Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
THOMAS
There are moments so utterly ridiculous you feel like someone slipped you a mickey and you’re hallucinating. None of those instances are stranger than what is currently happening to me.
“Just take off your shirt and I’ll rub baby oil on you until you’re glistening.”
I stare at the photographer tasked with taking my picture for the hospital wall of staff photos like she’s completely lost her mind.
Yes, she’s beautiful. Yes, I’m attracted to her, somewhat against my will.
But there is no way I’m going to let her slather me up with oil for a picture that’s supposed to assure people I’m a competent doctor.
“That won’t be necessary,” I tell her all the while trying to keep her from unbuttoning my shirt.
“Thomas,” she says sternly like my sexy anatomy professor from sophomore year of college. “Let me do my job.”
I take a step back while clutching my shirt modestly. “I don’t understand what any of this has to do with why Constance hired you.” I sound borderline scared, but darn it, I’m not comfortable with any of this.
“She has a plan,” the photographer says cryptically before adding, “A very good plan, if you ask me.”
“What plan?” I demand. To embarrass me in front of the town?
Finley sighs loudly before crossing her arms like she’s losing patience with me. “It’s not my place to tell you.”
“If you don’t tell me,” I respond, “I’m going to leave before you take any pictures of me.” I emphasize my threat by turning to face the exit.
“You can’t leave! I promised Constance two different looks and I’m going to deliver.
” The photographer takes a step toward me, and adds, “I just rented out the store next to mine and I need every job I can get right now to pay for it. That means, I need you to do what you’re here to do and I need you to do it well. ”
Now I feel bad. I don’t want to stress her out, but at the same time I’m not some boy toy for her to manhandle. Womanhandle. You know what I mean. “What’s Constance’s plan, Finley?”
She looks up at the ceiling and sighs loudly like I’m her errant child pouting because she won’t let me eat a bucket full of candy. “If I fill you in, you absolutely cannot tell Constance I gave you a heads up. She might want it to be a surprise.”
I stare her straight in the eye, but she’s having a hard time holding the contact. Which makes me even more anxious. “I promise I won’t tell her.”
Finley glances at her feet before hesitantly returning her gaze to mine. “Constance is thinking about putting together a calendar.” She shrugs her eyebrows up and down suggestively. “Like the firefighters have.”
After releasing the most unmanly gasp on the planet, I manage to demand, “Why?”
“Women love those things,” she assures me. “It’s great fantasy material, don’t you think?”
“Maybe?” The big question here is not the marketability of such an item, but why would my new boss book me to do one without telling me. That’s just wrong. And weird. And not at all something I could have imagined her doing.
“Those firefighter calendars bring in a lot of money,” Finley tells me. “A lot.”
Is that why Constance is doing it? Is she trying to raise money for the hospital? Even so, she should have informed me and then got my consent first.
Finley interrupts the litany of questions running through my head. “But only if the pictures are good.”
Finally, a lifeline. “Is that what she said? Only if the pictures are good?”
She nods her head, not once, but five times. “That’s what she said.”
A slow smile crosses my mouth. I’ve just found my out. I’ll do Finley’s photoshoot, if for no other reason than to get it over with. I just won’t do a very good job. I have to send the message to Constance that I’m not the man she thinks I am.
“Fine,” I tell Finley. “I’ll do it.”
“Seriously?” she sounds as shocked as I have been ever since stepping foot into this place.
“Yup. Let’s do it so I can go home.” And wipe all this makeup off my face.
“Take off your shirt,” Finley orders. “Then come over here.” She grabs a bottle of baby oil sitting on the makeup table.
I approach cautiously, even though I know what she’s going to do.
After opening the cap, she pours a fair amount in her hands.
This woman has totally knocked me off my footing and has honestly made me feel more than a little insane.
One step. Two steps. Three steps. I’m in front of her. “It might be a little cold,” she says while simultaneously slapping oily hands on my skin.
I shriek before practically jumping out of my skin. “It’s not cold, it’s freezing!”
