Aberration (8 page)

My parents and Cam introduce themselves to everyone. The lie is that we all met during a volunteer project on campus, one they have running regularly for students who need to clock in volunteer hours for classes. My parents make sure appetizers and hors d
’oeu
vres are spread out on all flat surfaces and everyone has a drink in their hands before they start asking questions.

"So," Mom begins, hands clasped in front of her excitedly. "Some of you must be in sororities and fraternities, right?"

Some of my models glance around at each other, while others grin uncomfortably. Truth is, while they all look like they belong in sororities and fraternities, EPE never allowed them to have the time to. Plus, most sororities want to keep up a "tasteful" image and probably wouldn't even let my girls in if they wanted to join.

Delilah breaks the uncomfortable silence. "School was too demanding," she says, flipping her red hair over her shoulder. "I'm glad I stuck to the books and studied hard."

Evan and I exchange looks. Pretty sure Delilah graduated with a two-point-eight, but I don't say
anything. She's distracting my parents, and that's all I really care about right now.

The most awkward moment of the evening though is when Jaime arrives, and everyone who just flew in has to pretend like they don't know him. He gives a short wave.

"Well, hello there," says Adam much too friendly, and I stomp on his foot.

"Everyone, this is Jaime," says Cam. "A friend of mine since elementary school."

That's when some of my models can't hide their surprised expressions. The only ones who knew that I knew Jaime prior to EPE was Evan, Delilah, and Dallas. "The plot thickens," Ella whispers behind me. Cam hears and chuckles. I shoot her a glare.

Finally, after what feels like hours of my parents handing out drinks and chatting with everyone, like they’re trying to learn the details of everyone's individual lives, I hint that we should probably be heading to the rental house.

"Oh, of course," says Mom. "We'll call you a cab."

When the sliding glass door closes behind them, I finally exhale. "Thank fucking God."

I get everyone organized for the cab, wishing that I could take a shot of tequila. Unfortunately, I have to play driver. When the cab arrives, I load up Jaime, Evan, Dallas, and Cam in my Jeep Cherokee. My brother is coming only because it would look suspicious if I took Jaime and not him too.

I text Micah
on our way
before punching his address into the GPS on my phone.

We've lived in our big Malibu house almost my entire life, and I know the streets of the area well. I make my way up the winding road leading to the cliffside houses, following the arrow of my GPS. Dallas and Evan are behind me,
oohing
and
aahing
excitedly at the outlandish and expensive estates we pass. Jaime sits in the front seat next to me, his hand on the armrest between us, fingers dangling into the cup holder. Like he's seeing if I will bite and hold his hand, even though Cam is sitting right behind us.

"I'm surprised your parents didn't throw a bitch fit when you bought this thing." Jaime knocks on the hood of my Cherokee.

"Oh, they did," I say. After a year of earnings from EPE, I bought my Cherokee from a used dealer and told my parents they could sell my three-year-old Lexus. They couldn't fathom why the hell I would do such a thing, when the truth was that I wanted something that I had earned, not some rich bitch's car that was given to me with Daddy's money. That was the only time Dad ever checked my inheritance. He thought I'd blown all of my money on drugs or something horrible. Which of course didn't make sense considering I didn't sell the Lexus, but gave it back to them.

Money does weird things to people.

"Holy shit balls of fire," Evan murmurs when I turn into the house's driveway. We can just barely make out the house from behind the gate, but it's enough to spark a reaction.

I roll down my window and press the button on the box in front of me.

"Is that Britain?" It’s Micah's voice.

Jaime chuckles next to me, and since I know the reason he
is
chuckling, I smack him with the back of my hand.

"Yeah," I say. "Everyone's here."

The gate begins to swing open. I drive through, and the cab behind me follows.

It’s like the first time I saw Veda Manor, although this house looks entirely different. I can't help but be perplexed at the monstrosity of a building and the strange architecture I'm going to somehow incorporate into my shoot. Everything about Micah's Beach house is completely modern. Strange angles, curved glass walls, triangle roofs.

I park my car in the circular driveway. As the cab pulls up and the models unload their luggage, Micah walks down the cement steps leading from the house to greet us. I try to flatten my sea-swept hair, not knowing why I feel the need to look put together in front of him. Maybe because I'm his fakey-fake girlfriend.

He holds his arms out, and when I hug him, he squeezes me for just a little too long. I wrangle myself away and when I turn around, Jaime looks all sorts of smug with himself.

This might be worse than him actually being angry about the whole girlfriend arrangement.

"Welcome, welcome
,” he says.
"There are seven rooms.”

"That's more than enough space," I say.

"Good. After tonight, I'll be staying with my parents for the next couple of weeks, so I’ll be out of your way, don't worry." He tosses me another shit-eating grin, and I try my hardest not to grimace.

"Do you have the release forms for the house?" I ask. All legal crap that my publisher made sure I dealt with.

"They're inside. Come in, and your models can choose the bedrooms they want on the ocean wing. My room is on the other side of the house. Should you need a place to stay
—
I'm kidding, of course," he says quickly before I even have a chance to register that he might be hitting on me.

I hear Jaime snort behind me.

The inside of the house is everything I expected it to be from looking at the outside, and maybe even more. I mean, there's a fountain in the foyer.

A motherfucking fountain.

"I call dibs on fucking someone in that," Ella murmurs. I shoot her a glare, but luckily, Micah doesn't act like he hears her. Or maybe he doesn't care. The majority of the walls are glass from top to bottom, and other than the sand-colored beams holding everything place, there is nothing but the ocean sunset surrounding us. Dark water and orange and pink light. Goddamn, I could easily get used to this.

