Hope Breaks: A New Adult Romantic Comedy Page 7

  “Really?” Darla’s spring bright eyes lit up and her dimples flared into lovely fruition.

  “Really. Now… do you have a state ID?”

  “Sure,” she said and rummaged through her little black leather purse until she pulled it out and handed it to me.

  Then I held my hand out to Drew. He pulled out his wallet and hesitated when he was about to hand his ID over. It was Darla’s turn to giggle in the background.

  I took it and gave it cursory glance. Drew automatically started to look tense. And then I saw it.

  “Bartholomew Andrew Lands?”

  Drew turned ten shades of red, and Darla came up and pinched his cheeks.

  “Aren’t those the cutest names any mother ever gave her son?”

  “It’s got… character.” I gave Darla a wink as I turned and headed into the little cubbyhole of an office I had connected to the studio. A few seconds later and I emerged with the photocopies, Drew and Darla had signed their release forms, and I stapled them together.

  “Okay, we’re all set.” And I ushered them both toward the couch and the green screen.

  ***

  This can’t be happening…

  Not again…

  Drew and Darla had that deer in headlights look on their faces. And even though they were in each other’s arms, there was zero chemistry happening. And the pictures were even worse. They looked like surprised robots… or like I was holding a sawed-off shotgun to their heads instead of a camera.

  I was tempted to give Darla that Pepsi and try and start a fight between them. At least then there would be some kind of passion in their faces.

  “Let’s take a break, okay?”

  They both sagged in relief, and I turned and headed for the kitchen. I needed more coffee… and a freaking miracle.

  Maybe if Billy the tow truck driver could get his best buddy’s girlfriend to come and pose…

  No… I needed these pics yesterday. I needed something hot and original pronto, and I was not going to let these two go until I got the image I needed.

  I poured some coffee into my mug, added the creamer and sugar, and had started to walk back out of the kitchen… when I saw the empty pizza box from last night sitting on top of my kitchen trashcan.

  The most delicious heat flared deep inside me and rushed up my spine, making my back arch. I could remember how it felt when Jake had pulled me to him, his hand on the small of my back.

  My knees went weak, so I set my coffee down before I dropped it. God, I wanted him here with me right now. Screw the shoot and the job. The man I was daydreaming about was so amazing.

  But you don’t really know anymore about him than you did.

  Except he’s a great kisser.

  Except for that. And that you need this job or you’re going to have to get a new one, that doesn’t pay nearly as well, where you’ll probably have to wear an embarrassing uniform and get carpel tunnel syndrome.

  Probably more than one of those jobs.

  Okay, okay… you’re right… I mean, I’m right. I need to get in there and light a hormonal fire under their perky little asses, and quick.

  I picked up my coffee, gulped down about half of it and headed into the studio. Right away I knew there was something up.

  It was just too quiet. Oh, and Drew and Darla were nowhere to be found.

  Shiiit…

  The lovebirds had flown the coop.

  Had they just left and decided to blow off the shoot all together?

  I saw their shirts still on the straight chair in the corner, so that was a probably no.

  Oh no…

  Two partially naked teenagers left alone in a strange house…

  Survey says: bedroom.

  I went up stairs and peeked into my room—blessedly they weren’t in there. But I heard giggling and a few deep sighs from the guest room down the hall.

  I stepped into the doorway, hoping to hell I wasn’t going to find them in an R or X rated moment. They were on the bed, but they still had their jeans on, and Darla still wore her bra, even though one of the straps was off over her shoulder.

  But the pose they were in was pure frolic.

  Drew was lying on his stomach, and Darla was fastened onto his back, her dimpled face leaning over his shoulder, her lips brushing his ear.

  That was it…

  It was the shot I wanted.

  Shit, I left my camera… wait… I’d left my Nikon hanging around my neck.

  I raised the camera and took the picture. At the flash Darla looked up at me, her piercing baby blues at sex kitten half-mast. I took another picture.

  “Sorry,” Drew said from under Darla. “This little vixen got bored and pulled me in here.”

  “That’s okay,” I said and took another shot.

  Drew leaned his head down on the mattress and sighed. “You’re gonna have to get off me, Pebbles.” Pebbles? “She needs us—”

  “Right where you are,” I said.

  Drew got this look on his face like he was thinking, and “Pebbles” froze again.

  Okay, so I had four good shots. But that couldn’t be all I got. I needed a bunch of shots and poses to choose from. I needed these two to go back to whatever naughty mindset they’d just been in.

  “So why’d you drag him in here, Darla?”

  Darla blushed beautifully, and crammed her face down into Drew’s meaty back. I snapped a shot of that and waited.

  “She’s got this thing,” Drew said, “where she likes doing it in weird places.”

  “I do not!” she shot back.

  “Okay, okay… she’s right. We don’t do it in weird places—she’s an in-the-bedroom girl—but she does like to make out in the weirdest places.”

  “Drew!”

  “Well, you do!” He gave me this I can’t believe her look, and she rolled her eyes at him. I shot that too.

  “And how… um, did she get you in this position?” I felt like a total pervert asking, but…

  On cue Darla reached her arms around Drew and her pastel pink painted nails sank into the mattress and up under his belly. He started squirming and turning red-faced.

