Shut Up and Model for Me (2 page)

And there is nothing worse than a two-hour-long boring nerd lecture from a grad student.

Even though I’ve already wasted gas getting here, now seems like the perfect opportunity to ditch. I have stats homework up the ass anyway.

As I stand to shuffle to the aisle, the grad student steps up to the podium.

I slowly lower my bag back down to the ground.

And sit.

I’ve never seen a human being like him. He’s tall and well-built (I can only imagine what he looks like under that pale blue button-up). Beneath a shag of wavy, chestnut hair, he has the most piercing,
blinding
blue eyes I’ve ever seen in my life.

A flutter of whispers spark up behind me. I crane my neck a bit to see a couple of girls hunched close together and gawking. Seems as though I’m not the only one noticing that a Greek god has just walked into the classroom.

He has just enough of a square jaw to keep him youthful without giving him a baby face. He shuffles his papers and pushes that careless mess of a hairdo to the side. He’s nervous. Freaking adorable.

“Hello…err…
class
. So today, I’m going to continue Professor Gates’ lecture on tumor suppressor genes.”

Fabulous—a topic I’ve already read ahead in. I close the top to my netbook. I can watch this gorgeous grad student stumble his way through a lecture without the hassle of needing to take notes. His voice is a smooth baritone—an easy one to get lost in.

I realize now my deep fascination with this eye and ear candy, and let out a silent sigh.
This is as good as it gets, Evan. Soak it in while you can.

Snagging a boyfriend right now is a straight-up laughable thought. First there’s the fact that I don’t know if I could ever hide my double life from the boy that I’m with. And that conversation wouldn’t be the most pleasant thing in the world.
Hey Babe, I just wanted to let you know that the reason why I don’t have any student debt isn’t because I have rich parents. It’s because most of the male population at East Park has seen my tits.

And secondly, there’s grad school. Getting into UC Berkeley is happening. Why bother starting a relationship here when I’m destined to go south?

So I’ll just have to make do with Mr. Dallas Whitley here, finally getting the ball rolling and fluently making his way through Power Point slides. But I’m not taking notes on the slimy, monstrous looking photos of tumor developments flashing across the projector screen.

I’m undressing Dallas with my eyes, thank you very much.

Dallas

Tricia has tried to call me eight times in the past two hours. She probably wants to remind me to pick up milk on my way home.

Which is why I’m not expecting the first thing out of her mouth to be, “Oh. My. God. Dallas…
Dallas
!”

I slide into the seat of my beat-up Toyota. “What, Trish?
What
?”

“
East Park Exposed
. The photographer… she already got back on your headshot submission. She wants you to come in tomorrow.”

I pause in starting the ignition. Okay, good news. So why is my stomach twisting? Oh yeah, because I wasn’t the one who sent in my headshot.

Tricia was.

Yes, my girlfriend wants me to pose for
East Park Exposed
. The mag is so popular, she said. You’ll get your face out there. Your modeling career will take off.

She’s been pushing the modeling thing ever since I decided to go into field research instead of med school. It’s her way of making sure I’ll still be paying some bills, since now I’ll be getting my PhD for a five-figure salary.

Like modeling will really cut me a nice paycheck. I guess she has faith in my body.

“That so?” I say. “So what is it? An audition?”

“I’m not too sure,” Tricia responds. “I think she just wants to see you. Maybe do a test shoot.”

“Which means I’ll be grinding up against mostly-naked girls… tomorrow. You know that, right?”

Her sigh is loud. “We already talked about this. I told you… work is work.” She scoffs. “You really think I’d be jealous of those sluts?”

“Just double checking. Love you. See you in a bit.”

“Don’t forget the milk. Kisses,” she says, and hangs up.

I drop my phone in the cup holder and rub my eyes. Already a reply from the photographer… am I ready for this? Posing isn’t a deal at all. I’ve done underwear shoots before.

But the fact that the mag is affiliated with East Park just makes me feel so unprofessional. On top of shooting with girls that aren’t Tricia.

But she doesn’t care, so I shouldn’t care.

I pull out of the parking lot, looking forward to nothing but buying milk and grading undergrad papers tonight.

And being poor.

And whoring myself out to EPE subscribers.

Fuck college.