"Everyone can find their rooms, and Britain, you can follow me into..." Micah's eyes rest on Cam and
Jaime for the first time. "Gentlemen," he says with intrigue.

"Sup," says Cam.

"Haven't seen you in a while, Mr. Rivera."

Jaime slaps on this wide-eyed, crooked expression, I'm guessing to make Micah feel like an idiot. "Oh, you know, I've been busy." He then nods toward me, a nod Micah will see as referring to modeling for me and not a nod referring to screwing me. I know Jaime is aware of the double meaning.

Micah eyes Jaime up and down before turning and motioning for me to follow him into the dining room. When he's out of ear's reach and Cam is exploring to room behind the fountain, Jaime mutters, "He's so gay."

I scoff. "Is not. If he was gay he wouldn't wrangle me into being his fake girlfriend."

"Says you. You're his beard and he was totally making eyes with me just now."

"He's not gay," I stress again. "He was flirty with me at the luncheon. He can't settle down because he likes screwing around with women too much. You said so yourself that he's probably going to try and get into my pants.”

"Uh huh," he says slowly, crossing his arms over his chest. "We'll see how long he resists keeping his hands off me."

I gape at him. "You can't be serious."

"What?" he asks innocently. "If you get to play fake girlfriend, I should be able to have some fun too."

I roll my eyes. "I hate you," I say, turning to follow Micah into the dining room.

"You love me," Jaime calls.

Micah has the contracts laid across the tabletop when I arrive. He hands me a pen and I read all of it carefully, taking a photo of each page and immediately sending it to my publisher. Amora Acquisitions dealt with all the release forms for me in Boston, and I never had to worry about this stuff prior to that because I always shot in my studio.

"I feel like a big girl now," I say out loud, sliding the pen across the table.

"Pleasure doing business with you," Micah says suavely. "Feel free to begin your... procedures tonight. I expect you're aware of the benefit dinner next week."

"I'll be your arm candy, no worries," I say dryly.

He walks to the arch leading to his private wing of the house. "I'll be through here, if you'd like some company tonight." He winks and then disappears through the arch.

I can't stop the guffaw escaping my mouth.

Gay.
Jaime thinks he knows men soooooooooooooo well.

///

My first mode of business is holding a welcome meeting for all of my models, despite the fact that they've already been welcomed to Malibu by my parents with food and booze. But now we have to get serious. They're here and I have a beautiful house to work with and still no theme for the storybook.

I sit in a white leather chair with my back to the window showcasing the ocean while all of my models sit cross-legged or sprawled out on the floor in front of me. It's like some fucked-up kindergarten class re-enactment.

"I don't get why you aren't just having us pose and then figure out the story later," says Ella. "Isn't that what you did with Dallas and Evan last year?"

The rest of my models hum in agreement. Dallas and Evan high-five.

"Hey now," says Adam, motioning to Delilah. "Give us some credit. We were a part of that issue too."

I snap my fingers. "Focus. I don't have time to fuck around with a bunch of random shoots in the hopes that something sticks. Andrea is flying in tomorrow. By that time, we need to have come up with a decent plot for the storybook. This is all due in two weeks. My ideas are shit, Andrea's ideas have been better, but nothing has stuck. Start throwing stuff out."

Everyone thinks for a moment. Chloe giggles at whatever pops into her head, then quickly covers her mouth.

"Spit it out," I tell her.

"No!" she squeals. I forgot how shy she is. Probably the most naive and innocent out of all my models.

"Strip club," says Adam.

I roll my eyes. "Too much development."

"And too boring," says Evan. "Since we have this house to work with... heirs and heiresses?" She wrinkles her nose, like she hates her own idea.

"Don't make me vomit,
Rylan
," I tease.

"We could use the beach!" says Delilah.

"The thing with the beach is finding one with enough privacy, which in Malibu, is next to impossible."

Dallas snaps his fingers. "Got it," he says with a dumb grin.

I raise my eyebrow.

"What your parents said earlier got me thinking. We want to keep the young vibe for the storybooks
that we had with EPE in order to keep our audience, right?"

I cross my arms. "Go on."

"Frats and Sororities."

I open my mouth to shoot down the idea, then snap it shut again, thinking. Murmuring fills the room.

"That's not half bad," says Evan, planting a reward kiss on Dallas's cheek.

"College kids
are
horny as hell," I muse. "Can you imagine all the weird sexual shit that goes on in those houses across the country that's totally off the record? Weird, illegal hazing rituals and party games?" I point to Dallas. "Remind me to keep you around for brainstorming."

"But that isn't making the best use of the house," Delilah argues. "Sorority and fraternity houses are fucking disgusting. Trust me, I've spent way too many mornings waking up hungover in them after some insane party. It's a really good idea for a later storybook, but it's not taking advantage of this place." She motions to the space around her.

The room falls silent, and everyone starts looking around the living room, out the large glass windows to the ocean, and behind us, to the massive marble fountain inside.

I groan. Delilah's right. We need to make use of this house. But I have no idea how.

"Fine," I growl. Ella is right too. Maybe I should just shoot until something sticks.

And I know who my go-to couple is.

///

I try for something simple. A bedroom scene with a room facing the ocean. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to catch the last light of twilight, but I'm not holding my breath.

It doesn't really matter, because every time Dallas and Evan pose together, no one is paying attention to the setting.

While Evan and Dallas should still be in makeup, someone knocks on the door to the room. I open it to peek out, but Jaime’s quick, slipping inside and pushing me up against the wall. His mouth is at my throat, tongue gliding up my neck.