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Snap. Shot of the framed art on the wall.
I make a couple adjustments and take the same shot again. Perfect.
Setting the camera down on the table loaded with my equipment, I school my expression and put on my professional face. Just as I prepare to turn and meet my clients, a familiar voice echoes in my ears and I freeze.
A voice I haven’t heard since I was sixteen-years-old.
A voice that hasn’t changed in the thirteen years since I last heard it.
A voice that tortured me in my dreams for almost a decade.
Sucking in a deep breath, I turn with a huge smile plastered across my face and greet my newest client. Should I act as if I remember him? Or not? I am baffled as to how I should respond. I haven’t dealt with a similar situation yet.
I extend my hand to the agent first, seeing as she is the reason I work with her client in the first place. “Cora Davies. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” My smile as tight as a fresh facelift.
“Alyson Jameson.” Her overly manicured hand slides into mine, shaking it with no strength. “This is my client, Gavin Hunt.”
When Alyson drops her hand from mine, I focus my attention on Gavin, offering my hand. His dark brows pinch together for half a second. Most people wouldn’t catch the twitch, but I do. Not only because I am a photographer and part of my job depends on seeing beyond the superficial. But also, because I know Gavin. Intimately. And this shoot just became awkward with a capital A.
He shakes my hand, the rough contours of his skin tingle against my smooth palm. I study him a moment, our hands still connected. Not much has changed since I last saw him. Same height. Same brown-black hair, the style new—buzzed short from the base of his skull to a couple inches above his ear, the remaining hair seven or so inches long and swept to his right. His body, though… time and hard work show as evidence in the taut fabric pressed against his muscular frame. His shoulders seem broader than I remember. And his throat… I swallow just looking at it.
It is difficult to not speak with him like I knew him for years, but I do my best to maintain my businesslike persona. To present myself as the photographer the magazine chose. This is a job. Nothing more.
“Gavin, it’s great to see you again. It has been far too long.”
Too long didn’t even begin to cover it. But no one else in the room needs to know the meaning behind my words. Or the hurt that pairs with them. I pray I have mastered my poker face by now. Because inside, I am seething. And weeping.
All of a sudden, a million questions run a marathon in my head. Except this marathon isn’t on city streets, but on an old-school track. Circle after circle after circle. It makes me dizzy and breathless. My heart thumps erratically and beats against my ribcage harder than necessary. Of all the people I would be okay with not seeing again, Gavin ranked in the top three.
“Cora…” he drawls. My name, four simple letters, spills off his lips soft and wickedly. A smile kicks up the corners of his mouth, and it looks like something he flashes with frequency. It is not a personal smile and doesn’t touch his eyes. Not the smile I was once overly familiar with. The smile I memorized for more than a year. Those must be reserved or nonexistent. This smile is forced and pretentious and ugly. I don’t know this Gavin. Not really sure I want to, either. “Feels like it’s been forever. A lifetime. I didn’t know you were a photographer.”
His words weren’t meant to insult me, but they do. They literally feel like a slap to the cheek. How would he know what I have been up to? You would have to communicate with someone to know what is happening in their life. Am I right? I am tempted to say exactly that, but I somehow restrain myself. I need this shoot to go off without a hitch. The paycheck would be a great boost to my savings.
“And I didn’t know you were a model. So many things have changed for us both, I’m sure.” As much as I try to restrain my sarcasm, it pours out of me with ease. When it comes to Gavin, it is difficult to restrain my true feelings. With anyone else, I easily mask my emotions and go about my business. But with him, it just spills out of me. Always has.
The air around us is thick and heavy with our history. A history his agent and my assistant are unfamiliar with. A history I should put on the back burner while I am the photographer and he is the model. This is not the time or place to bring up the past. And if I am lucky, there won’t be a time while he is here.
I can be the skilled photographer and focus on the task at hand. Can silence my emotions. And ignore the flutter circulating in my chest at the sight of him. Ignore the hunger building in my core at the resonance of his voice. Ignore the flashes of our past that float through my mind.
A glowing smirk lifts a corner of his lips, as if he knows he has gotten to me. As if he can read me like he did all those years ago. But he doesn’t know me anymore. Doesn’t know what I went through after he left. Doesn’t know how much I have changed. And two can play his game.
“Mr. Hunt—” I cut the silence. “If you could please move over to the backdrop near the windows.”
He cocks an eyebrow in challenge and his smirk deepens. “Sure thing, Ms. Davies.” His emphasis on the prefix doesn’t go unnoticed. Figures he would assume I am still single. Maybe I kept my name for my business. He doesn’t know one way or the other. But it is irrelevant, because his assumption is correct. And that pisses me off further.
Prick.
He saunters to where I directed him and turns when his feet land on the fabric. “How do you want me?” he asks with a sultry rasp to his voice.
“Have a seat on the stool. We’ll start with some headshots displaying the clothes and watch.”
His smile bumps up a notch and the faint glimpse of his dimples appear. “You know, I always loved it when you bossed me around.” This time, when he smiles wider, it touches his eyes. But it reeks of mischief versus genuineness.
If my eyes roll any farther back in my head, I will see the inside sutures of my skull. This is going to be a long week.
Three hours later, after endless banter and flirting from Gavin, I am ready to go home and drink away any thought ever including him. Drink away memories skirting on the edge of my mind. Drink myself into a stupor. Today was only three hours. But there are several days listed for the shoot, plus dinners.
Can I just request a drink from the hotel bar now?