  Click, click, click.

  Drew rolled over and grabbed a hold of Darla’s wrists to prevent her from further torturing his six-pack abs.

  Darla threw her head back, making her wavy mane of corn yellow hair fall from her face, exposing a triumphant expression.

  “He’s ticklish as hell, so he thinks if he rolls over on his belly I can’t make him squirm.”

  “Guess he was wrong about that,” I said and clicked another shot. And then because the look on Drew’s face changed from irritated to suddenly mesmerized by the golden haired vixen perched atop him, I clicked off another few shots.

  I’d never done a question and answer session with my models. It had usually just been me directing them to change position and to affect a certain heat level in their gazes at each other.

  This, right now, with these two was simply wild. I could have never gotten a couple of models who had never met each other before to give me this kind of intimacy.

  Just then Drew reached up, and with one hand to the small of Darla’s back, and the other grasping her around her head, where her ear was, he pulled her down and kissed her, long and slow and wet.

  I blushed and almost told them to knock it off… but I clicked a few shots of them instead.

  I felt a wash of warmth crash against my heart, and then lower, welling up to make me simmer and tingle all over. I flashed back to Jake kissing me, how he’d tasted, how his lips felt, his sexy as all hell smell.

  The room temperature must have shot up about twenty degrees, and I started to fan myself with a prop cowboy hat just to stave off breaking out in a head to toe sweat.

  Darla squirmed on top of Drew and I got a glimpse at the rather colossal arousal that was protruding from his jeans.

  “Okay!” I clapped my hands and they disconnected their kiss and looked at me. “How about I make us some lunc
h?”

  Drew’s feral eyes turned instantly to wolfish hunger. “I could eat.”

  Darla looked down at him like he was one step away from being mentally impaired. So I moved in, took her gently by the hand and helped her off the bed—and her aroused and hungry boyfriend.

  “You can help.”

  “Oh, okay…,” she said, confusion in her tone.

  “Let’s go find your shirt first, alright?”

  Chapter 11

  I WAS SURPRISED THAT I had so much to choose from in my fridge: leftover lasagna, deli turkey and Swiss, an antipasto salad with Paul Newman’s Italian—even some Jell-O.

  We all went for the lasagna and salad, and the Jell-O. The two lovebirds ate and swooned at each other, and I was pretty sure they were going to head on back to wherever their bedroom of choice was… and I was good with that, as long as it wasn’t a bed in my house. I just couldn’t abide letting a couple of teenagers have sex under my roof.

  Hell, I hadn’t had sex under this roof!

  But wasn’t that going to change?

  I shook that thought from my head and felt the blood rush to my face.

  After lunch I excused Pebbles and Bam-bam, since I didn’t think they’d do anything more that afternoon except try and mate somewhere, and I was pretty sure I had quite a few really good shots that were probably already downloaded from my camera to my laptop.

  Good lord, I needed at least one of them to knock my socks off—and the socks of Olivia Lovelace.

  I headed upstairs after sending off the lovebirds to mating season, and sat down at my desk. I clicked through the first terrible shots and stopped when I came to the first shot I’d taken of them on the bed, before they even knew I was there.

  I sat back and let my breath out in a long, low whistle.

  It was incredible, elegant… rich in texture and feeling. Somehow, I’d captured the emotion of that intimate moment and it practically sizzled on my computer screen: un-diluted love with a creamy swirl of pure lust.

  I clicked further, and each shot just popped with its own captured beat of life and passion. I put the group on slideshow, sat back and watched the images slowly change in front of me.

  I’d never taken pictures like this before. I mean, my work until now had been pretty damn good—except that last cover shoot—even though I was no Herb Ritz. But these pics weren’t even in my ball park.

  They were art.

  I shook that thought right out of my head. This wasn’t art; this was cover art.

  Don’t over think it.

  Now all I needed to do was pick one and choose the right font for the title and author name.

  But which one?

  As the images faded in and out of the screen I was presented with yet another problem. They were all freaking amazing shots.

  How the hell was that a problem?

  Well… too much of a good thing?

  Damn.

  So I picked the first shot and the last shot I took before things went NC-17, and then one at random. I loaded the three shots into my GIMP program and shuffled them around. I took the first shot and cut it to fit as a book cover. Then I typed the title in—Late in the Game—and played around with the fonts and sizes. When I was reasonably happy with all that, I put in Olivia’s name and that she was a USA Today and Amazon Bestseller, and voila!

  I had a book cover.

  A pretty damn good one if I said so myself… though it seemed a shame to cover up even a millimeter of the image with anything.

  I did the same thing to the other two shots and saved them to My Pictures, a file for just the Olivia Lovelace novels I’d done before, and to a thumb and zip file.

  I thought about making some more versions, tweaking them some more… but really, the images were the main thing. As long as Olivia liked the base image, I could change the fonts to meet her every whim.

  And I was suddenly very tired. Very, very tired.

  I decided not to just attach the images to an email and send them to Janine. I’d wait, get some sleep tonight and then give them another go in the morning. I’d have the whole day to tweak and change them, and even do up a few more of the shots to send her.

