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“Morning, Trevor,” I answered as I shoved a chair out for him to join us. “We’re good. I shouldn’t have asked you to do that for me. That was selfish of me.” I glanced toward Landon and saw he was smiling at me, a look of pride on his face. It pissed me off that the look sent a wave of warm fuzzy feelings through me, but there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. I wanted to please him.
I just didn’t know why.
“What time is your fitting today?”
“Seven o’clock tonight,” he answered with a frown. “I’ll be starved before then.”
“Aren’t you eating?” Landon asked with a huge frown. “Let me order you something.”
“No! I can’t,” Trevor answered quickly. “I’m modeling the children/teenage line tomorrow morning. I’ve got to look as small as humanly possible.” He shrugged. “I’ll be fine. When I’m back in the States, I’ll splurge and eat whatever I want.”
“Are you telling me you aren’t eating anything while you’re here?” Landon demanded. “How old are you, son?”
Fuck, I knew Trevor had it tough…I just hadn’t realized how tough.
“Twenty, sir. I just look younger.”
“Fuck,” Landon hissed under his voice. “Goddamn,” he added since I guess ‘fuck’ didn’t cover it. “Son, you’ve got to eat. You’ll end up passing out while you’re walking. They wouldn’t like that, would they?”
Trevor shrugged. “Won’t happen. I’ll have a protein shake before walking. I’ll be fine.” He smiled. “Thanks for checking on me, though.” He winked at me. “No wonder Jinx has been smiling more the last day. Being with you is refreshing.”
Refreshing? I didn’t feel refreshed. I felt hot…very hot. Every nerve in my body was on edge. His manly scent tickled my nose so damn much that I could almost imagine what he tasted like. I felt sweat glisten my brow. Everything about Landon Honeycutt made me feel the fucking opposite of refreshed.
“Yeah…he’s different than our usual crowd,” I snapped. “It’s like he’s super-sized, right?” I tried to sound as snarky and disgusted as I could while I secretly lusted after the man I’d just tried to insult.
Trevor’s oddly colored purple eyes narrowed when he looked at me. Not much got past him, and I clearly failed at trying to convince him that Landon was anything less than drop-dead fucking gorgeous. Silently, my eyes pleaded with him to play along with my evil game. I should have known better—Trevor was as sweet as they came.
“I wouldn’t exactly call him super-sized,” he countered. “More like man-sized. I think the problem is that we usually hang around with model types. You know, thin and less muscular,” he said, describing me, him, and the rest of the male modeling industry perfectly. “Personally, I wish we’d go back to the times when the industry loved a man to look like a man…not a boy.”
“Don’t you have a book to read or something?” I snapped. I hated myself the moment the words left my lips. I hated myself because my words had probably hurt Trevor’s feelings and, even more, that I’d probably disappointed Landon.
Trevor blushed and stood up. “I’ll catch you later, Jinx. Have a good fitting.” Then, just like that, he disappeared into the crowd. I felt like shit.
Landon shoveled yet another forkful of pancakes into his mouth. “Well…aren’t you just a ray of sunshine to be around?”*****JinxIt had been a long day. I was exhausted. Bored. Pissed off. Disappointed. The fitting had gone fine. Everyone there had sucked up to me the entire time. Well…almost everyone. Landon hadn’t given me the time of day all day long—not since the infamous Trevor incident from breakfast. He’d guarded me like the professional he was, but nothing more. No flirts. No teases. No naughty looks. I’d turned from something he enjoyed toying with to a nuisance.
As the car service took us back to the hotel, I tried to engage him in talk, but he kept shooting me down with his caveman-like grunts instead of answers. Again, I wasn’t accustomed to being ignored. On the other hand, it didn’t appear that Landon was accustomed to dealing with spoiled-ass brats. Yes, I’d heard him refer to me with that particular comment when he’d been talking to one of the ladies responsible for taking my measurements. Was I one-hundred percent sure he’d been referring to me? No. Did I feel confident thinking he was referring to me? Yes; definitely yes.
I might have been home-schooled through middle and high school and had zero college education, but I wasn’t stupid. Actually, I’d always received superior marks on all my educational marks. So…when I told myself that I’d reviewed the problem at hand and drawn the only plausible conclusion, I believed myself wholeheartedly. Hypothesis—Landon only paid attention to me when I misbehaved. Conclusion—misbehave if I wanted his attention.
I wanted his attention.
Thus…activate misbehavior mode at the earliest opportunity.
