Page 30 of Camera Shy

I cover my eyes. “I’m going to do the raccoon thing where I pretend you can’t see me. If you could just see yourself out.” I point somewhere in the direction of the front door, but I’m not positive. I’ve really committed to the eyes closed bit I’m putting on.

“You need baby steps,” Finn says softly.

“What?” I drop my hands and watch his pointed expression.

“When I have clients who want to be a little more daring in the studio, but they’re so uncomfortable and embarrassed, we have to work our way up. We start with just flattering poses in jeans and a T-shirt. Then, we move on to shorts, maybe a tank top. When they’re ready, lingerie. Then we take off the bra…sometimes more. The more they force themselves to step out of their comfort zones, the more natural confidence begins to feel. But it usually happens in baby steps.”

“Your actual job is photographing naked women?”

He presses his lips in a flat line. His agitation is briefly apparent before it disappears. “I’m really good at helping women find their confidence.” Finn extends a hand to me. “Do you trust me?”

“Who? You? As in the stranger I’ve met all but three times who watched me undress through the window.”

He narrows his eyes at me.

“I’m kidding,” I add. “I trust you.” It’s the truth. Finn somehow toggles the line between making me feel unnervingly embarrassed and yet comfortable at the same time.

I take his hand and he leads me toward the staircase. I stop in my tracks and snatch back my hand. “Everything else aside, I’m actually on my period, Finn. Hence the need for more tampons. I’m not having sex with you tonight.” If nothing else I’ve said has scared him off, that certainly should do the trick.

He grabs my hand demandingly. “Calm down, we’re not having sex. Come on.” He tugs me up the stairs, ignoring my begrudging footsteps. “Are you staying in the master?”

“Yes.”

Finn knows his way around Dex’s home. They must be closer than I realized. “I don’t know how you sleep with that giant fish tank in your face.”

Dex’s bed and the sitting area in his master are divided by a partition, which is one giant fish tank. It’s one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever seen. “I find it comforting. It makes me feel like I’m not alone in the bedroom at night.”

“Dear God, woman, you really do need to get laid,” he mutters under his breath. I debate telling him I heard that, but I don’t think he was trying to be subtle about it.

We waltz right through Dex’s bedroom and into his enormous master closet. It’s so large it could easily be another bedroom. A sizeable nursery. That’s what I’d do with this room if I could ever afford a house like this. But as we weave past the counter in the center of the room, it’s obvious where Finn is taking me and I crumble inside. The ceiling-to-floor mirror in the back corner. It’s humongous. There are fluorescent lights surrounding the frame. It hides nothing. It’ll spit your insecurities right back in your face.

“Finn, no,” I protest.

“Hush,” he says, spinning around to face me. He drops my hand and holds five fingers in my face. “Five. Just give me five minutes. No arguing, no hesitating, no silly jokes. For five minutes, let me talk you through this.”

“Talk me through what?”

“Your first baby step.”

“To what?”

He sighs. “Good sex, Avery. You said you were never going to share your body with a man ever again. That’s no way to live. First step is to let a man see you naked and believe him when he tells you how beautiful you are.”

I freeze in place, the nerves prickling every centimeter of my skin. See. Me. Naked. Under this fluorescent lighting? Hell no. “That’s not a baby step, that’s a fucking leap to the moon, Finn.”

He snorts. “I promise you, you need this. Trust me. And if it makes you feel bad, I won’t bother you for the rest of the summer. I won’t go near the hot tub. We’ll never talk about it again. You’ll go back to California and all this will become a distant memory.”

I cringe when he mentions home. I forgot that my summer hideaway will eventually end. The part of me that believed Mason and I would be back together by fall is long gone. So what am I really going home to? If Palmer’s pilot gets picked up and this becomes a series, she’ll end up in New Mexico permanently. All that’s waiting for me at home is the constant reminder of the withering messy version of myself I now can’t stand. I can’t go back to that.

I won’t.

Finn’s right.

I need to reinvent myself and I have exactly one summer to do it.

“Five minutes.” My voice is small, so I blow out a breath and with a little more bravado say, “No hesitating.”

“Good.” There’s a little glint of excitement in his eyes. Grabbing me by the shoulders, Finn positions me directly in front of the mirror. He takes his place behind me, watching me through the mirror. I instinctively smooth my sloppy hair that’s so unruly it looks more like a messy bun than a ponytail. Jesus. What am I wearing? What the hell is on my shirt? Is that sauce from the pizza pockets from yesterday? How do I let myself exist like this? Finn, noticing my squirming, pulls my ponytail holder out. He runs his hands over my hair from my scalp down my back.

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