  Then I’d get ready for my date with Jake.

  And Jimmy.

  Jimmy Buffet.

  Jake and Jimmy Buffet.

  I felt my toes curl just thinking about getting to kiss him again, under the stars, with Jimmy serenading us.

  It was going to be perfect.

  ***

  “It’s freaking raining!” I groused to Bette as she strolled across the lawn between our houses. She was dressed to headline Jamboree in the Hills in a sparkly white dress with a plunging neckline and a skirt that showed off her amazing legs. A dainty cream white umbrella protected her from the falling rain.

  “This is Texas, dear… we always need the rain.”

  I scowled at her. “But I’ve got a date tonight, with a man and Jimmy Buffet.”

  Bette stopped and placed her ruby manicured hand over her impressive décolletage. “You have a date?”

  I eyed her wearily. No wow, Jimmy Buffet! No, Bette was most surprised by the date thing. I mean, she’d already seen the man, was it so much of a shock that he’d want to see me again?

  Don’t answer that.

  “Yes, a date with Jake,” I said forlorn. “And he’s taking me to see Jimmy Buffet at the Tower Amphitheater. I love Jimmy Buffet.”

  “I hear Jimmy never cancels a concert. Rain or shine.”

  That thought brightened me, but then I imagined what I’d look like during a rainstorm. Scenario one was me in head to toe yellow rain gear. I shuddered at the image. Scenario two had me drenched to the skin, which would flatten my hair down like a soggy pancake, and made my t-shirt go all wet t-shirt contest on me—which wasn’t the bad part. The bad part was having all the other younger, hotter women around me all sporting the same look.

  Ack!

  “The rain is going to slow throughout the day, and the sun will come out about three hours before sunset,” Bette said as she came up onto my front porch and shook out her umbrella. “Plenty of time for the grass to dry. Although, I’d stop and buy a plastic tarp to put under the blanket. You don’t want your pants to get wet—” she lifted a perfectly drawn eyebrow, “—at least, not by rain.”

  “Ho, ho… very funny.”

  Bette sat down on my porch swing and looked up expectantly. “So, spill. What were dates one through three like?”

  For crying out loud! Did she have my house bugged? “How the hell do you know about date number three?”

  Bette smiled coyly and placed her hands demurely in her lap. “I heard that beast of a pickup of his growl up to your house. I also observed that he had showered and changed, and that he had pizza.”

  Good grief…

  “I also saw him leave about twenty minutes later, so I was pretty sure you two didn’t do the nasty. I imagine it would take hours with a man like him…” She brought her hands up to her chest again.

  “Is that your secret? You can divine the future and spy on people in their houses by fondling your boobs?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Bette chortled. “I have one of those fabulous listening device things.”

  I turned and looked at her, amazed. “Like the FBI?”

  “No, like the As Seen on TV kind. I’m wearing it right now, and you should hear the conversation Lynn Hall is having with her chiropractor on the phone. I guess their next appointment will be at a motel, not his office.”

  I blinked at her, horrified that she’d been spying on me even more than I’d already guessed.

  I shook my head. Why was I even a little bit surprised? If the technology was out there, she would have it.

  “How do you know she’s talking to her chiropractor? Can you hear him on the phone too?”

  Bette shook her head and smiled. “She’s got him on speakerphone so she has her hands free.”

  “Hands free for what?”

 
Bette just looked at me like I was hopeless.

  Oh…

  “Oh!” I stared at her, and then across the street to Lynn Hall’s house. She was married with two tot sized children. “Please turn that thing off. I don’t want to know anymore about anything going on in this neighborhood.”

  Bette narrowed her eyes on me and smiled before reaching up and removing the smaller than a hearing aid device from her ear. “Fine, fine… so when is he picking you up?”

  “Six.”

  “Ah, plenty of time for a quick dinner and then off to the sandbox party.”

  I sighed and looked out at the still pouring rain. “That is if the rain actually stops.”

  “It will, it will. I’ve checked with three separate internet sources. It’s all go.” She looked me up and down. “So maybe it’s time for you to go inside and start prettying yourself up. Six o’clock will be here in less than…” She looked at her watch. “Less than four hours.”

  She looked me up and down again. “Maybe you should let me help you out.”

  I waved her off and leaned back into the porch swing. “I’ve got it covered.” Which was code for back off, sweetie.

  Bette got up and sighed, giving me a slow, sad look one usually reserved for the girl that didn’t have a date for the prom. She looked out at the rain—and just then the sun started to peek through the clouds, and the downpour started to sputter and lighten.

  “See,” she said, opening up her umbrella to make her way back to her house through the lessening rain. “The weather is cooperating. So you have nothing else to worry about.”

  ***

  The weather did indeed cooperate. We stopped for some Mad Mex and frozen margaritas. My enchiladas and rice were perfect, and my drink was alcoholic ambrosia. Traffic was light as we made our way to the concert, and the whole thing was so well organized that we were parked and heading in with our blanket and tarp with plenty of time to spare (Jake had already thought ahead, having stopped at Home Depot before picking me up.)

  All in all everything was turning out perfect…