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She dropped the Vogue on the coffee table with a resounding splat. “They dropped her because they wantyou.”
CHAPTERTWO
Jesse
If there wasone thing I hated about being a rock star, it was shooting musicvideos.
They were tedious as hell, or more specifically, limbo. It was all hurry up and wait, all fuckingday.
They were also total bullshit. I’d spent half the morning shooting take after take after take. Fake singing with my guitar, fake singing with my shirt off, fake singing with my guitar with my shirt off. And fake was a total fucking turnoff.
I’d spent the rest of the morning on my phone in one of Brody’s spare bedrooms while the wardrobe girls dressed me up like a damn doll. Maggie had even gotten in on it, popping up between a couple of wardrobe racks with a pair of jeans that looked exactly like every other pair I’d triedon.
Fuckit.
I dropped the jeans I was wearing, and this time let my underwear go along with them. I kicked the jeans off my feet, stood there buck naked and said, “Make this one count,ladies.”
Maggie took it like the pro she was and handed over the jeans with a frown of disapproval. One of the wardrobe girls seemed to have swallowed her tongue and got busy looking anywhere but at my dick. The other one almost said something as I stepped into the jeans, commando, and zipped them up.Almost.
“Perfect.” I turned toleave.
“Jesse!” Maggie called after me. “We still need ashirt.”
“Whatever.” I yanked on my T-shirt as I went. “I’ll wearwhatever.”
I headed downstairs, into the fray, waving off the half-dozen people who wanted to talk to me along the way. Any one of them probably would’ve fetched me anything I wanted, but I was already tired of being poked, primped and waitedon.
All I really wanted was to get this day fucking over with and get down toL.A..
There were way too many people crowded into Brody’s place. Film crew, band management, security, wardrobe, makeup, and the many models that had been hired for the shoot were making the massive house feel like the bus we used on our first Dirty tour—totally overrun with hangers-on.
The house was strewn with lights, camera equipment, and all kinds of crap that was being used for the morning-after scene in the living room. It might’ve just been easier to actually throw a party and let everyone trash the house rather than make it look like the aftermath of a shaker. Zane had suggested it; no surprise Brody vetoed thatone.
I passed the living room, where they were setting up for that scene, crew prepping a camera on the dolly track. Zane was in there, the only women in the room swarming around him like bees on a honeycomb, dabbing at him with makeup sponges and finger-styling his beach-blond hair while he ate a bowl of something withchopsticks.
Zane and Dylan, two of my bandmates in Dirty, were doing cameos in the video, the second single from my debut solo album. Since the album was calledSunday Morning, Brody had asked me what I’d be doing on an ideal Sunday morning. I said, “Fucking,” he ran with it, and the concept for the video was born. Zane and Dylan would be passed out in the living room in the aftermath of a party along with a bunch of babes, which would take about two seconds to shoot since all they had to do was lie around. Meanwhile me and the model that was playing my girlfriend would be getting it on, which would probably take hours to shoot, since I had to fake-sing the entire song to her while we went at it and the camera probably had to catch it from a billion differentangles.
I was boredalready.
I stalked into the dining room, which was mostly empty. Just a bunch of hot chicks fussing over their reflections in the big wall mirror and making goo-goo eyes at Dylan, who was in the adjoining music room, kicked back behind the drum kit in his kilt, talking to Brody, eating a sushi cone and being characteristically laid-back, borderline oblivious, about theattention.
I was about to dive into the sushi myself when the lone girl on the other side of the table snagged myeye.
She looked different from the other girls loitering around the house. For one thing, she was short for a model. The other girls were also completely ignoring the food. This one was hovering over it, looking adorably confused in her oversizedbathrobe.
“You alright?” I took one of the avocado rolls she’d been eying and popped it, whole, into mymouth.
She looked up at me, and her already big eyes went wide. They were a pretty blue-green, a nice contrast to her dark hair. She looked familiar, maybe. But then again, I’d spent the last month having hundreds of photos of models shoved in myface.
“Um… I’m just not sure what to eat? They gave me a straw for my drink, to protect the lipstick, and the robe to protect my clothes.” She held up the water bottle she was holding, a straw poking out the top. “But I’m not sure how to eat without destroying this.” She made a sweeping gesture to indicate herface.
“Eat what you want,” I told her. “They’ll retouchit.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip,unsure.
“Eating your lip will probably doworse.”
She let go of the lip and blushed a little. I could see the color on her cheeks even through the high-def makeup they’d lacquered onto her already flawless skin. She smiled a little. “Thanks for the protip.”