Chapter Two

Evan

“I’ve narrowed it down to four sexy models,” Britain says right when I walk in the door. She sits at her computer. “They’re all gonna stop by tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I say as indifferently as possible. I throw my bag on the couch and head to the kitchen to wash out my smoothie cup.

“
Well
, aren’t you interested?”

“In seeing what these model boys look like?” I yell over the running water, and shrug. “Not really. I mean,
I’m
not going to be posing with them. And they’re just temps, right?”

“Jesus, Evan. Stop being a prude and come check out some hot ass with me.”

I roll my eyes and turn off the water, trudging into the living room. I pull up a chair and sit at the desk with her. She has the first on already open. He’s… hot, I guess. Nice abs.

“His nose is kind of big.”

“You’re impossible,” she says.

“Show me the next one.”

She clicks her mouse, and a new photo pops up. He leans against a brick wall, crossing his meaty arms. Meaty is an understatement.

“This guy is huge. And short. And bald. God, you have terrible taste in men. Why am I just realizing this now?”

“Shut your face.”

She clicks to the next portrait, and I stop breathing.

The model lounges on the couch wearing low-rise jeans. His white shirt is completely unbuttoned, revealing his tanned chest—the ripples of his six-pack.

I exhale. “Oh my god.”

His neck is craned as he glances at the camera behind him with those gorgeous blue eyes.

“Evan has a lady boner,” Britain sings.

I open my mouth, but what the hell am I supposed to say? That she’s late to the party? That I’ve already been mentally masturbating to this guy for the past two hours? “I know him. Well, sort of. He was our student lecturer today in bio.”

“Wait. You’re telling me that he’s a
grad student
?”

“Yeah. But what does that have to do with anything?”

She shrugs. “Older guys are at our maturity level. Adam is
so
already getting on my nerves.”

“Which is why we shouldn’t have any boys in our shoots.”

“No, which is why we should hire this one.”

When I jump up, I almost knock my chair over. “Hell no!”

“Are you kidding me? We have to. He’s perfect. I heard the way you gasped when I pulled his picture up.”

“He’s in my department, Brit. The first time a subscriber sees the two of us near each other, they are going to figure out exactly who I am.”

She pushes her blonde hair out of her face at the same time that Delilah swaggers down the stairs wearing booty shorts and a crop top. “You really need to get past this whole double life thing. You’ll be way less stressed out.” She nods toward the stairs. “Take Delilah for example. Delilah’s never stressed.”

Delilah swings from the bottom end of the banister, her curtain of auburn hair waving back and forth. Delilah—EPE’s Jessica Rabbit. Full hips and boobs, tiny little waist. Huge lips and eyes. She doesn’t just play a vixen on television either.

“I’ve told Evan this a million and a half times,” she says, sauntering over to us. “You get used to the cat calls. The free drinks make up for it. Plus the sex any time you want it.”

Delilah isn’t like me—she doesn’t have a pseudonym for her first name.

“And if I did that then I’d never get any work done.”

“You’d be too busy fucking.”

“Well… no—”

But she cuts me off. “Who. Is.
That
?” She leans in toward the computer. “I want to lick every inch of him.”

“You might get to.” Britain zooms in on Dallas’s picture.

“He’s one of our new boys?” Delilah bites her bottom lip.

“No…
No
.” I put my hands on my hips. Nothing says serious business like hands on the hips.

“Think about it, Evan. You’d have someone in your own department who understands you. You guys could be buddies.” Britain bats her eyelashes. “While Delilah climbs him like a tree for our benefit.”

I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”

As I trudge up to my room, Britain yells, “So you’ll be around tomorrow to meet him, right?”

I don’t answer.

“Hey Evan, want to have a
How I Met Your Mother
marathon this weekend?” Delilah asks.

“Can’t. Homework. Always homework.” I watch as she pouts from below. “Try after graduation.”

^^^^

As I lie in bed, I clutch my stomach, wondering why it’s twisting so much. I’m not jealous of Delilah. I’m not. I’m making money. I’m getting great grades. I’m going to get into grad school. The last thing I need is to be distracted by a bunch of male models. Bringing them in to work alongside us is a bad idea in the first place.