“I keep it in the refrigerator,” she says, like that’s the obvious place to keep baby oil. “It’s cold on purpose.”
“What’s the purpose?” I’m shivering like I’ve been thrown in a snowdrift. Naked.
Finley starts to make circles with her pointer fingers around my chest region. “It’s to, you know … perk things up.”
“Perk things up?” Her meaning is suddenly clear. “Ah, I see.”
“Thank goodness. I didn’t want to have to say the words.”
“You didn’t want to say that you were trying to make my nipples erect?” I challenge her with my eyes.
She blushes like a maiden aunt from the turn of the eighteenth century. “Correct.”
“You’re the one who takes these pictures,” I accuse. “Not me.”
“I take tasteful romantic photos. There’s nothing dirty about them.” She lifts her nose in the air like I’ve somehow offended her. “I enhance people’s personal lives by letting them live out their fantasies, tastefully.” She repeats the last word, like just by saying it, she’s making it so.
“Are you going to rub this oil in, or not?” I ask with more than a hint of challenge in my tone.
She stares at my skin like performing that task is on the top of her list of things she wants to do before she dies. But instead of finishing what she started, she averts her gaze and demurely tells me, “You can go ahead and do it yourself. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
If that was her intention, she failed. I have never been more disconcerted in my entire life. Having said that, I am ready to start having a little fun.
Once I’m sufficiently shimmering, Finley hands me a billowy white shirt to put on, which I do in record speed.
Then she leads me toward a backdrop of a tumultuous seascape.
Smacking at my hands to get me to release the death grip I have on my shirt, she orders, “Let your arms hang at your sides. Then turn and face the wind.”
I gaze stage left to find an industrial-sized fan facing me. Finley hurries over and turns it on. She starts it on low and I’m immediately chilled again. “Any chance you can turn the heater on?”
She shakes her head. “We want you perky, remember?” How could I forget? She cranks the fan two more times before my hair starts to blow. Finley turns on the lights illuminating the set and declares, “It’s go time!” Then she picks up her camera.
I do my best impersonation of Ben Stiller in Zoolander. I unleash his trademark “blue steel” smolder while puckering my lips like I’m blowing kisses. Then I furrow my brow and force my eyes to open so wide I can feel my IQ falling.
Finley lets her camera dangle from the strap around her neck. “What are you doing?”
“Modeling?” As I’m still in character, I sound as dumb as I look.
“Don’t try so hard,” she orders. “Just channel your inner pirate.” She prompts, “You’re a rugged man of the sea. You’re an adventurous outlaw searching for buried treasure. You’re …”
I interrupt, “Going to hang at dawn for kidnapping the governor’s daughter.” Her look of confusion has me explaining, “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
“Ah, okay then. If that’s your motivation, let me have it.” She’s nothing if not a consistent cheerleader. Which I suppose most of her clientele must respond to. Just not me.
“Ahoy, matey!” I shout while waving my arms mightily like I’m trying to hail a taxi in Times Square.
Finley once again stops taking pictures. “Ahoy, matey?”
“Isn’t that something pirates say?” This is going to be more fun than I thought.
“Not sexy pirates,” she assures me. “They say things like, ‘Come over here, wench, and kiss the lips off of me.’”
“Seriously? Where do you get your information?”
“My client, Margaret, reads historical romance novels,” she says like any idiot should have known.
“I’ve never read one,” I assure her.
Her pointer finger shoots straight up. “Wait here,” she says like she senses my greatest desire is to make a run for it.
Crossing the room, Finley picks up a book sitting on a small table and brings it over to me.
I nearly laugh out loud when she hands it to me.
This is the look she wants? The man on the cover is staring at the camera like he’s got laser vision and he’s trying to cut the photographer in half.
His shirt is open and—wait for it—he’s obviously on the chilled side.
His hair is blowing as though he’s standing in gale force winds and he’s holding a sword at his side like he’s going to single-handedly save the world from god knows what.
“This is exactly what we’re going for,” Finley assures me.
Now that my assignment has been clarified, I turn to the camera with devious intent and start having more fun than I can ever remember having.