Whatever. It couldn’t be that hard to stay in line, even if I didn’t know what the formal rules were. To my mind, they were probably pretty basic.
Don’t do or say anything inappropriate to or with the kids, which wouldn’t be a problem for me. Unless swearing was considered inappropriate. In which case, I was fucked. Probably something along the lines of keeping to whatever you promise them and shit like that.
No doubt whichever one of the brats I got teamed up with would tell me if something was against the rules, so I wasn’t too worried about having missed them.
As I stepped up to one of the coffee urns which were bound to contain swill that would be undrinkable, a guy sidled up to me. He looked like one of those typical dude-bros, wearing a baseball cap backwards and the collar of his pink polo shirt popped up.
His love for college football was evident from the heavyset ring on his finger, and if I searched him, I’d probably find keys to a pickup truck the size of which would compensate for lack of size somewhere else.
Stifling a groan, I tried to make myself look busy with fixing my coffee. Although I had been characterized as one of these myself at times since part of what made a dude-bro a dude-bro was being unaware of one’s own privilege, I vehemently denied it.
These guys were hyper-masculine because they were so incredibly insecure in their manhood, resulting in them being laughably homophobic. I was neither of those things, despite the fact that I had been known to take my privilege for granted at times.
Dude-bro didn’t notice my disdain, slapping a hand down on my shoulder like we’d been friends for years. “Dude, you’re that guy who put a rock through the cop’s window, aren’t you?”
Annoyance flared up in my stomach, but I gritted my teeth and smirked. “That’s right. How did you know?”
“First appearance was the same day as yours,” he said cheerfully. “I was in the courtroom. Didn’t think you’d wind up here, though. They were lit the fuck up over what you did, man.”
Oh, God. I had to get out of here. But this was only day one. I had three more miserable months ahead of me. Even so, I wasn’t going to spend it making conversation with this asshole.
He was blissfully oblivious to my leave-me-the-fuck-alone vibes and just kept right on talking. “I’m Connor, by the way.” He leaned in close as if he was about to impart a life-altering secret. “Connor Lake. Yeah, of Lake Industries. That’s my dad.”
I screwed my eyes shut and counted silently to ten. I didn’t know what had made the guy approach me, but I suddenly had a suspicion.
“Declan,” I said in an even, bored tone. Because that was what I was: bored as fuck. I didn’t extend my hand to shake his, but he took it anyway.
“Yeah, dude, I know who you are.” He smirked, gave my hand a squeeze that was intended to crush it, and then withdrew as soon as I returned the favor. “Declan Hobbs. Always knew we’d cross paths. Didn’t think it would be here. Can you believe all these do-gooders? The rest of them are here because they want to be.”
He snorted and shook his head like he couldn’t believe it was possible that anyone might want to be here. I didn’t say anything in response. I didn’t want to be here either, but I also didn’t want to encourage him by talking to him any more than necessary.
“I have no desire to be in a place like this with all these snot-nosed kids. My dad made me promise I’d try, but I’m probably going to bail ASAP.”
I couldn’t blame him, but of course, I didn’t say so. Leaving him with a simple shrug, I picked up my coffee, made my way to the other end of the hall, and wasted time as I scrolled through my phone.
A throat clearing had me looking up and straight into Wayde’s narrowed brown eyes. He was standing close to me, too close to be casual. It was meant to be intimidating.
I let my phone drop to my side and pulled up to my full height. “What’s up, man?”
“I know who you are,” he said, keeping his voice low.
When I wondered why, since I’d chosen a spot away from all the others, I realized there was a kid standing a couple of paces behind him. He had earphones in his ears and bright red dreadlocks tumbling all the way down his back. His head bopped to a beat I couldn’t hear.
“Okay.” I said, stowing my phone away in my back pocket and taking a sip of my coffee. This guy, Wayde, wouldn’t have been able to intimidate me if he had been carrying an automatic fucking weapon. He spent his days running a community program for kids, for fuck’s sake. “I know who you are, too.”
