ROMANCE: CLEAN ROMANCE: Summer Splash! (Sweet Inspirational Contemporary Romance) (New Adult Clean Fantasy Short Stories) (177 page)

              “Oh my goodness…. Of all the nights to not get sleep, it had to be last night.”

She scratched her head and yawned on her way to the kitchen. She needed caffeine ASAP. Cricket hopped in the shower with her Pandora turned up high. She sudsed up singing along with one of her faves,

              “Don’t close your eyes…….. Let it be me…….  Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah… in some fantasy” Keith Whitley, timeless.

She flung her hair up in a bun, put on no makeup and headed out the front door. She arrived on location for her first photo shoot. Her new boss would use the pics to promote her show to bring people in. She had no idea what to expect. It was definitely new territory for her.

The location was quite a ways outside of the city. She got out of her truck and saw what appeared to be an old ghost town looking place. The buildings had seen better days for sure. She couldn’t wrap her head around how that scenery would make for a pretty picture.

Staff directed her to an old tavern looking building for hair and makeup. She went in and sat down in a salon chair. Lacy was her makeup artist and talked to her about how she wanted to look in her pics. How she portrayed herself would set the tone for the culture of her show.

Together they looked at several books of samples. Each performer had their own niche. Cricket had full control of her creative persona. No one would be establishing that for her. The makeup she settled on was deep rich charcoal eyeliner that enhanced her smoky eyes. Her lipstick would be an elegant natural peach.

Her makeup choice was bold, yet not over the top. It took about a half hour for her makeup to be completed. She took a look in the mirror and she liked how she looked. She would’ve never put on so much makeup in daily life though, because she didn’t think she could pull it off.

Then she moved on to her hair stylist. Nikki would be styling her hair for the shoot. Cricket’s dirty blond hair was kind of a mess in the humidity, all bushy and fly away. Nikki blow dried her still damp hair. The look Cricket chose for her hair was a light loose curl just on the ends of her long layered hair. She was happy with how it came out, but she would need to decide if she wanted a cowgirl hat on or not. She wasn’t sure about that detail yet.

Cricket moved onward to the wardrobe room. She pretty much had her choice of everything from frou-frou girly-girl dresses to stripped down basics. She asked for input on that decision. All of a sudden she felt insecure in herself. The staff went and got the photographer for input. He walked right up and introduced himself.

              “Hi Cricket. I’m Jon Sharp, your photographer today. Most people call me Sharp-eye though. I hear you can’t decide what to wear?”

“Yea, so many decisions to make and now I don’t know how to pull it all together,” her eyes started tearing up, and she didn’t know why.

She was overwhelmed by the pressure of the experience. Tears rolled slowly down her soft cheeks. He could see that she was in meltdown mode.

              “Come on,” he gestured for her to join him.

“I’m not dressed!” she said.

“Nobody cares. Come on let’s go” he said.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Let’s take a walk” he added.

They walked along a long windy dirt road to a small pond. They didn’t really talk about any one thing, just small talk really. Anything to take her mind off of the pressure she felt.

Playfully, he challenged her to skip rocks. Whoever did the best got to choose her outfit. She got lost in the game and quickly forgot how upset she had gotten. Being the country girl that she was, she kicked his tail. Boy, did she love winning, but more so, she enjoyed gloating all the way back to the lot; so gratifying.

They walked back into the wardrobe room, and unconsciously he started pulling clothes from the rack and styling them together. He set up five very different looks for her to try on. He asked her to go into the next room and try them on, and she obliged.

With each look he snapped one single picture. And at the end they sat down together to look over them. Jon showed each snapshot to her one at a time. Pointing out something obvious to him, but was lost on her lack of an artistic eye.

In the end, she chose country chic boots, which were brown knee highs with turquoise accents. She had always wanted a pair like that but they priced out at about five hundred dollars. She could never have afforded them, but she didn’t mind borrowing them for the day. Her jeans looked weathered, frayed on the boot cut, and had crystal studded back pockets in the shape of a cross.

Her shirt was casual, a wife beater in turquoise. She had blinged out the outfit with a kick-ass belt and some metal and leather jewelry. It was really was a great look for her - young and current, yet very comfortable.

They went out to a decaying cinder block and brick building to shoot the photos. In truth, Jon kind of seemed to be flirting with her. He was being really subtle about it, with his corny and cheesy comments, and silly humor. He’d stick out his tongue at her, making her smile. She didn’t know what the heck she was doing, but she smiled and had fun just trying. It was all good until Michael, the Event Director, showed up.

“Let’s go people! We’re losing daylight… Let’s go, let’s go!” he shouted.

Jon pursed his lips in disappointment. He hated it when he showed up unexpectedly. Michael was definitely an acquired taste that turned some people’s stomach sour – in general, a total buzz kill.  Jon really didn’t like the pressure that he added to the atmosphere of a shoot.

Jon threw his hands in the air and finished up the shoot when the director got there. However, Jon never let him know that he got to him. It just wasn’t his style to do that. He had no time or interest in drama. Cricket went in and washed off all of her makeup. She wasn’t someone that needed a whole lot of makeup anyway. She looked very pretty naturally.

