Page 18 of Salacious Park Avenue Prince

At our parents’ home. At events I was hired to photograph. At Astor. And now my seatmate for the remainder of the semester.

God, what a fucking nightmare. He was the last person I wanted—or needed—to be around, and now he’d be there, provoking me at every turn. It was hard to remember that we’d ever gotten along in the first place.

But I wasn’t gonna think about him now. He’d taken up space in my brain for too many hours over the last week, and tonight I was going to spend time in my happy place.After spending the summer in South Africa photographing the wildlife, I had several weeks’ worth of photos to edit.

I grabbed my laptop out of my bag and reached for a beer as it powered up. Then clicked open the drive where I stored all my photos. Hundreds of folders popped up, all in alphabetical order. If there was one thing I was meticulous about, it was the way I saved my digital files.

I scrolled down the bottom to the South Africa folder and double-clicked. There were large cat shots, fantastic images I’d caught of a hippo as it launched itself out of the river, defending its calf, and my all-time favorites—the series featuring the herd of elephants we’d followed for a week.

I started with the elephants and got to work.

They were beautiful, commanding, majestic. They made me feel as though I was right back there in the thick of it, and that was the power of a well-taken photograph.

It was what I loved about taking pictures. They captured a moment in time, but evoked different emotions depending on who was viewing it, and that was all I ever hoped for when someone looked at one of my photos—to elicit a response, a feeling.

My eyes wandered to the only folder in the drive that was out of alphabetical order. The one markeduntitled. It was in the far bottom left, away from all the others, and had remainedunopened for months now—nearly a year according to the time stamp.

I dragged the mouse pointer over the folder, and my pulse skipped a beat.

Don’t do it.

But one week in close proximity to Travis and my mind was all over the fucking place. He’d done it again, managed to slip past my defenses, get through the barriers I’d put in place—traffic, city blocks, doors and walls—and find his way into my space.

It was ridiculous. No,Iwas ridiculous. Because it was me who clicked open the folder. Me who watched the photos inside load. And it was me who couldn’t seem to quiet Travis’s voice in the back of my mind, reminding me that at one time I’d welcomed him into my space—morethan welcomed him…

“CALEB! CALEB, YOU in here?”

I lifted my headphones off one of my ears and listened as Travis’s footsteps echoed up the hall of the penthouse to where our bedrooms were located. It’d been a couple of years since our parents had gotten together, and he and his mom had moved in. It still sometimes caught me off guard. It felt strange to have him here.

Not strange in a bad way. Strange in having to share my space with someone after having it all to myself. Travis wasn’t exactly the quiet type. He was loud and outgoing and had inserted himself into all aspects of my life until I found it well and truly meshed with his.

Which wasn’t a bad thing. I’d been kind of an introvert before that, happier to view the world through a lens than step out and experience it for myself. But Travis had made it his mission to change that, and introduced me to a whole newworld where friends, parties and good times were just as fun as finding the perfect shot.

“I’m in my room,” I called back as I flicked through the photos I’d taken that morning from the rooftop. The city had been engulfed in a sea of fog, one of the most incredible sights I’d ever seen, and I’d captured it all on camera.

My door swung open, and I glanced up to see Travis filling it in the way he always did when he entered a room. It wasn’t that he was physically bigger than I was or imposing in any way, more his presence.From the black, scuffed-up military boots with the laces half undone, to the vintage wash jeans and black t-shirt and jacket with a bunch of different zippers, Travis was cool in ways I would never be. Add in the spiked black hair and icy blue eyes enhanced with liner, and he was difficult to ignore.

He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and eyed me where I lounged back against my headboard.“Please tell me you’re up here looking at porn. If not, that’s just sad, man. It’s Friday night.”

I pulled my headphones down until they hung around my neck. “It’s Friday afternoon, and no, I’m not looking at porn.”

Travis’s lips crooked. “Would you admit it if you were?”

Probably not, but I wasn’t telling him that. He would give me shit for being embarrassed or a pussy. “Why would I lie?”

“Dunno. Maybe you’re shy.”

I rolled my eyes and returned my attention to the image on my computer. “Because I don’t want you using my porn subscription? That’s smart. Not shy.”

Travis chuckled and it was like the throaty sound was being amplified by the bass in my headphones.“You think I’m that hard up, huh?” He pushed off the door and sauntered into the room, perching his ass on the edge of my bed like it was his own.

“Aren’t you?” I grinned at him over my laptop. “You’re the one always bitchin’ how you ‘need to get some.’”

Travis flopped across the foot of the bed, slipping his hands under his head. “Yeah, but no one at school.”

“Oh? Been there and done that?”

Travis turned his head on the mattress and raised a brow. “You sayin’ I sleep around?”

---