I know is that I’m missing you like crazy, and I hope that your model call went well. Call me back when you get this message.”
The message ended, and before she could even sigh or smile, Francesca leaned over and looked at her with wide eyes. “Was that Chloe Avana?”
Trihn laughed. “Yeah.”
“And Damon Stone?”
“You mean, her hot rock-star boyfrien
d?” Bryna said with a wink.
“Girl, we have a lot to catch up on,” Francesca said.
“I guess we do,” Trihn said.
AS MUCH FUN AS IT WAS to have all her model friends around Vegas for the days that Damon was gone, it was also exhausting with all the work Trihn had to do. She had stayed up late into the night and gotten up early every morning just to try to finish her papers while working on this project.
It hadn’t hurt that Damon called every morning and every night before she went to bed to fill her in on what was happening. It’d sounded like a long, tedious process, but he’d said, other than one hiccup, everything had been running smoothly, as planned.
He was supposed to come home in the morning, and she was all jittery ready to see him. She knew he finished in the studio around ten at night on a late day, so she was sitting around the house working on one of her papers and waiting for his call.
Bryna and Stacia were wandering around the house in short cut dresses and dancing to a playlist Stacia had put together on Spotify.
“Trihn,” Stacia cried, “come on! Dance party!”
Trihn looked up at them over the top of her MacBook. “As much as I’d love to, I have work to do.”
“All work and no play makes you as bitchy as Bryna,” Stacia said.
“Hey, I’m queen bitch. Trihn is just a moody, angsty, serious bitch. There’s a big difference. I was born this fabulous,” Bryna said.
“I’m not bitchy. I’m just the only person in this house who cares about my education.”
Stacia laughed. “We all care…sort of.”
Bryna cracked up. “Come on. It’s Friday. Let’s go to Posse and have a drink. Maya is working, and you could probably stand to get out of the house.”
“I’d love to, but I’m going to pass.”
“You can’t just sit around and wait for Damon to call,” Bryna said. She crossed her arms over her chest and fixed her quintessential stare on Trihn. “And don’t try to deny that’s what you’re doing.”
“Fine. That’s what I’m doing. I’m that girl. But he’ll be coming home tomorrow, and then I won’t be freaking out anymore.”
“Or you could just trust him,” Bryna said.
Trihn closed her eyes and counted to ten. “I do trust him. I just miss him.”
“We both know you well enough to know that you’re worried,” Stacia said, taking the seat next to Trihn.
“And we think it’s in your best interests to get out of the house. Damon isn’t Neal,” Bryna said. “There’s really no reason for you to be so stressed.”
“I don’t think he’s like Neal,” she said. “In fact, maybe he’s the opposite of Neal. I just want Damon to be home.”
“Well, he won’t be home until the morning. So, a party it is,” Stacia said. “Plus, everyone is going out tonight—the whole football team and all the cheerleaders. We only have a week until nationals, and the guys are playing their spring game the weekend we get back.”
“So, you want me to go and hang out with your boyfriends—”
“Whoa! I don’t have a boyfriend,” Stacia said automatically.
“And, well, Eric is worried about you moping around here,” Bryna added.
“No,” Trihn said. “Maybe I’ll go out after Damon’s call, but I have to pick him up early in the morning, so I wouldn’t want to be out late anyway.”
Bryna sighed. “Fine. He’d better call soon then.”
They walked back to their rooms to finish getting ready.
Trihn whispered under her breath, “Yeah, he’d better.”
It was one o’clock in the morning when Trihn’s phone rang.
She had given up on even the semblance of getting work done. Her computer was sitting half-open with Facebook winking up at her. Her design notebook was flipped to a blank page. Her imagination had run away with her but not toward her creative endeavors.
All she had thought about was the time she had waited up all day and night for Preston to call her back and how she had so easily swallowed his bullshit the next day. He’d been at work. He’d been so busy. He’d fallen asleep at his desk.
Yeah, right.
She should have seen it then. He’d been with someone else. The devastating part, of course, was that the someone else had been Lydia, but it would have been just as hard if it were anyone else.
As she reached for her phone, she had a horrible sinking feeling of déjà vu.
“Hello?” Trihn said.
“Trihn!” Damon called into the phone.