“Yeah, well. That’s unfortunate. I’d rather never meet anyone like you in here.”
My eyebrows lifted, but Wayde ignored me. “I’ll be watching you very closely. I’m waiting for you to fuck up, and you can bet your life on it that I will report it. I don’t like criminals using my program to get out of going to jail, but every once in a while, a pretentious, rich fuck like you or Connor pull the right strings to get you in.”
He was ranting now, barely breathing between sentences. “It’s not my call. I can’t keep you out, but I can do my best to keep you honest. I’ve assigned a little brother to you because I had to, not because I wanted to. He’s the last one of this intake that has yet to be paired up with someone, and honestly, I’m curious to see which one of you bounces out first. Neither of you is going to take this seriously, but I guess we have to try. I don’t have anyone else for you, so you better make this work, or you’re out.”
Without waiting for me to ask him why he was teaming me up with a kid he didn’t think was going to stay for the three months I had to be here, he turned and stepped away to tap the kid on the shoulder.
He waited for the little punk to pull one earbud out and cock his head lazily. “What?”
“Trey, meet Declan. He’s going to be your big brother.” He motioned toward me with a flick of his wrist. “Declan. Trey. Try to have some fun together, gents.”
Wayde marched away from us, leaving me alone with my little brother. Poor kid.
“You ain’t like the rest of the guys here,” Trey said after we stood in silence for a few minutes.
My head tilted. “Did you mean to say ‘you’re not like the rest of the guys here’?”
“I meant what I said. You ain’t like the rest of ‘em.” Clearly, he didn’t want to hear about the proper use of the English language from me.
“How do you know?” I asked. “We’ve barely said a word to each other.”
Trey shrugged, reaching for his earbud. There was a dull thud of what sounded like metal coming from it. I stopped him before he could put it in, careful not to actually touch him.
“I don’t think that’s how it works. We’re supposed to talk.” Or something. It couldn’t be as easy as sitting here in the hall watching the kid listen to music for three fucking months.
All around us, pairs of people were talking. Some were getting coffee while others headed outside together.
Trey, however, gave me a hard look. “I don’t wanna talk to you, man. Just leave me the fuck alone.”
Wow, kid’s a little fucker to try and talk to.
At the same time that he suddenly pivoted and stormed for the exit, I saw Connor doing the same thing. Maybe I should just leave too.
Was jail really that bad? Because this bullshit was a waste of time if I’d ever fucking seen it, and I was a genius-level time waster apparently.
Whether or not I would come back inside, I had to go out of the hall anyway. Trey had disappeared through the exit doors, and I probably at least had to attempt to find him.
When I pushed my way outside, the sound of someone sniffling hit my hears. I turned my head to find another kid sitting on the bench in front of the hall.
He looked a little younger than Trey, much smaller for sure. Jet-black hair was all I could make out of his features since he had his head buried in his hands. My lips pressed into a thin line as my eyebrow lifted.
Discomfort spread through me like wildfire. I had zero experience in dealing wi
th kids, especially crying ones.
The boy looked too old to be crying anyway. Dad used to call me a pussy for crying, and if memory served, the first time he’d done it, I’d been about four. This kid had to be at least double that, probably.
“Shouldn’t you be ashamed of crying in front of all these people, dude?” The words came out harsher than I’d intended, but I let it go.
I’d never claimed not to be a dick, and I never would.
The kid must have realized the question had been aimed at him because he slowly lifted his head. Piercing hazel eyes came to a rest on mine, the glassiness in them not detracting from a unique mesh of color I hadn’t seen before.
“No.” He sniffed again and wiped the tears running from his eyes. “Mom says it’s okay to cry when we’re sad.”
Christ. Mom, whoever she was, was raising a fucking wimp. “Why are you so sad then?”
“Because I miss her.” His voice cracked on the last words, another sob breaking free.
