Confronted (Beauty And The Billionaire Geek Book 1) (7 page)

“Zoe?” she said with sleep in her voice.

“Listen Stacy, I had to get out of the house last night. Chris tried to rape me. I’m not going back there.”

“What the fuck? You need to call the cops.”

“No. I don’t want anyone to know. I just want to get out of there without Max knowing I’m leaving.”

“That’s bullshit, Zoe. We need to call the police.”

“There’s no proof. He didn’t
actually
rape me. He won’t even get arrested. It will just make everything worse. I don’t want to give Max ammunition to keep my stuff.”

“If you’re leaving, I’m leaving.”

“I need you to bring me some clothes so I can work today. After work, we can figure out how to get our stuff out of the house without them finding out. I’m staying at a hotel on Aurora Avenue.”

I gave her my address and an hour later, she stood outside my hotel room door. I let her inside, and she sat on the bed, grimacing.

“This place is totally sketch.”

“I know, but it’s cheap. I’m so low on cash and I don’t get paid for a week. Even that will be so small it’s ridiculous.”

“Maybe I should call my dad?”

“If you want, but I don’t want Claire to worry. She was so cool about me leaving. I don’t want to disappoint her.”

“Zoe, your sister isn’t going to think worse of you if you need help.”

“She’s done enough for me. I’m going to figure it out myself. If you want to call your dad, go ahead.”

“Fine. We’ll figure it out ourselves. Dad will probably just tell me to come home anyway.”

She left me my work clothes and drove away in her pickup to go to her job. I showered, changed, and took the bus back over to Ballard to get to my shift at the sandwich shop.

I came into work greeted by my manager, Todd, a pimply faced guy in his early twenties, and Darcy, a teenage girl who worked there part time during the summer. 

Darcy waved at me from behind the sandwich counter and Todd looked up at me from a clipboard and gave me an unenthusiastic hello. I washed my hands and pulled a green apron over my head.

The normality of work always made me feel more at ease. Most people my age hated working, but I depended on the routine to normalize my otherwise crazy existence. I liked feeling useful and stable.

Up front, Darcy babbled about her boyfriend while I ran lettuce through the shredder behind the counter. I nodded and gave her the appropriate response whenever she needed it. I couldn’t exactly reciprocate with a personal story of my own. My life was ten times more screwed up than teenage dating drama ever could be.

The lunch rush came in and we made sandwiches like crazy until about two. After the lunch rush died down, I did the cleanup while Todd dealt with inventory and Darcy continued babbling about her boyfriend. I didn’t even care that she talked more than she worked. It gave me a way to keep my hands and mind busy, so I didn’t have to think about my own life.

About an hour before the end of my shift, Chris walked through the glass door and spied me behind the counter. A sneer curled on his lips. Anger boiled in my gut that he could come into my workplace. I never wanted to see him again.

He walked to the counter nonchalantly and looked down and me with a cool grin. I glared at him. Darcy brushed by to serve him. Chris might be a sociopath but he was hot, if you liked that sort of thing.

Darcy giggled and bounced so that her long brown ponytail swung behind her. He ordered a meatball sandwich. As Chris and Darcy walked down the counter picking toppings, his eyes never left me. A black pit formed in my stomach.

“Nice to know you work here,” he said as he took his bag toward the door. He left and I let out a long breath.

“Do you know him?” Darcy squealed.

“No,” was all I said.

After work, I met Stacy in front of a café across the street from Subway. We got in the pickup and pulled around the street to see whose cars were at the house. We hurried to the U-Haul rental place down the street. When we got back, the only car there was Jason’s. We ran inside and started taking apart our furniture as fast as possible.

Jason came to my room and stood in the doorway, his long black bangs hung over his eye.

“What’s up, Zoe? Are you guys leaving?”

“We have to. Chris has gone too far. He came into my room last night and tried to get in my pants. Max keeps extorting money from me. I won’t live like this.”

“He did
what
?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m leaving.”

“I’m probably going to leave soon too. Max turned into a dick since Chris got here. Let me give you hand with your stuff.”

Jason helped Stacy and I carry our things to the trailer. As we bought the last of our things outside, Chris and Max pulled up in Max’s car. My heart dropped. Stacy shoved the trailer door closed as Max jumped from his vehicle.

“What the fuck is going on here, girls? You can’t just leave without giving notice. You have a lease.”

“Fuck off Maxwell. If you don’t want me to call the cops on your bro Chris for attempted rape, get out of our way,” I said, my words tense and threatening.

Max backed up with a confused look on his face. Whatever was between him and Chris, it didn’t seem to include raping Max’s tenants.

“She’s full of shit, Max. Don’t listen to her,” Chris said, stepping toward me. He grabbed my arm and yanked.

“Hey, asshole,” Stacy shouted. “If you don’t want to spend the night in jail, I suggest you back away.”

