Iris Blaire - Dark Frame

I pull my sweater tighter around me. Somehow, that thought doesn’t make me feel better. But I text Britain back anyway:

Bring it.

Britain

This should be the start of a joke: How many erotic models can you fit into an airplane?

There is one good thing about this situation: no “assistants” from AA are on our flight. They will be flying into Boston tomorrow.

Of course, I end up in the window seat right next to Jaime.

“I swear Jaime, if you don’t stop asking me….”

“Brit, I need you to let me do this. For my personal growth.”

“I will not let you dry hump my best friend for your personal growth. I will never let you dry hump my best friend for your personal growth. You know why, Jaime?”

“Brit.”

“Because you’re annoying as fuck, that’s why.”

God, this is all too familiar.

The lady behind me clears her throat, probably in disdain of our conversation.

“Tsk, tsk. I don’t remember you having such a mouth.”

I roll my head from the window to him. He’s pivoted in his seat so that he’s facing me. He’s enjoying this.

“A lot of shit changes in college. Don’t you agree, or are you a drop out?”

My burn doesn’t look like it fazes him. “I graduated, thank you very much. Who gets to model with her?”

“What?”

“Who gets to model with Rylan?”

“I don’t know, okay? And I don’t care. Just not you. You don’t get to model with her because you don’t even want to. You just want to get under my skin.”

A devilish smirk graces his full lips for half a second. He hasn’t shaven in a few days, making him seem so much older than when I saw him before I left for college.

If only he would act older.

“Why do you think I want to get under your skin so badly?”

The fasten seatbelt light blinks on.

“When have you not ?”

He chuckles. “Touché.” Finally, he leans back in his seat and shuts his eyes.

I wish I knew his agenda. Unless he doesn’t have one. Unless he’s really here just for the job, for the money, and I have nothing to do with anything.

Only a happy coincidence.

Loud chatter springs from the seats in front of me. Luckily, all of my models get along well enough with each other. That’s the thing I’ve discovered with this magazine. Erotic models don’t have a particular personality. Before I met Evan, before I started conceptualizing what it would be like to create a magazine like EPE, I thought that college-aged erotic models might act the same as high fashion models. Vain and lacking character, maybe with anorexia or a coke addiction. They’d all like to party too.

But that isn’t really the case. The personalities of my models vary because their only similarity is that they’re all (or once were) college students.

Really, that’s all they are. College students. College students confident enough to do just about anything for money desperately needed.

I can’t wait until the plane takes off and I can pop my earbuds in—hopefully painting a clear picture to Jaime that I’d rather not catch up. When Chloe passes me to get to her seat, she smiles. I smile back. Chloe is the petite model who posed with Adam during the audition. Shiny, black hair, almond-shaped eyes, and a spatter of freckles. Imagine Lucy Lu to the power of cute. That’s Chloe.

We only hired her and Jaime off of the audition. Eight models I’m taking to Boston, plus Evan. Hopefully I can conjure a powerful enough chemistry between all of them.

My phone starts buzzing. I look down to see the person I least expected.

Dallas.

Good grief. He’s probably one of those lame ex-boyfriends, calling his ex-girlfriend’s best friend in attempt to win sympathy points by bitching about how much he’s still in love with her.

Still—I really like Dallas, even if he and Evan couldn’t get their act together enough to long-distance date.

I ignore the call, but then I text him back:

Boarding for Boston. Call you when I land.

Hopefully that’s good enough.

“Has Cameron mentioned me at all?” Jaime asks.

I do my best not to look irritated with him. “Nope, not since you got into that trouble right after I graduated high school.”

He thinks for a moment. “What trouble?”

“The bar fight.”

“Ah. I was hanging with the wrong crowd.”

“You’re lucky my father liked you enough to never fire you.” When he doesn’t respond, I continue. “You always hung with the wrong crowd, including my brother. Babes, booze, fist fights… nothing was ever enough for you. At least my brother got out of it.”

“And I didn’t?” I can tell he’s losing his cool edge.

“I don’t know, did you?”

He doesn’t answer. “So that’s all Cameron said about me?”

I think for a moment, and glance over at him. With the straightest face I can manage, I say, “He also told me I wasn’t allowed to fuck you.”

He bites back his lower lip in attempt to hide his smile, and then shakes his head. “Hearing dirty words from your mouth is going to take some time getting used to.”

“Just wait until you’re on set with me. It gets real bad. Cunts and cocksuckers everywhere.”

In the midst of taking a sip of water, Jaime chokes.

“Kidding. Sort of. Just cocksucker, mainly.”

“God, kid, who did you inherit this mouth from?”

“Probably you. You know, in the midst of all the torment.”

“Okay, okay, I got it. I was an asshole to you.”

“Understatement.”

Our plane moves into the runway queue.

“Well, I’m done, if it makes you feel any better.”

“Not really.”

“How can I prove it?”

I stare at him hard. He looks sincere, but it’s impossible to tell with Jaime. “You can apologize for everything you’ve ever done to me that made me feel insecure about myself.”

“Jesus, Brit. How the hell am I supposed to remember?”

“Figure it out,” I say gruffly.

He says nothing else to me as we take off, thank God. When we can finally use electronics, I pop in my earbuds and crank up the volume on M83, shutting my eyes for almost the entire flight.

I don’t even know where I’m going.

I’m essentially alone in chaperoning my crew. I’m doing the rounding up, the screaming at everyone to stop fucking around, and the dealing with maps and directions.

Lucky for us, AA isn’t being stingy. I’m expecting to have an army of booked cabs waiting for us, but instead, we have a shuttle.

Our own shuttle.

A man in a nice suit waits by baggage claim with a sign that says East Park Exposed .

“Fabulous,” he exclaims when he sees the wave of us approaching him. “Hurry up and grab your things; the carousel is already running. We have a time frame.”

“Time frame? But we aren’t even shooting until Wednesday.”

The man hands me an iPad. A bloody iPad . “I was instructed to give this to you.”

“I—what? This ?”

“Yes. Instructions and schedules have been uploaded and will continue to be updated if situations change.”

“Brit!” Delilah hollers. She points to a bag on the carousel.

“Yeah that’s mine. Grab it for me, will you?” I turn back to our chauffeur. “Where are we headed tonight?”

He nods to the iPad. “All on the device, I assure you.”

I poorly hide my sigh of frustration.

My team consists of eight models: Delilah, Adam, Jaime, Miguel, Patrick, Chloe, Jessica, and Ella. I have to remember to make sure they’re following me like kindergarteners on a field trip so I know that no one is being left behind. And it’s not like I’m over-exaggerating. I’ve almost lost Adam and Miguel twice. Go figure.