When Britain sees that having them work with us will just turn off male readers, then they’ll leave and things will return to normal.

I just have to wait.

^^^^

When I hang around shoots that aren’t mine, waiting for my own turn in front of the camera, I usually wear something comfortable, but much trendier than what Evan would wear to school. Sexy Rylan comfy. Today, it’s a black romper and gladiator sandals while Nora does my makeup and hair.

I guess Nora would be another one I’d consider to know both of my identities. But I don’t really care that she knows—she graduated from a cosmetic school on the other side of town, is not-so-secretly super goth, and wants nothing to do with us college skanks.

I kind of like her.

We don’t pay her much. I’m sure she only comes in to doll us up for the credit in the mag. She’s actually had quite a few of our subscribers (or subscribers girlfriends, I guess) wanting to set up an appointment with her because of what they saw in EPE.

I close my eyes as she sprays on my makeup. I get the usual Rylan look today—soft, curly hair cascading over my shoulders, a shadow palette in quiet browns, and cheeks an innocent pink hue. My favorite thing, oddly enough, is the pair of fake eyelashes glued on every day. There’s something about eyelashes that totally changes a girl’s appearance. They make me look like an entirely different person.

When Nora is done, I examine myself in the mirror.
Hello, Rylan.

I curl my fingers around one of my locks and head out toward today’s set. There’s only one bedroom in the studio side of the house. We use it for most of our inside shoots, the bed, furniture, and walls covered to rematch our theme. I haven’t really been paying attention lately to the mag lineup so I’m not sure what is planned for Delilah’s shoot—which is why, when I step foot into the bedroom, I’m not expecting to be handed a bottle of chocolate syrup and have a very,
very
naked Adam in front of me.

“Help smear this on Adam,” Britain instructs, returning to her job of dousing Delilah, who wears only a black thong.

“Well,” Adam throws me a smirk and stretches his arms. “Ready when you are.”

I sneer. “Of course you’d give me the naked giant to cover.” Naked giant with nice assets. But I’m not about to comment on them and make his ego even bigger. “Whatever,” I mutter. Rubbing chocolate on a hot, naked boy isn’t the weirdest thing that I’ve ever done. I walk toward Adam and pop open the lid to the bottle. “Hershey’s… classy.”

I shake the bottle at is torso. When chocolate spurts out onto his skin, he groans.

I snort. “Give me a break.”

“What?” Adam says. “You don’t find giving me a chocolate bath erotic?”

“I find it cheesy as hell. Don’t step off the plastic. Chocolate syrup is a bitch to get out of the carpet.”

“You’d know?” He asks wickedly.

“Yeah. You—and Delilah—aren’t the only ones in this room who’ve been covered in dessert.”

“But you haven’t been covered in dessert with
me
.”

“Oh,
God
.” I step back, pointing to Delilah. “Do you not see the hot piece of ass that you’re going to be shooting with for the next hour?”

“Why thank you,” Delilah sings. Delicately, she climbs onto the bed. I notice now that it’s covered in the ivory vinyl comforter and pillows. It sounds tacky, but it actually looks like an expensive down bed set. And yet it can be sprayed off with a hose if needed.

“But having just Delilah isn’t as good as having both of you,” Adam says.

“Sounds like someone has a crush.” Delilah kneels on the bed and fluffs her hair, completely free of shame as chocolate slowly trickles over her breasts. I mean, when it was just us girls during shoots, so much exposure wouldn’t make me blink twice. But the thought of being naked in front of someone like Adam, who devours me with his eyes while I’m clothed, kind of weirds me out.

I can’t let it. Just because a guy’s involved in a shoot doesn’t mean that I don’t have the upper hand. I can’t be afraid of something new—of the unpredictable.

I put a little swagger in my step as I walk toward him, squirting chocolate syrup on my hand. “So you’re one of those guys who thinks he’s so hot, he can just have it all.” I press my hand against his chest, smearing chocolate all over his pecks. Keeping my eyes locked on his, I trail my fingers down the muscles in his abs. “It must be shocking for a girl like me to be apathetic to the thought of licking chocolate syrup off of you.”

I trace his hipbone. His eyes roll back and he squeezes them shut. I glance down to find him hard as a rock, his dick less than an inch away from my abdomen.