I shrug my shoulder the tiniest bit and she seems to get it, because she turns her attention back to her job.
The model stares at me with an affected look before she turns to Tyler. A flirtatious smile stretches across her face and she flicks her hair.
Oh, please. Is this fucking high school?
“Let’s get started,” Ty says casually.
You wouldn’t believe that, just seconds ago, he was leaning over me, half threatening me.
He casually picks up his camera and directs the model where to stand. I hook one of my ankles over the other. Resolve is building inside me. I will stick this shoot out.
I’ll sit here, jealousy and anger and possibly a little hatred building inside me, and I’ll watch the whole damn thing.
Just to make a point.
I rest my elbow on the desk and put my chin in my palm. I’m not sure who this model is or what she’s doing, but she has a really annoying laugh. All high pitched and almost squeaky. The ones you cringe at.
I tap my nails against my leg, watching the shoot play out before me. I know how this works. I know how shoots go.
And this model wants Tyler to shoot more than just his camera.
But it’s cool. I mean, this happens all the time. He’s hot. She’s crushing on him. I can cope with that.
Model Girl looks seductively at Tyler. Not the camera. Him. And laughs.
Jesus, it’s like nails on a chalkboard.
My foot takes up a steady rhythm tapping against the floor. Onetwothree. Onetwothree. Onetwothree. Like a motherfucking waltz. Tap, tap, tap. Over and over, silent against the carpet.
What isn’t silent is the way both Ty’s and Day’s cameras click. Tyler’s quiet orders. Model Girl’s breathing. Hell, I can hear the fluttering of her fucking fake eyelashes. I can hear the swishing of her hair.
Shit, she’s flirting so hard that I can practically hear her gushing into those designer panties.
It goes on and on. Her eyelash-fluttering, her smiling, her giggling, her hair-flicking… Every fucking thing she does makes me wonder if she’s here for the job or for Tyler. And it pisses me off.
It twists my stomach and tightens my chest with an intricate knot of jealously. I hate sitting here, watching him watch her, when she’s so obvious.
And I can’t.
My resolve wavers until it shatters. With my stomach coiling with nausea and hot tears stinging the backs of my eyes, I grab my purse. I slip my hand inside, set my phone vibrating, and answer my fake call quietly.
I slip out of the room with it attached to my ear. I can’t stay. I was dumb to think I could.
It’s been days and I’m already done.
This is bad. So, so fucking bad.
I push open the door and step outside. Rain is falling lightly as I make my way to my car, and I hear the door open quietly behind me.
“It’s a good thing you’re a better model than you are actress,” Day says softly. “Your trick isn’t fooling me.”
“You created the trick, dumbass. It wasn’t to fool you.” I yank my car door open. “I’m going. If I stay there much longer, I’m going to strangle her with her own fucking extensions.” I throw my purse across the car into the passenger’s seat.
“What do you want me to tell Tyler?”
I look at her. “Tell him whatever the hell he wants to hear.”
With that, I get into my car, slam the door, and rev the shit out of my engine. I tear out of the parking lot before she can respond and tell myself that the emotion in her eyes wasn’t real.
There wasn’t an abundance of fear and worry in them. They were simply concerned.
I have to believe that. Perhaps wrongly, but I have to. Sometimes, believing the wrong thing is the right thing to do. Sometimes, believing the wrong thing will keep you sane.
So I drive through the city, telling myself that what I’m feeling is totally natural. That any girlfriend feels the same way.
I park outside my apartment block and lock my car with way too much vigor. I take the elevator in the same way, jabbing the buttons way too hard. My key fits in my keyhole after three forced attempts, and the way I slam my front door surely shakes the whole building.
I throw my purse across my apartment. It lands with a thud on my floor, waking Angus and making him screech. The high-pitched sound goes right through me and I respond with one of my own.
I scream into my hands, bending over onto the kitchen table. All my frustration, all my jealousy, all the ramifications of my need for that infuriating fucking man are tangible and audible in my cry.
Only I don’t know who I’m madder at. Model Girl for making me feel this way or myself for allowing me to. I don’t know if I’m madder at Tyler for reminding me where the door is or myself for using it.
In the end, it all comes down to me. I let myself feel things and do things that are sometimes irrational.
But you can’t always help it, I remind myself. I can’t control the addiction. The addiction controls me.
But is that only true because I let it?
Is it only my controller, the truly dominant thing in my life, because I allow it to be?
No. I tell myself no because I don’t want to believe that my addiction is causing this. Through it all, through my fears, I don’t want my addiction to be the reason I walked out of that studio. I want my stupid fucking heart to be the reason.
I want to believe that there’s more to us and our fucked-up fairytale.
I want to believe that there are feelings, real feelings, that tie us even deeper than the bonds of our addictions.
And maybe that’s the problem.
Maybe my addiction is ruling because I’m not allowing reality through.
Maybe I am falling in love.
Maybe I am falling in love with his crisp accent, his dirty words, his burning touch. Maybe I’m falling in love with the snark and the cockiness and that stupid love for snuggles.
Maybe I’m falling in love with the way he makes me feel.
Maybe I’m falling in love with more than just love.
Maybe… Maybe, in a cruel twist in Fate’s Big Fuck-Up, I’m falling in love with Tyler Stone.
I push off from the table and yank open the cupboard that holds my alcohol. I drag out the bottle of vodka and pour some in a short glass. I throw it back without thinking. The hot burn of the spirit sliding down my throat is better than the burn of my realization.
The burn of alcohol will always be better than the burn of a maybe-love.
Alcohol doesn’t hurt half as much as love. And the pounding head alcohol will give you is fixed with a glass of water and a couple of Tylenols.