Exposed (5 page)

“
H
oly shit
. Gabe
killed
that photo shoot.”

Briar smirked as he strode down the hallway beside Julius, one hand tucked into his pocket. With the other, he clapped Julius’s shoulder. “I told you he was a good choice.”

“I didn’t think so when poor Hayes ran out.”

Briar’s eyes flashed with annoyance. “Poor Hayes? He was being a dick. I don’t blame Gabe for dicking him right back.”

“Yeah, I suppose. Presumably not
dicking
dicking him,” Julius muttered under his breath, then snorted.

“I want someone to yell at Hayes before we bring him in again. He lays a hand on our models while he’s pissed off, he gets escorted out next time.”

Julius nodded sharply. “I’ll take care of it,” he promised. “But the second guy worked a lot better with him. What did you say to Gabe to knock the diva out of him?”

I fucked the diva out of him.
Briar cocked his head. “I just reminded him why he’s here.”

“And why’s that?”

Briar hummed under his breath. “You know, I don’t think he knew until today. He didn’t walk in expecting to be a model. But I saw the switch flip.”

“You gonna let him do that instead of be your assistant?”

“He’s a useless asshole behind the desk,” Briar laughed. “And I’m a useless asshole on the other side of the desk. I can’t delegate. Dayne should know that by now. Put Gabe’s talents to work where they’ll do more good. You want him?”

“If you’ll let me have him.”

“Sold. Guess I better tell him, then,” Briar grinned, turning around to head back to the photo studio.

He was about to make Gabriel’s day.

* * *

“
Y
ou’re
what
?”

Briar’s lips curled in an amused smirk as he watched the expressions—shock, joy, then embarrassment at his sudden display of emotions and an attempt at neutrality—flit across Gabriel’s face.

“I’m gonna give you your big shot in London. That’s two weeks from now. You better be ready for model boot camp, ’cause Julius is
not
gonna ride your ass with as much lube as I did.”

The photographer was still in the room—hell, so was one of the interns setting up for the next shoot—but it didn’t matter. Everyone would think it was a metaphor.

Everyone but Gabriel, of course.

Again, Gabriel caught his breath with surprise, and again, he tried to push through it. He casually stretched as he pulled his shawl back on—the last piece of street clothing. “Of course.”

“That obviously means you won’t be working with me, and a whole new set of paperwork. You’ll work when Julius tells you to work, and with the photographers he gives you. Your paycheck won’t be regular like the assistant job. Julius will be your agent—manager or booker, some people call them—”

“I know all
that
,” Gabriel impatiently muttered.

There it was: the sassy spark again.

Oh, that attitude made Briar grin more than it should have. He knew it was only encouraging bad behavior, but there was something about Gabriel’s refusal to indulge fools that he recognized in himself.

“Until you’re more developed,” Briar stubbornly went on. “You have natural talent, that much is obvious. You
killed
this photo shoot.”

His heart warmed with pride, but Briar quickly clamped down on that emotion.
Don’t get invested in him.

Instead, Briar turned for the door. “You’ll do great.”

“Thanks.” It was a casual word thrown out there behind Briar’s back, but it was the first time Gabe had said it. When he looked back over his shoulder, from the way Gabriel watched him, Briar sensed it wasn’t just for the compliment.

Briar jerked his head in a quick nod, then headed back out of the studio.

Austin had been one hell of an act to follow, and one Briar had sworn never to follow again.

But Jesus Christ, that was before he’d met this kid.

He reminded himself that Gabriel wasn’t a
kid
at all—only five years younger than him, and that was everything in front of the camera but nothing in the rest of life. But his attitude…

Just like Austin’s, only Gabriel was different.

Gabriel hadn’t walked in knowing exactly what he was going to achieve, and how to fuck over as many people as he could to get it.

Unless he had. He could have been acting the whole time, waiting until Briar picked him instead of forcing his way through the door. But down that road lay paranoia and suspicion. Briar had to take him at his word.

