Chapter 18
Ashlyn
“Seriously. I cannot believe that happened,” I say as I stir honey into my iced latte. “I can,” Troy says, fidget spinner in hand.
“You can?” I ask.
“Oh yeah,” Alice nods as she pokes Marcel, a small succulent plant sitting on my desk.
“Thanks,” I say.
“It’s not a bad thing,” Alice goes on, leaving Marcel alone. “We all knew you’d end up banging Underwear Man. Contract or not.”
“Well, I didn’t intend on banging Underwear Man,” I say in an attempt to defend myself. I’m not entirely sure what the point is. I don’t even believe myself.
They know better.
“Right,” Alice says.
“So how was it?” Troy asks, and we both look at him. “What? Can’t a guy ask that too?”
Troy is funny. He’s a Cancer, born in July, very in-tune with women. He’s an artsy graphic designer for Sigma, and he’s very intuitive. He’s in charge of everything from cover art to photo edits. He’ll probably be the one blurring out the scratch marks on Zane’s back.
“How do you think it was?” Alice asks. “He’s practically the secret third Hemsworth brother,”
“Fourth,” Troy corrects her. “There is a third Hemsworth brother. Most people just don’t know that.”
“Why do you know that?” she asks, and he shrugs.
I don’t usually reroute the conversation back to myself when it’s this personal, but I want my friend’s advice. I know what Demi would say. She’ll say: Be careful. Sex is just sex until it’s not. And when it’s not, and it turns into more than just sex, the line is thin and hard to find.
These two will definitely be brutally honest with me. Despite their odd banter, they are in love, and they still believe in love. Demi is too jaded to even believe in the possibility of it all.
“Do you think I’m making a mistake?” I ask. “Be honest.”
“Are we ever not?” Alice asks.
“I think you should go with your instincts,” Troy says. “You’re living with this guy, pretending to be in a relationship, both of you have ulterior motives, and both of you are aware of these motives. As long as everything is copacetic, mutual, and respectful–”
“Jesus Christ,” Alice cuts in. “He’s hot, you’re hot, if you want to fuck like rabbits when the doors are closed, fuck like rabbits when the doors are closed. Hell, fuck like rabbits with the doors open. I’m sure Deborah would love that.”
On cue, Prudy appears at my cubicle. “I hate to interrupt your daily gossip session, but Deborah wants to see you,” she says.
“Which one of us?” Troy asks.
“Ashlyn, obviously,” Alice says.
“How do you know?” Troy asks. “She might want to talk to us.”
“We aren’t banging Zane Calloway,” Alice says. I try to avoid one-on-one conversations with my boss, preferring to fly under the radar. But right now I’d make peace offerings with Russia if it meant getting out of this conversation.
“I’m coming,” I say. I breathe a sigh of relief before entering Deborah’s office. She’s drinking coffee today. That’s different.
“Are the wheatgrass crops not yielding well?” I joke. She doesn’t smile. I had to try.
“You two look good together,” she says.
“Oh?” I ask.
“A double date is a very nice play. Especially with Cal Flynn there too. Makes the whole appearance a public feature.”
“That was his idea,” I say with a smile.
“And the kissing…nicely done, Ashlyn,” she says, and I have to bite back a grin. Nicely done is about as close as any of us will get to Deborah saying she’s impressed.
“Thank you,” I say, but the words barely leave my mouth before she purses her lips again and goes back to the Deborah I know.
“Do you have any photos for me?”
“I…” I stutter.
“Ashlyn. Don’t get me wrong, the public photos are great, but I want personal.”
“I don’t really see how anything could be more personal than the bedroom shots he published in Modern Man magazine recently,” I say.
“Are we Modern Man Magazine?” she asks sharply.
“Well, no. But we could do a shoot with him of our own,” I suggest. “One where the photos aren’t taken from the bushes.”
“First off, those photos are of a staged bedroom, not his bedroom, so it’s cringey at best. And secondly, you have access to the real thing. I don’t think I need to explain to you how valuable photos of Zane Calloway in his own bedroom would be.”
“Right,” I say, deflating a little.
“If you want to keep working here, you’ll do the right thing,” she says before turning away, and I take that as my cue to leave.
I think Deborah and I have different ideas about what the right thing is.
* * *
“How was work?” Zane asks as he seasons chicken for the grill. We make dinner together, but I don’t think it means anything. I mean, we live together, so it just makes sense. It also looks really good.
“Work was work,” I say casually. Meanwhile, Deborah’s words are festering like mosquito bites all over my skin, and I’m about to lose it.
“So business as usual and you're hiding behind trees and popping out of recycling bins to get the perfect shot,” he jokes. I don’t smile. Not because it annoys me, but because I know I need to talk to him about the photos Deborah wants.
“I’m kidding,” he says.
“I know,” I say as I force a smile. Then I top off my wine glass. He watches me and looks up at me with a curious smile.
“Is everything okay?” he asks.
“Yes. I mean…I don’t know. My boss is just very demanding.”
“Uh oh,” he says, as he picks up the tray of chicken and heads out to the patio grill. I grab my wine and follow him. After the meat is cooking, he turns to me, picking up a seltzer and leaning back against the outdoor counter. “What does the Queen of Blackmail want?”
“Photos,” I say, and he shakes his head.
“The owner of a tabloid magazine wants photos? The audacity,” he jokes.
“Of you!” I blurt out. “She wants photos of you.”
“Who doesn’t these days?” he asks, picking a strawberry out of the fruit salad and popping it in his mouth. “I’ve been caught red-handed more than once with a pretty girl,” he says with a smile and a wink.
But even that isn’t enough to tame the dread souring my stomach.
“She wants personal photos of you,” I say, and his eyes narrow.
“How personal?”
“If Deborah had it her way, she’d have photos of you sleeping and showering and trimming your nose hairs,” I mutter, and he cringes. “Well, maybe not the last one, but everything else.”
“I see,” he nods. “And what did you tell her?”
“I told her I don’t want to do it,” I say.
“But let me guess…your job is on the line.”
“Ding! Ding! Ding!” I mumble with a sigh.
“Alright,” he says, and I blink up at him.
“What?”
“If she wants photos, let’s take some photos. They won’t be the ones she wants, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with a little sneak peek,” he says and I just stare at him. “What?” he asks when he notices.
“Nothing wrong with a little sneak peek?” I parrot. “I thought you hated people being up in your business.”
Zane closes the grill and turns to me, pulling me closer to him, and my heart skips a little. “They won’t be up in my business for this photo shoot,” he says. “Only you.”
I smile and back away a little. “I don’t know…” I say slyly. “That sounds like it might be breaking the rules some.”
“The rules. That’s right,” he nods. Meanwhile, his eyes are dancing with mischief, and my heart is in step. “See, I thought we tossed the rulebook.”
“We closed it,” I agree.
“Good,” he says, stepping closer to me. Then he leans in to kiss me, but at the last second I turn and look away, and his lips brush my cheek instead.
“For one night.”
His eyes narrow, but he’s biting the smile playing on his lips. “I don’t know how I feel about this rulebook anymore.”
“Well, luckily for you, you have plenty of time to come to terms with it…during the photo shoot,” I say before nodding over at the grill. “Chicken’s burning!”
I can feel his eyes on me as I walk away. I know I’m being a tease, but in my defense, so is he. I also know these photos I am going to take aren’t going to be what Deborah wants. For one, they’ll be consensual. Something you’d put in an artsy news story, not on the cover of a gossip magazine.
I’m done being that kind of photographer.