Page 2 of Perfectly Imperfect Us
Jase:I’m already in the car driving to Nickel Bay. I’ll be there as soon as this traffic allows.
I snapped a photo of the wall opposite me, texting it to the guys.
Ryder:I gotta find a house to buy. ASAP. Imagine waking up and the first thing you see is a picture of your mom in her pageant dress.
Jase:Better than what I see when I wake up: an empty bed.
Max:Wow, Jase. Way to really bring down the mood. I’m gonna start calling you Eeyore if you don’t cut that crap out.
Heath:I don’t know, man. Your mom was kind of hot. I wouldn’t mind looking at that…
Ryder:This conversation is over.
I threw my phone in the direction of the closet, the soft landing in the thick carpet not even making a noise. Scrubbing a hand over my face to stop my skin from crawling after Heath’s comment, my brain raced with all the things I needed to do. Check my email for the contract for the fashion show in NY next month, check my social media channels and answer fans, see if my agent had cancelled some smaller one-off gigs. Between me and my agent and amongst close friends, I was retiring, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want a few larger gigs to keep me occupied and at least slightly still in the game.
There was always an endless to-do list as one of the top male models. And I wasn’t bragging. People Magazine literally put me at number two last year in one of their year-end roundup articles, only outdone by the guy who’d been a pro athlete turned model who was running himself ragged trying to do every job out there to get on top of the pack. It was working. You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing his face—or some other part of him—staring back at you from a magazine, billboard, or television show. Mark my words: he’d be burned out within a year and disappear from the scene for awhile while he tried out some rehab facilities. He didn’t realize modeling was an endurance sport, not a sprint.
Instead of handling any of the things I needed to, I rolled over and stood up, deciding to unpack my suitcase first and then hit the storage unit. I didn’t have a lot of heavy furniture to unpack—most of the things in my condo in LA had been rented—but I had a ton of memorabilia and artwork from every place I’d traveled to in the world. Twelve years of modeling meant I’d been to quite a few countries. Plus I had some nice clothes high-end brands had given me that needed to be hung up. If I was going to be photographed wearing their clothing, I wanted it to look good. Ethics, man, that’s what many lacked in my industry, but not me.
An album on the desk next to the closet had me pausing. It was thick, stuffed with photos, but the cover sported a faded floral scene that didn’t really fit my mom’s taste. I flipped it open, always intrigued with photography of any kind.
The words Baby Girl were scrawled across the top of the page, but crossed out with a thick black marker. The rest of the album contained page after page of my life throughout the years: baby pictures, toddler, kindergarten, elementary school, high school, and even torn-out pages of my spreads in various magazines over the last decade. How had I never seen this album growing up?
A weird feeling spread through my torso, almost like that hot sugary lava cake I wanted so badly—but rarely ever ate, because hello, major calories—spread through my insides. I’d never felt something like that before, so I was either coming down with some sort of virus, or I was experiencing an emotion I’d previously only heard about in podcasts on psychology.
My parents might actually be proud of me.
A car door slammed outside, pulling me out of my musings. I frowned, wondering why my parents would be back already. I set the album down and went over to the window, catching a glimpse of a faded blue pickup truck that had seen better days parked at the curb between our house and the neighbor’s. A brunette tossed a huge bright pink bag over her shoulder and walked to the neighbor’s front door. When she pushed her sunglasses on the top of her head and I saw her face, I froze.
Ava Mendez.
Skylar Rae’s best friend. And currently my number one enemy.
Ava hadn’t said one word to me in high school. I mean, she’d been a few years younger, so that wasn’t too weird, but her best friend had started dating my best friend last year and we’d all been hanging out together when I was in town. Still mute. Not one word to me. Then, at Max and Skylar’s wedding, she’d popped the cork and spewed all kinds of hate. She’d gotten so upset she’d thrown some Spanish words at me I couldn’t repeat in polite company. Luckily, I was made of Teflon.
Okay, that wasn’t true, but it was the kind of thing I said to myself when I got harsh reviews, or a company didn’t renew my modeling contract, or I posted on social media and some keyboard warrior decided to attack me personally. Happened a lot, so my skin had gotten thicker over the last decade. For some reason, Ava’s tirade ticked me off more than it should. I mean, what had I ever done to her to earn such nastiness? Nothing. That’s what.
I scooped my phone off the ground, shoved it in my back pocket, and jogged to the front door. My impulsive mind was made up. I leaped over the patio railing, mentally patting myself on the back for still having moves at the ripe old age of thirty. Retirement at this age was messing with my head and making me feel old. I banged on the front door of the Mendez’s house and hoped Ava was the only one home.
I waited.
Knocked again.
Shifted from foot to foot.
Banged harder.
Anger began to build. I could feel it as my heart rate climbed and my hands kept clenching into fists. This girl was insane, yelling at me at the wedding and now she ignores me? Major rude.
“I know you’re in there, Ava. I literally just saw you walk in,” I shouted through the door.
Rationally, I knew the worst way to get a girl to come to the door was to yell at her, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I’d taken her verbal lashing at the wedding to keep things peaceful for Skylar and Max’s sake, but I had a few things to say now. I deserved to have the chance to stand up for myself.
The curtain to the left of the door fluttered. Still, the door didn’t open. I took a deep breath and searched for my calm center, coming up empty-handed.
“Look, I don’t mean to yell. I just moved in next door. We’re neighbors, so I thought I’d come say hello.” I tried to shove my hands in my pockets, irrationally angered when they wouldn’t fit. Stupid fashion designers making small pockets on men’s pants. “You know, like neighbors do in a small close-knit town like Nickel Bay?”
A dog at their neighbor’s house started barking behind the fence. Clearly, I was disturbing the whole block. I took a step back from the door and tossed my too-long hair out of my eyes. What was I doing yelling through a door like a crazy man? If someone had done that to me in LA, I wouldn’t have answered either. I was better than that.