She was organically cute, and Michael picked up on that right away. Before Michael could make any moves though, Michael stepped up to the plate.  They went to a hole in the wall burger joint. She was not one of those waif thin girls that didn’t eat. She could throw down on a burger and fries, just about any time day or night. She had no shame in eating what she wanted to eat.

Jon playfully mocked Cricket’s thick southern accent, repeating the things she would say. As a Midwesterner, he found it funny.  Cricket blushed when people liked her southern drawl, and hated it when people assumed she was lesser because of it.

In truth, she loved the country life that she came from, and had several fond memories of fishing and hunting as a child with her family. Those were good times she held dear to her heart. Her closest friends called her Kiki, which was how Jon unknowingly addressed her from the start.

Jon was laid back with a deep smooth raspy voice. They had worked well together on the shoot concept. So much so, that there seemed to sexual tension building between them.

On the way back to their cars, he showed Cricket a few nearby sites that he thought she would like. They were all touristy, but fun nonetheless.

*****

              About a week later Cricket got a call from Michael. After the photos from the shoot were developed, he had made reservations at a quaint local Steakhouse that he knew Cricket would appreciate being from Texas.

Jon was invited as well. He looked very nice all cleaned up. As they entered the eatery, Jon placed his hand on the small of her back and accompanied the lady to her table. Cricket loved old school charm and that really made her happy. Somehow he just seemed to get it.

Michael loved to hear himself talk, so he did that a lot. He led the conversation about how they would expose her in the media. She would be doing multiple shows daily at least at first. She knew what she had agreed to, but it still seemed like a lot. She was anxiously nervous, but excited all the same.

Cricket reached for her purse to add a tip for the server and realized she left her bag back at the garage. There was a feeling of awkward tension at the table. She felt very uncomfortable. It clearly looked like she had done that intentionally even though she hadn’t.

Jon went to the restroom and Michael stepped outside to take a call. He left his laptop open. Cricket, being nosy, stumbled across her pictures. Instantly she became worried. She didn’t like what she saw.

She felt she looked too homely and was unsure whether to say something or not when they came back to the table. She wondered if she would even be taken seriously with those dull and drab takes. She would have never chosen those for herself.

In the heat of the moment, she devilishly tried to delete some of them while they were gone. She was afraid those would be the ones Michael would have wanted to use, and she couldn’t bear it. She desperately wanted to steer clear of that small town country girl persona and those pictures would only lock that image in further.

Just as she thought that she had successfully deleted them, she noticed that she had gotten caught. Jon stood in front of her looking in her direction. But he wasn’t looking at her, maybe he didn’t know. His eyes were above her.

When Cricket fearfully turned to see what he was looking at, she saw Michael had been standing behind her for who knew how long, watching everything she had done.

“Crap!” she said out loud in a panic.

She really thought she was screwed and would have to move back home with her tail tucked between her legs. Oh, the horror! She shook her head in disbelief and put her head in her hands.

Jon being a well-respected photographer became irate. He talked to Michael as if

Cricket wasn’t even in the room. He said,

              “Michael, this is a serious problem! I do not appreciate her tampering with my work! She had no right to do so!”

Michael tried to calm him down saying,

              “Jon, I know, I know. You are right, but can we just sit down and discuss the issue?”

But her efforts seamed futile. He was pissed beyond consoling. Finally, Michael asked why she would do such a thing and risk her career and even her future for a few minuscule photos. Jon reiterated,

              “Yeah Cricket! Why, why would you do such a thing? Why?”

Cricket didn’t have a clue what to say in response.  She knew that she didn’t feel comfortable with those photos, but what choice was there at that point. It didn’t seem like there were any other viable options. She had managed to upset the one friend she had in this new city.

Michael drove them back to the Office building’s garage to pick up their cars. Cricket apologized profusely, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. Jon was overwhelmingly angry. He started loading his equipment into the trunk of his vehicle. He had quite a bit to load, so it would take a while to do so.

Michael was consoling Cricket sweeping her hair out of her eyes. Jon rolled his eyes. He had seen Michael work his twisted show for women in the past and it made him sick to his stomach.  He preyed on young aspiring artists willing to do a lot of things to pave their way. It wasn’t right, but he was so angry that he didn’t care.

              “Don’t worry about it babe! We’ll just do a reshoot until you get pics that you like,” Michael said.

Jon shook his head. More work for him, he thought, and maybe he’d refuse to do it. Over his shoulder he heard a thud; he tilted his ear up to listen closer. Michael pushed Cricket against the wall with his hands over her shoulders. He spoke more aggressively about her coming over to his place with him for a night cap. It was clear by the look on her face as she turned away from him that she didn’t want to. He suddenly yanked her arm, pulling her into his vehicle. Jon saw this and heard what was going on, so he hurried over.

              “Hey, hey… Michael. I overheard what you told her and I have some time right now to do a reshoot”.

“No we’ll just put something on the books for next week. Don’t worry about it,” Michael added.

“Yeah, but I’m booked for the entire next month. You’ll have to get someone else to shoot it,” Jon thought that would get his attention.