MANIC: Rook and Ronin, #2 (7 page)

Hair and makeup is quick because I have Josie all to myself. She's now my personal makeup artist, no one else is allowed to use her until this contract is over. That means no leaving me sitting in the chair while she goes to attend to something else.

She pulls my hair back so tight I almost look bald when she's done. She leaves the ends in a long ponytail and then goes to work on my face. Mostly it's just your basic toner stuff and some bitchin' long eyelashes. I can barely see past them, they're so long.

She tops me off with a dark plum lipstick then adds some shine to it.

And I'm ready for Antoine. When Josie spins me around he's standing just outside Elise's salon, smiling. "You look beautiful, Rook, should we send Ronin a picture?"

I nod, embarrassed at his compliment. He's never said anything about how I look before, which sounds funny since that's pretty much the only thing he's concerned about around here—how we all look through the lens of his camera. It's almost like he's got a sort of professional detachment from us girls.

I like it.

But I also like his compliment, because he'd never say that to me unless it was true.

He takes my hand when I approach and leads me over to the bike under the afternoon light shining through the massive two-story windows. There's a bunch of studio lights as well, and about ten people to help him get what he needs. But I ignore all that. He lets go of my hand when we reach the bike and then asks me softly in a mixture of French and English that I only half understand to do things.

And the shoot begins.

Chapter Nine - ROOK

At first it's just Antoine telling me what to do, but everyone else is there as well. Since Spencer plays many roles in this contract, he's not only the artist, but the director of the catalog photo shoots, and it doesn't take long to figure out he and Antoine have very different visions about what these shots should look like.

Antoine is not happy about this and I can see his point. People usually hire him for his artistic interpretation. But Spencer is an artist too, so there's a whole lot of polite disagreement going on.

"Hey," I interrupt Spencer telling Antoine how he wants my body to hug the line of the seat and the tank. "Spencer, I think you should take five. Let Antoine do his job. Because I'm really tired here, and you guys just wasted like forty-five minutes with this bullshit vision stuff."

Ford snuffs out a laugh in the corner.

I might have stepped over the line. "I mean," I say, walking up to Spencer and putting on a pouty face, "he's famous, Spencer. His talent is the whole reason you guys chose Chaput Studios, right?"

Spencer shrugs.

"Just let him do it his way today, it's just one bike. We've got plenty more for you guys to make adjustments."

"Yeah, OK, but make sure you get the details of her body, Antoine, don't hide the sexy parts, man. We want guys zooming in on her, ya know? We want them to zoom in for tits and see the details on the gas tank, or the chrome on the tailpipe when they look at her legs."

Antoine responds angrily in French but Billy is the only one who appears to understands what he's saying, and he throws his hands up and says, "Leave me out of it."

But whatever Antoine said, Spencer walks out and Antoine refuses to speak English after that. He uses Billy and this time Billy does get involved, because even I know the French word for dollars.

"OK, Rook," Billy says after Antoine whispers something and then starts messing with his camera crap. "Sit on the seat backwards, then lie back on the tank." I do what he says and this makes my back arch and my tits stick way up. "Now turn your upper body slightly, so we get the"—Antoine says something here—"tank shot."

Right,
I sneer to myself.
The
tank shot
. It's got nothing to do with my nipples.

I just stop thinking and do what I'm told—that
is
the secret to being a good model. Billy moves me around like a mannequin, Antoine stays in French, and Spencer never comes back. Team Rook keeps far back from Antoine, maybe guessing he's about to morph into super-asshole at any moment over this shoot, and Ford, to his credit, says absolutely nothing. He just sits in a director's chair far off to the side, almost in another set, in fact.

Antoine finishes up pretty quick and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but either way, Spencer returns, like he was standing outside the studio door just waiting for it to be over, and walks up to me. "Come with me, Rook, I'll wash the paint off you and then we're all going out to dinner."

I do not want to go out to dinner, but I'm too tired to argue at the moment. He puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me back down to the third floor, but this time we don't go back to the art room, we go through a set of double doors at the end of the hallway.

It's a shower room and there's already a bucket and a large sponge waiting next to one of the shower stations.

He turns the water on and waves over to the stream coming down from the shower head. "Rinse off and then I'll scrub you down with this paint remover. Sorry it's so personal, but it was either me or Billy and Antoine said me. So…"

He looks guilty.

"Doesn't anyone ever ask me about these things? I mean, maybe I can, you know, shower all by myself?"

He sighs. "You can't reach the back, Rook." He points to the bucket. "That's the paint thinner we use for this special body paint. It needs to be scrubbed."

I go stand under the shower and wet myself down and Spencer enters the room with me, staying out of the water blast as best as he can, and begins to scrub the paint off. It runs down my body in long ribbons of inky black streams.

"All that work, gone. It's sorta sad, huh, Spence?" I look over my shoulder at him and he's smiling.

"Yeah, this part sucks, but that's why we have Antoine. You were right earlier, I should butt out. I know this is hard work for you, believe me, I understand how hard models actually work. So I'm grateful you were so patient today and you did real well, for it being your first time."

"It wasn't bad. I think the outfit helped, you were right, I never felt naked." But now that the paint is being stripped away and there's no black buffer between Spencer's wandering eyes and my body, it does make me squirm a bit.

"And just so you know," Spencer says, interrupting my thoughts, "I'm not taking advantage of you, OK? It's just that we get one chance to capture this artwork, ya know?"

"Yeah, I know. Wait, who said you were taking advantage of me?"

"Antoine, that's what he said when he was speaking French back there because I want all your sexy parts in the photos and he was going out of his way to cover those bits up. It's just, I get it, he's making
art
. But I'm selling bikes to horny guys, so I need those shots, Rook. I'm not trying to take advantage."