I frowned. “You miss your mom?”
It had been less than an hour since this session had started. This kid’s mom really was raising a wimp. “What about your dad?”
I wondered what his dad would say about him sitting outside the hall sobbing for his mommy after not even an hour of being away from her. The kid’s reply gave me my answer. “I don’t have a dad.”
Well, that explained it then. Dad wouldn’t say anything about the sobbing because there wasn’t one.
For some reason, my mind jumped to that first time I remembered my dad calling me a pussy. If it hadn’t been for him, I was sure Mom would have let us cry. God knew she indulged us in everything else we wanted to do. Hell, she probably would have even encouraged it.
An unfamiliar feeling that inspired even more discomfort than the crying kid spread through me. I was pretty sure what I was feeling was... empathy. “Where’s your Big Brother?”
“Gone.” The kid sighed. “Coming here was stupid.”
I had to agree with him, but then I remembered my own little problem. Trey had taken off and was nowhere to be seen.
A few minutes ago, I’d been halfway determined to leave as well. But seeing this kid sitting here and knowing that not only didn’t he have a dad but that his Big Brother had left too, I couldn’t do it.
As much of a dick as I was, something just wouldn’t let me walk away from him. Fuck. This was why empathy was bullshit, but it was there now, and I couldn’t shake it.
“Come on, kid. Come back inside with me.”
He eyed me for a long moment. “What’s your name?”
“Declan,” I said, extending my hand to shake his. “What’s yours?”
The kid looked at my hand like it was going to bite him, then placed his much smaller one inside it tentatively. It immediately became clear that he didn’t know what to do. “Lawson.”
I squeezed his fingers gently, shaking his hand once before releasing him. Lawson looked a little confused but got to his feet anyway and walked with me.
Wayde looked up as we approached, frowning hard. “Where’s Trey?”
“He left,” I said before motioning toward Lawson. “So did this dude’s Big Brother. I found him crying outside, and I want to help him.”
I looked down at him to toss him a wink. “We can help each other.”
Wayde scratched his jaw in thought. Doubt clouded his eyes, but eventually, he nodded. “Well, since I don’t have anyone to pair either of you up with, I suppose we can give it a try. Okay, Lawson. Meet Declan Hobbs. He’s your new Big Brother.”
Chapter 8
Raeanne
“You guys are doing great,” I called from my position behind the camera, smiling and clicking away even as I brought my head up to look at them over the top of the screen. “Justin, Amber, could you two please turn to face each other? There we go. Perfect.”
Adrenaline coursed through my veins. Photoshoots were where I was in my element, and I was damn good at them as a result.
Without even having to go through the photos I had so far, I knew we had some incredible shots. The models responded to my requests almost at the same second that I made them, meaning we were ahead of schedule and would be done early.
“Let’s take a quick break,” I said about another hour later. “If we keep pushing after, you guys might just get out of school early today.”
Justin laughed, putting on a robe to cover his delectable body that had been clothed in only briefs all day. Underwear shoots were often boring and nowhere near as sexy or sensual as the pictures they produced, but Justin and Amber made it a lot more fun.
She came up to me once she’d donned her own robe, sipping on a bottle of ice-cold water. A gorgeous smile curved her lips when she came to stand next to me, gesturing at the camera. “Can I see some of the shots we’ve got so far?”
“Sure,” I said, even though I knew most photographers wouldn’t have allowed it. I didn’t mind showing her. She was the one in the pictures after all.
Amber took a step closer to me, throwing an arm around me when I’d showed her the last dozen or so I’d taken. “Girl, you rock at this. I thought because you were so nice, you wouldn’t take good pictures too. But I was so wrong.”
“Nice people are bad photographers?”
She winked. “I haven’t met a nice one yet, but their pictures were all really good. I’ve loved working with you today, and I’d really love to keep working with you.”
