Page 3 of A Man To Remember
He doesn't. "Cool! My shift ends at midnight—I'll come check out your natural habitat then."
There's no fucking unclenching my jaw now.I'll come. That's it. No ‘May I’, no ‘Would you mind if...’ Nope. Just the plain old ‘I might pretend all I want, but I don't really treat what you do as a real job, so I'll disturb you however I please’sentiment I've been forced to grow accustomed to over the years. Still, it makes me see red every time.
A not-so-polite retort dances on the tip of my tongue and I stare him dead in the eyes for a couple of seconds, searching for better words than simply:Oh, fuck off. Jesse looks back at me, blissfully oblivious, eyes annoyingly bright.
There's a tap on the back of my shoulder, and then another one, and I whip my head around, about to tell whoever doesn't understand the concept of personal space to fuck off, but instead of a person's head, my eyes are met with a collarbone. I lift my chin up and see a full head of shoulder-length black wavy hair. Beside it, on the same level, twelve feet above ground, is another head, with dark hair trimmed as close to the man's scalp as possible, and all I can see are sharp jawlines and high cheekbones. Hell yeah, they're perfect.
"Hey! Hi," I say, genuinely cheerful for the first time tonight, Jesse all but gone from my awareness. "Austin, nice to meet you." I shake my models' hands as they introduce themselves, and mentally spend the indecent sum I will make for this shoot. "Shall we?"
They must be doing similar mental math, judging by their expressions and the eagerness with which they both nod.
What a great night to be alive.
I adjust the omnipresent straps of my bags and glance at the napkin in my hand. Oh, right. Appearances. I turn to where Jesse still looks at me from across the bar, face still bright and relaxed. Holding the napkin between my index and middle fingers, I lift it up in front of my face and send him a nod. "Thanks again, man. See ya!" Hopefully never.
CHAPTER 3
JESSE
THREE, TWO, ONE, aaaaand, I'm fucking out of here.
I shove my phone into my pocket at midnight on the dot and wave to Sawyer on the other end of the bar, signaling my departure. Still fresh, having started his shift just two hours ago, Sawyer waves back and mouths "Have a good one," while performing a no-look pass of three shot glasses to his current customer.
I pace to the back and take a hasty shower, washing the night away, and throw on fresh clothes equally hastily. It's been exactly four hours since Austin sauntered away with the two men who looked like basketball players moonlighting as models, because yeah, faces like that should not go to waste.
The club is still packed to the brim as I make my way to one of its many,manyprivate rooms, my palms and feet tingling with anticipation, because how often do you get the chance to see how the sausage is made? And by sausage, I mean erotic photography which may or may not involve sausages as well.
There weren't any nudes per se on Austin's website, but damn, there might as well have been. It's something he does, some photo trickery, an optical voodoo if you will, that makes all the people in his photosappearnaked, and banging for that matter. Even when they're not touching. Even when they're fully dressed.
When I finally reach the blue door, I swipe my key card unceremoniously and crack the door open. They couldn't hear me knock, anyway.
I poke my head in and for a second, I'm sure I got the wrong room. Looks like they've refurnished.
The four sofas with no backrests and no armrests, that used to be joined together into a giant leather island in the middle of the room, are now pressed against the walls, along with the long low tables that used to surround the makeshift, kingdom-sized bed.
Two of the tables stacked on top of each other in a construction I'm skeptical of are home to two laptops, several cameras, and even more black tubes people attach to their cameras for reasons I'm not knowledgeable enough to understand.
And by the wall opposite to where I'm standing is a large, roll-out graphite backdrop, in front of which two tall, unfairly muscular men are posing. One of them, the one with his head shaved almost bald, has his back pressed to the other one's torso, and the one behind him has one arm wrapped around hismiddle, his head leaned down as if he were kissing the other one's neck, lips not quite touching the skin, his long hair falling over his face, making him appear mysterious even outside a still, curated image.
Austin is standing a few feet away from them, his back facing me. He has one hand propped against his waist and a camera with a large black tube attached to it is by his hip where he holds it, seemingly mentally mapping out the best angles.
As I step into the room, I lock eyes with the long-haired model. For a second, I feel like I'm doing something wrong, even though I'm not, but then he looks away, seemingly unperturbed by my presence.
Austin waves his hand to his models in a gesture that must be some inside knowledge, because they change positions. The long-haired one steps to the front and bends slightly while the bald one stands behind him, one hand on the other's waist, the other on his shoulder, and they look like they're...damn.
A flash takes me by surprise, illuminating the models in a momentary white glow. And again. Austin's now moving, stepping around his models, periodically ducking down and straightening up to capture the pose from all possible angles and then some.
My eyes are fixed on the scene, and I half-consciously saunter to one of the sofas by the wall and take a seat. Austin motions his hand in a secret signal again, but the models don't switch places this time. Instead, the one at the back slides one hand from the other's waist to his front and then down until the tips of his fingers are behind the waistband of his partner's briefs, which are the sole item of clothing the man's wearing.
I only half-register the series of flashes that follow, my attention solely on the models. Do they know each other?Are they a couple? Because this all seems so... intimate, so uncomfortably familiar it'd probably be awkward to do with strangers. But maybe that's all they are. Professionals.
I try not to make a sound as I take off my hoodie. I probably should just suck it up and stay motionless, pretending I'm one with the furniture to not disturb the men at work, but damn, it's hot in here.
It's just a little too much skin and muscle and, well,menfor my comfort, so I focus on Austin's omnipresent gear instead. Where he fit all of this shit is anyone's guess. There are a few standing lights, surrounded by reflective silver cones positioned at varying distances from the models, two large, open umbrellas, and a giant silver screen tilted at an angle. I'm sure it's all very strategic, but from the outside, it looks like chaos and a half.
And in the center of all this mess is Austin, currently on his knees, his head tilted sideways as he looks at the back screen of the camera, also sideways, and snaps a series of shots. If he noticed I'm here, he doesn't show it. He probably hasn't. Even though I only see one side of his face, it's more than enough to gauge his focus. With his lips pulled tight and his brows furrowed, it's clear he's in the zone—the zone where nothing exists save for the task at hand, the zone where, if an earthquake were to happen right now, he'd only realize because his shot lost focus.
I scoot deeper into the sofa, resting my back against the wall. Austin looks so... grown up. Yeah, that's the only term that describes him completely at this moment. Of course, he's technically been a grown-up for a long-ass time now. We both have. But something about his dedication, about the unwavering professionalism he exudes, makes me feel like I've been pretending this whole time, feigning maturity and skippingclasses while everyone around me graduated from the school of life and is now putting their diplomas to good use.
