There can be something almost orgasmic about the absence of pain. A weird kind of pleasure washed through me, just from sheer relief. When I opened my eyes and the light didn’t stab at them, when I could look around without my neck muscles seizing, when I could see the face of my beautiful best friend, even though my view of her was glitching a little—a hangover of my fit—I felt some good ole euphoria. Perhaps because of my dopey state, Jen chose to pounce.
“So you look a million times better.”
“My heart feels like it’s run a marathon, but yeah, much. Thanks, Jen. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Hey, you know me, I’m here for you. But seriously, you need someone coming with you on your weirdo film shoots.”
“I’ll be—”
“Were you today?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Kira, you’re an amazing photographer. You do great work, but you’ve gotta admit you need some help sometimes.” She looked at me in a way that I’ve learned to hate. It was that curious combination of concern and pity. The same look I got from my family as I couldn’t hold down a ‘proper’ job. The same look specialists had when the tests came back inconclusive. “Even just letting people know you’re heading out and when to expect you back. I know!” She patted her hands together excitedly. “I could let Mark go out with you! Saves me traipsing out in the bloody bush.”
Mark was one of Jen’s bodyguards. I never saw the need for someone like that in a smaller town like Gisbourne, but as her dad was a big-time music exec, he seemed to think it necessary. I shook my head and instantly regretted it.
“C’mon, you’d be doing me a favour. I think he’s got the hots for you, anyway.”
I laughed at this, thankful I hadn’t taken that mouthful just yet. Apart from walking around in the bush as I shot weird photos and rescuing me from neurological collapse with espresso, I knew Jen was my best friend due to her constant assertions that all the beautiful people that seemed to hang around her house had the hots for me. That laugh soon died as the man himself walked into the cafe. His face looked like thunder as he scanned the tables full of people nursing coffees and reading newspapers.
“You didn’t tell him you were coming with me,” I said, my heart sinking.
“Of course not. Daddy might think he can lock me away in this little backwater town and watch over me, like a bird in her cage, but I happen to disagree.”
Uh-huh.
I watched him weave his way towards us. Mark was six foot four of well-tailored, black suit wearing, muscle. He kept his hair longer than most of her security detail, eschewing the paramilitary look for a shoulder-length sweep of sandy brown hair. Hair that he raked back from his face right now.
“We talked about this, Miss Rutherglen.”
“No, you talked about this, and I walked away. Anyway, you’re scaring the good burghers of Gisbourne. Take a seat. Kira here would love to show you some of her photos.”
She said this in that bright, sparkling tone that had most people falling over themselves to do as she bid. I was only impressed more by Mark when he resisted, taking a seat under sufferance.
“Coffee?” she asked, gesturing to the passing waiter.
“No, I just want to be able to do my job properly,” he grumbled.
“I’m sorry, she was out with me shooting photos. I had a turn, otherwise we would have let you know where we were.”
He turned to face me, something that had me shrinking back for two reasons. One, those grey eyes were harsher than the morning light, seeming to take me in entirely in just one glance, and I wasn’t sure how pleased he was with the results. Two, and this was always the problem with being Jen’s friend, he was gorgeous. It was an occupational hazard as a photographer that I was drawn to beauty. I didn’t want to be. I wanted to look at the window, my scone, anywhere but at my friend’s hot, hot bodyguard, but instead, my eyes catalogued the various parts, noting the chiselled jaw, the way the muscle there flexed as he stared, those plush lips, currently pursed, the warm scent of sandalwood and pepper, hair that brushed his collar, just waiting for you to bury your fingers in…
“Did you get any good shots?”
I blinked, the words taking a little to absorb. He didn’t look like he was all that tolerant of the pause as his lips thinned down further. Both our eyes dropped to where my hand had somehow landed on my camera.
“Um… Not sure.” I turned it on, cued up the photos on the LCD display on the back of the camera, and passed it over.
When those long fingers brushed mine as he took it, I froze, then smiled politely. I ignored the spike of my already labouring heartbeat and didn’t shrink back in my seat like I wanted. I did my damnedest to act like a normal person showing another a photo, something normal people did all the time. When those eyes dropped away and to the camera, I let out a little surreptitious sigh of relief.
There was something about the perfectly symmetrical beauty of Jen’s inner circle that had me on edge, and at the same time, reaching for my camera. I couldn’t ask her staff or her father’s friends to sign a thing as prosaic as a model release form, but I wanted to. Gods, I wanted to. Right now, the morning light picked out the angular shape of Mark’s face as he scrolled through the shots, turning the grey of his eyes almost blue. If I angled the lens up slightly, he’d appear as distant as a god, leaving the viewer torn between the desire to reach out and touch him and the knowledge they had no right to do so. I blinked, realising I was staring again, and worse, he was staring back. My camera sat on the tabletop, discarded now, and the socially awkward silence just stretched on and on. Jen smirked, tipping her head at me before sipping at her hot chocolate. It wasn’t what she thought, but that wouldn’t stop her from thinking so. I made sure to keep my expression polite and professional as he turned back to the LCD display. I’d expected a generic comment or two, something about them being ‘nice,’ but that’s not what I got.
He frowned as he scanned, those perfectly shaped brows drawing down further and further. Even Jen noticed, looking at me and mouthing, ‘WTF.’ I think we were both relieved when he handed the camera back.
“They are well shot. You should have no problems selling them.” We just stared. He cleared his throat. “You’re a very capable photographer.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking a quick look at the shots he was looking at when he turned to order a flat white. Creepy trees, misty wildflowers and rock formations, all fairly bog-standard, inoffensive commercial shots. There were a few that were a bit blurry, one that looked like a rabbit had run across the foreground, but nothing to warrant his expression.
“We’ll need to be getting back, miss,” Mark said. There was the appearance of deference in his words, but no real indication of it. Jen rolled her eyes, puffing up like some kind of cute little huffy bunny when he said, “Cook wants to go over the menus for the upcoming event.”
“Oh, yes!” The air seeped out of her, and she reclined against her chair. “Kira, you simply must—”
“No.”
“But it—”
“No.”
“Kira, please. This is different. This is going to be—!”