Now that my back has been scrubbed clean, he bends down to scrub my butt and the back of my legs. I turn around and look at him because, yeah, that's a bit personal.

Spencer ignores me, either he doesn't care that it's personal, or he's trying to pretend it's not. The sponge is rubbing all over my ass when it dips between my legs a little making me gasp.

Spencer stands up. "OK, you can do the rest." He plops the sponge down in the bucket and walks out of the shower room, leaving me there to manage on my own.

These people get more and more confusing with every job. How am I supposed to process this? Spencer gets to paint me up then wash me down. All of me, my entire body. He gets to touch my ass and put his brush between my breasts. And Billy gets to manipulate my body into weird contortions so my nipples are standing at attention in every shot, even for the fucking fender—that was some feat, but that Billy is resourceful—and Antoine gets to take pictures of all this, while Ford and the crew stand around and record every facial expression on each of us as we do these things and try to remain professional.

I'm pretty sure my relationship with Ronin is over. Because no man, I don't care what kind of Catholic saint he is, would ever put up with this arrangement. Elise was right, I'm paying the price for this STURGIS contract, and I'm paying up front, because this is day fucking one and I have to do this shit all summer long.

I pick up the sponge, soak it with the remover solution, and scrub as fast as I can. All I want is to go back up to Ronin's apartment and take a real shower, but I can't do that until the paint's all gone. And Ford can go fuck himself, because I need that shower. It's not a luxury or a way to hide, my shower just isn't adequate enough to deal with the amount of cleaning my body will require at the end of these shoots.

Luckily Spencer left me a nice soft towel, so I wrap myself up in that and head back to the studio to make a break for the Beast. No one is around when I slip in, so I tiptoe as best as I can with my wet feet, and head upstairs. As soon as I turn the corner towards Ronin's apartment, I see Ford.

He wags his finger at me and smiles. "I knew already, Rook. Nice try, but the crew is waiting on the terrace, go shower in your own place."

I punch in Ronin's code as I ignore him.

"You can do this, I can't stop you, but I
will
fine you, Rook. The deal is that you live at your apartment, not here."

I sigh and run through my options. Ford is a control guy, even if I was wrong about Ronin, I know for a fact I'm not wrong about Ford. He thinks he's Mister Dominant. I turn around and smile at him. "Ford, I swear, I'll shower in my own place on days that have no body paint, OK? It's just my shower isn't really a shower, it's a claw-foot tub with this pathetic sprayer system and I can't…" I stop to pout and open my eyes a little wider as I stare up at his face. "I just can't relax in that thing. And now that I have all this crap on my body, I can't even get clean in it!"

I'm not sure what I expected, I don't know him that well, but "Nice try, sweet cheeks," definitely wasn't it.

"Fine, I'll pay you to use the shower, bill me for it."

"People watch reality shows because they think they'll get to see something personal, the whole shower setup is part of that. It's a big part of that, in fact."

"How much?"

"How much what?"

"How much do you want to let me take showers at Ronin's place? Just give me a number."

Ford actually covers his mouth with his hand to hide his smile. "You're trying to pay me off?"

"Just tell me how much the fine is, asshole. This job will probably ruin my life, so I'll be damned if I'm gonna spend one more second worrying about getting a decent fucking shower."

"OK, would you like to make a deal, Rook? How about you go to breakfast with me tomorrow morning. Five AM. If you do that, I'll look past the shower this time. But only this time."

"Breakfast? You want to buy me breakfast?"

He shrugs like he's playing innocent, but he's got a devious gleam in his eye.

"Whatever." I push the door open and then quickly close it behind me.

I wash off the paint thinner in the Beast, and I tell you what, I'd have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Ford to keep using this thing. I figured out how to make the steam come out from the ceiling and it makes the whole experience feel like a tropical island. It's only after I'm all done that I realize I have no clothes.

I don't keep clothes at Ronin's place because that would imply that our relationship was more than just dating, and now I regret that. I search through his closet—which is spectacular—and find a pair of old jeans and a dark green t-shirt. The pants are way too loose, but there's plenty of belts, so I grab one of those too. I have no bra, but I can change just as soon as I get back to my place.

Dinner is not something I'm really up for but they are all waiting for me down in front of Antoine's office. I try to sneak by, but Team Rook is waiting just off to the side of the stairs, like they were trying to ambush me. I hustle out to the terrace, they follow, but I smile in satisfaction when I go inside my apartment and they have to wait outside. I grab some clothes and then pull on some shorts and a tank top and complete my outfit with my old Converse sneakers. I don't care how many pairs of expensive shoes I get, nothing beats a well-worn pair of Converse.

When I go back out the crew follows me again. I huff out an annoyed breath, but they ignore me like a good crew.

"Rook!" Antoine barks as I enter the studio again. "Good, we're starving. I sent Ronin a picture, he said he's tried calling you, but you never pick up."

"Oh, duh. I don't have my phone on me. I'm not used to carrying it around in here."

"You can call later."

"How's everything, did he say?"

Antoine gets a worried look on his face as Ford and Spencer join us and we walk down the stairs. "Clare is OK, Ronin is the only one she's ever listened to, she's always been difficult. I'm just glad he's there."

"Yeah, I'm glad too," I say, but I catch Ford's smug look out of the corner of my eye.

We walk over to Cookie's then take our booth in back like normal. Antoine scoots in and then Spencer takes the seat next to him, so I'm stuck near the window with Ford on the other side of me. The waitress, not one that I recognize, brings us drinks and I order the Big Breakfast Special instead of dinner. Antoine and Spencer get the diner version of steaks, and Ford orders an egg-white omelet.