Even if Gabriel fucked him over like Austin had… well, Briar was willing to walk that path again if it meant seeing Gabriel shine as bright as he was obviously meant to.

If that made Briar a romantic sucker with his heart on his sleeve… so be it.

T
he kettle whistled upstairs
, and Gabriel stretched and uncurled from the couch. “Want me to bring you a cup?”

“Yes—black, two sugars.” Sandra, his landlady, was sewing a hem with quick, precise stitches that never failed to impress Gabriel.

“I know how you take your tea,” Gabriel laughed, heading for the bottom of the stairs. “Anything else?”

“Something for yourself. You can’t starve all that weight off.”

“I can try,” Gabriel retorted. By the time he got to the top of the stairs, he was a little dizzy, but he’d had worse. He only needed to lose five pounds for the show—Julius had told him he was damn near perfect already.

Good thing he barely ate.

Sandra was right, though. He had to feed his body, too, or he wouldn’t be able to work out and maintain any kind of muscle mass.

As he waited for the tea to steep, Gabriel watered the plants along the windowsill. The little herb garden was soothing to look at, and they were allowed to use fresh parsley or basil from the potted plants.

The other guys who lived here, each paying six hundred bucks a month for their room and these shared facilities, rarely cooked. One worked in the finance industry, another was on an unpaid media internship, there was a tech guy, and one was in the fashion business like him.

He
was in the fashion business now.

Gabriel grinned, leaning on the counter and checking the teapot. Good enough.

He poured them each a cup and headed back down to Sandra.

“So, you were telling me about the test shoot,” Sandra reminded him once he handed over her cup. “The second one really went that well? I could tell you’re a natural.”

“You think? They said that, too,” Gabriel grinned. “They told me they’re giving me a big break in London. I’m being thrown in the deep end.”

“And you love every moment of it. Look at you glowing,” Sandra laughed.

Gabriel’s cheeks burned as he rubbed his face and tried to cool his jets. “Right. Yeah.”

“It’s not a bad thing. It’s just unusual for anyone in that industry to be so… well, non-ironically passionate.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel snorted. “Everyone acts like they’re too good for the place. I mean, I
am
the best damn new face they’ve ever signed, but even the secretary has an attitude there.” He sighed as he pushed himself to his feet. “I gotta do laundry and sort through my closet. I hope they pay me for my couple days worked soon. That’ll buy another few key pieces…”

Sandra looked up at him, setting down her needle for a moment. “I’m glad for you, Gabe.”

“Yeah.” Gabriel glowed. Just days before New York’s fashion week, when the city was flooded with the best wannabe-models, it felt damn good to be recognized. Not just acknowledged, either.
Invited
to join the elite ranks of models being flown to London next week.

He hadn’t seen Briar since he’d told him he was giving him his big break. That wasn’t the surprise, though. It was that he
wished
he’d seen him around more.

Gabriel fidgeted with his brass ring as he headed upstairs to sort out his wardrobe for the next intense week. Having something to do with his hands kept him distracted from thinking about why he missed seeing Briar around.

“
I
t’s a small fuckin’ world
. You’re going to see Austin in London. Are you ready for that?”

Briar ran a hand across his stubbly face, then pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead. “I… I expected that.”

Vince was watching him evenly from across the table, his hand delicately wrapped around a bright blue cocktail. In addition to being the new faces department head, Vince was one of Briar’s closest friends and one of the four original guys who had helped him get this shit off the ground.

He was also kinder to Briar than most others. He had that way of watching Briar that told him he knew exactly what Briar was trying to hide, every damn time.

And he’d seen the Austin shit show coming from two miles off, but Briar had been too damn stubborn to listen to him.

“So? Do you need me to whisk you away when you see him?”

“No, no,” Briar hastened to answer. That would only tell Austin that he’d gotten to him, and Briar wasn’t prepared to let him win.

No how, no way.

“I’ll deal with it,” Briar added, drawing a heavy sigh. “It’s not like he’s traumatized me.”