She yanked the phone back from her ear. It was insanely loud on the other end of the phone. Music slammed into her ear, and Damon was practically yelling to be heard over the noise.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Fuck, I’m so sorry, love. I’m out at a nightclub with Chloe and some of the production crew. They wanted to celebrate finishing up the album. I was going to call you when I got back to the hotel, but then time just ran away from me.”
“It’s almost one in the morning,” she said.
“I know. I looked down at my phone, saw the time, and freaked out. I hope you weren’t worried.”
Trihn took a deep breath. Of course she had been worried. “Well, I was. Kind of. I mean, you normally call right when you get out of production.”
“Damon, come on!” Trihn heard someone yell in the phone. “I want you to meet someone.”
“Chloe, just give me a minute,” Damon said. The phone was muffled, like he’d put his hand over it, as he talked to Chloe. “Sorry about that. Chloe has been introducing me to a lot of people. She’s been really supportive.”
I bet she has.
Trihn tried to clear the ugly thoughts from her head. Chloe had been nothing but awesome for Damon. And she had been incredibly nice to Trihn. She had spoken to Chloe a couple of times since Damon had been gone. Their relationship seemed entirely professional, and there was no reason to think it was otherwise. That wasn’t the kind of person either of them were.
“That’s good, Damon. I just didn’t think that you’d be out so late when you’re coming back on an early flight tomorrow.”
“About that,” he said so quietly that she barely heard him.
Her stomach sank.
“Chloe set up a few interviews and meetings with people around the city for the upcoming album release. She thought that it’d be good for me to be there to meet people in the business. It’s such a good opportunity that I don’t think I can turn it down.”
“Wow. You’re promoting the album already?”
“Yeah. It’ll come out at the beginning of the summer. Preorders are up everywhere, and the full track listing will go up once they release the title track.”
“That’s fast-moving,” she said. She took a deep breath. “How long are you going to be gone?”
“I think just a day or two. I had to sign a lot of paperwork to record this song, and I need to get my own talent agent and manager while I’m out here. Don’t want to get screwed over or anything.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to. I’m still missing you like crazy. Can’t wait to get back to you.”
“I know. I can’t wait either.”
“Damon!” Chloe called again.
He sighed heavily. “Hey, I’ve got to go, but I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“All right. I’ll talk to you then. I miss you.”
“Bye, Trihn.”
The line died in her hand, and she stared at her phone.
This was a good thing for Damon. This was what he had been working toward. He needed to be there for his career. But it didn’t stop the first edge of panic from taking over her body.
She repeated to herself all the things Damon had said to her before he left. They were all that mattered. He cared for her. They could make it. They were a team. It pushed the panic back a little, but knowing she had been sitting around all night waiting just irritated her.
All nigh
t, she had been freaking out about him instead of just trusting him and having fun with her friends. That was what she should have been doing—not sitting around her apartment, all alone, and getting worked up.
Trihn changed into one of her signature outfits—black leather miniskirt and black rhinestone bra top with her leather jacket and knee-high leather boots. She blew out her dark hair until it was stick straight and then added dark makeup with cherry-red lips.
She called a cab, and ten minutes later, she was breezing through Posse’s crowded entranceway with nothing more than a flutter of her fingers to the bouncer as she bypassed the fifty people waiting in line. The nightclub was jam-packed. It was usually busy, but since Chloe’s appearance, Posse had been unstoppable with lines out the door, a full dance floor, and flowing drinks. Even the VIP section was crowded.
Luckily, Trihn knew everyone who worked there. She found Maya under a mountain of drink orders.
“Trihni!” Maya cried when she saw her. “You don’t happen to want to pour drinks tonight? I’m swamped.”
“I’d be useless. You should ask E.”
“If I wanted margaritas, I would.” Maya passed over a round of shots, two beers, and a few mixed drinks to the people in front of the bar. They were quickly replaced by another group desperate for drinks. Maya handed Trihn a drink. “Gin and tonic, right?”
“Thanks. I’ll take a Peppermint Posse martini, too, when you get a chance.”
Maya stopped what she was doing and looked at Trihn. “You want to get fucked up tonight?”
Trihn shrugged. “Basically.”
Maya shook her head but started making her the drink. She handed the potent mix over to Trihn. “I don’t even want to know what lover boy did, do I?”