“So would I,” Justin agreed, walking up to us with his own water bottle in hand. “You haven’t barked at us once.”
I smiled. “I’m not much of a barker.”
“We noticed.” Amber exchanged a look with Justin, who nodded before she turned back toward me. “So listen, do you have your own company? We’ve really struggled to find someone stable, good and reliable, that we can call up when necessary. We’d love to take your card.”
“The final decision won’t be up to us, but we can put in a good word with our agent.” Justin’s lips curled into a disgusted sneer. “The last guy he set us up with was a tyrant.”
“I can leave you my number, but I don’t really have a company. I’m still trying to get my feet wet in the industry.”
“We’re still pretty new, too,” Amber said. “That’s why we’re still trying to build up our network of people that we’d prefer to work with if possible.”
“You’re at the top of that list, photographer wise,” Justin added with an elaborate wink. “Leave us your number. We’ll give you a call if and when we can.”
He ambled off in search of food as the fashion editor for Tessa’s magazine joined us. She was the colleague Tessa had referred me to and was pretty cool to work for. “You’re efficient, Raeanne. I like that. I’ve seen samples of your work from Tessa. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten you in today, and I like your style, too. I know Tessa’s got first dibs on you, but do you mind if I add you to my books too?”
“Not at all.” A shiver of excitement ran through me. It felt like after all these years, I was finally starting to make a name for myself.
Over the last year or so, more and more people had been starting to take my number after shoots. So far, very few of them had actually called. But the important thing was that some had.
It had been a long, hard road to get here, but it was feeling more and more like I was getting somewhere. I smiled at Diane, the fashion editor. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” She glanced down at her watch. “Let’s get back to it. We’re burning daylight, people.”
The rest of the shoot was over in no time at all. As I was packing up, Amber came back over to me. “I’m going to go grab something to eat with my boyfriend since we’re done early. Would you like to join us? He’s a good name to get to know in the industry if you want to make it.”
“I don’t know.” I sank my teeth into my lip and checked the time. There was less than an hour before I had to pick Lawson up, but Tessa had offered to do it if I couldn’t. �
��Let me make a quick call, and I’ll let you know?”
It really felt like I was finally getting some momentum here, and if Amber wanted to introduce me to her boyfriend, I wanted to meet him. I couldn’t afford to turn down the opportunity to network whenever I could. I might not know who her boyfriend was, but any good name in the industry was good enough for me. It wasn’t like I had the luxury of being picky.
Tessa answered just before the phone cut out, getting straight to the point. She preferred to do her chatting in person and to use the phone only for what was absolutely necessary. “Hey, are you calling because you need me to pick him up?”
“If you can. We finished early, and I’ve been invited out by one of the models to meet someone.”
“Say no more,” she said. “I might be a few minutes late since I have a deadline to meet before I leave, but I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you,” I said to Tessa, and after we ended the call, I nodded at Amber with a smile on my face. “I’d love to join you.”
“Awesome.” She clapped her hands and grinned before excusing herself to go grab her stuff before we left.
Our drinks hadn’t even been delivered to the table, and I already regretted agreeing to Amber’s invitation. Her boyfriend was a total dick.
“Andrew Mortimer,” he said in a slow drawl as he shook my hand. He watched me with an almost predatory look in his cold blue eyes. “Agent extraordinaire for CWS.”
Who the hell introduces themselves like that? “Raeanne Zeller. It’s nice to meet you.”
He winked before he let go of my hand, even though his beautiful, model girlfriend was sitting right there. “Likewise.”
The guy gave me the creeps with his slicked back blond hair and obviously tailored suit. Everything about him screamed money and pompousness. Arrogance came off him in expensive-smelling waves. I couldn’t be picky, sure, but I also wasn’t in dire straits. This guy was one I’d only have worked with if I was in deep shit.
The way he leered at the waitresses and looked down his nose at waiters made me conclude that he was obviously rich and stuck up. Yay. My favorite kind of person.
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