“Mmm.” Vince’s noise was that perfect mix of noncommittal skepticism so he didn’t draw Briar’s ire, but expressed his real thoughts on the matter.

Briar glared at him, then downed the rest of his cocktail. “Shots. We have to talk about next week, and London, and…”

“No shots ’till you tell me what’s going on.”

“What?” Briar frowned.

“Why you’re avoiding talking about him. And why he’s so determined to be in all the places you are. All week, at every fuckin’ show you go to, he’s there.”

“Small world, like you said,” Briar shrugged. “He has to be in the same places to get work.”

“He left you for Jordan O’Malley, didn’t he? What’s he doing this year?”

Briar flinched but nodded. “O’Malley’s the guy with the ugly little anchor and elephant prints… ocean safari, he called it.”

“Oh,
him
.”

“O’Malley.” Briar rolled the name off his tongue. He couldn’t see it working. “He’s the guy to watch, though. Rumor has it he’s starting a modeling agency now. Doing the circuit starting this week, trying to collect big names to hire.”

“It’s working.” Vince tapped his chin thoughtfully. “And Austin’s a pretty big name to tap. Sorry.”

Briar shrugged it off. It was true—there was a line somewhere between a few thousand and tens of thousands of Instagram followers where you became a
really big deal
online, and that usually translated to being a
really big deal
offline, too.

Austin wasn’t the first guy to cultivate a perfect online persona so he could become bigger than his agency.

He was just the first guy to take Briar’s heart along with him when he ditched the agency for his own endeavor.

“Anyway,” Briar mumbled, “we’ll deal with him when we see him. It’s not like he’s the top or bottom of my list of enemies.”

“But he’s the one you’ve tried the hardest to fuck over,” Vince told him, watching him evenly.

Briar flinched. He hadn’t become a household name by playing nicely. And Austin… well, he might have taken it a step too far when Austin left.

“What’s done is done,” Briar concluded, then pushed himself to his feet. “Shots.”

“Shots,” Vince agreed.

When Briar brought them back, they clinked them and downed the tiny glasses of amber liquid without a second thought.

Then, Vince leaned in. “Speaking of London… You’re looking forward to seeing our new guy perform, aren’t you?” He gave a conspiratorial smirk.

“Which one?” Briar tried to bluff, but it was no use. Vince was the guy who could always see through that.

“Oh ho, there
is
something there,” Vince grinned. “Or you wouldn’t be avoiding the issue.”

Briar grumbled under his breath and leaned back, rolling his head back as the whisky burned down his throat and heated his chest up.

Like Gabriel did, every time Briar thought about watching him shift from pose to pose for the camera like it was his first language.

“He’s exactly your type. You
can’t
tell me you haven’t noticed, or you wouldn’t have hired him,” Vince laughed. “Dayne didn’t just magically convince you you needed an assistant after all this time.”

The heat in Briar’s cheeks was definitely from the Fireball. “Maybe,” Briar snorted. “But after Austin…” he trailed off.

Vince looked sympathetic. He reached over the table to squeeze Briar’s hand, then picked up the cocktail menu and turned it over to scan the list. “You’ll get through it.”

“I fuckin’ won’t. I told you back then, and I mean it—I’m done dating,” Briar told him, his voice harsher than he meant it.

Vince knew better than to look skeptical. He just nodded slightly. “Forever is a long time.”

“No more strings attached to me. It’s great.” Briar’s eyes flickered down to Vince’s wedding ring. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“Oh, I know,” Vince assured him, a laugh bubbling in his chest. “You know I know.”

True: Vince
had
worked his way around just as much as Briar. But he’d chosen right, and Briar had ignored his gut instinct in favor of a pretty face.

Briar rubbed his face. Enough thinking about this shit. He had meetings in the morning. “One more drink for the road.”

One more drink, and maybe he’d forget about Austin’s hard-edged smile when he leaned over the desk to tell Briar he was
out
.