“Chris, step off man. That ain’t cool,” said Jason, moving in front of Chris. Jason was at least four inches shorter and much smaller than Chris. It took a lot of courage to stand up for us.

I yanked my arm away and got in the passenger seat of Stacy’s truck. Stacy gave Max and Chris a devil’s glare and ran around to the driver’s seat. She hopped inside and slammed the door shut, giving them the finger as we pulled away.

“I know where you work, bitch,” Chris yelled as we drove off. That dude didn’t know when to stop. But I wasn’t about to take any chances with him finding me at the bus stop at night. I’d have to quit my job. It sucked, but I didn’t have a choice. I could always call the police, but what could they do? Did I have enough reason to get a restraining order? Would that even help? It would be better to disappear into the city.

Stacy and I unpacked all our things into a storage unit near the hotel, returned the U-Haul and collapsed in the hotel room for the night. We bought microwave burritos from the mini-mart across the street and watched basic cable until we passed out in the dingy hotel room.

The next day, I called work and quit. Todd wasn’t happy, but I told him I’d been offered a waitressing job with tips. Quitting that job killed me. Not only did I have to give up a perfectly good job, but also I couldn’t use it as an instate reference anymore.

With only a few days until school started and money running low, we’d need to figure something out fast.

I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling while Stacy read to me the Help Wanted section from a local entertainment magazine. “Here’s one,” she said. “’Captain Moe’s needs cocktail servers, must…’ oh never mind, it says you have to be twenty-one.”

“Story of my life.”

“Wait, listen to this. ’Attractive young women, eighteen and older for artistic modeling shoots. Pays $200 per hour. Must be comfortable with nudity.’”

“Nude modeling, Stacy?” I said, turning over and raising my eyebrow at her.

“It’s two hundred dollars an hour. Shit. We could get the down payment on an apartment in a few days.”

“I don’t know. Is there contact information or a website or anything?”

“Yeah, a phone number and a website.”

She told me the web address, and I punched it into my phone. The site came up, and I clicked on the portfolio. The majority of the photographer’s images were artistic black and white shots of women and some of men. It didn’t look pornographic. I showed Stacy, and she giggled.

“Do you think you could pose for that?” I asked her.

“Those models look more like you than me, tall, lithe, small chested.”

“I don’t have small breasts.”

“You don’t have large breasts like me. I’m also short and muscular.”

“Do you want to give it a shot?” I asked.

“Might as well.” She shrugged and looked embarrassed.

“His website says he’s having open auditions tomorrow.”

“I’ve got the day off. We can check it out.”

I’d never imagined myself doing something like posing nude. Only a handful of people had ever seen me naked in the first place. I wasn’t a prude or anything, but I had a normal amount of modesty like everyone else.

I was fine with my body. I wasn’t obsessed with working out like Stacy. Stacy might have been sexy, have fake boobs, and flirt like a slut, but she had a hard line of “morality” that she wouldn’t cross. It probably had something to do with her rural upbringing.  I, on the other hand, tended to be more open minded. My mom was a hippy, not a hick. I could also deal with difficult situations without getting emotional about them. Stacy couldn’t.

***

We parked outside the photographer’s address in Fremont. It was located in a residential neighborhood and looked like a normal ranch style house with a manicured lawn and perfectly trimmed shrubs. After parking the truck and steeling our resolve, we walked to the front door.

I pressed the doorbell, while Stacy stood next to me, half stunned. I just wanted to get this over with, no use getting all “deer-in-headlights” about it. A tall, slender man with creamy brown skin and scarlet red dreadlocks answered the door. He pursed his lips at us, his chocolate colored eyes scanning our bodies.

“We came for the auditions,” I offered.

“Hmm wonderful, come inside.”

He turned and led us into an open room with gleaming pale wood floors. There was almost no furniture in the big open-concept living area. Instead, the space was occupied by studio lights and cameras set in different sections of the room. There were backdrops behind each scene. He led us to a small sitting area beside the upscale kitchen.

We sat near a sliding glass door that looked out on a patio and large landscaped backyard with flowering trees, fountains and gardens. The chairs in the sitting area were ultra-modern and cream colored, except for one that was red. I thought they would be uncomfortable and was surprised when they weren’t. He introduced himself as Marcus Rowley and we told him our names.

“So girls, have you ever done this type of work? Do you have books?”

Stacy and I looked at each other, then back to Marcus. We shook our heads no.

“It doesn’t matter. You can be trained. I like your looks. Very different. I can teach you everything you need to know. I can’t teach you to be comfortable in front of the camera, nude. A lot of girls your age come in here thinking it will be easy. It’s not. So, that said, I can do some test shots now. We can see if we are comfortable with each other and then take it from there.”

“What are these photos used for?” I asked.

“Most of my photography is sold as limited edition art work. The project I’m working on right now is in that category. I also do campaigns for clients. Those images might be used for everything from print advertisements to catalogs, to stock photography. Your face and body could end up everywhere. That is another issue you should be aware of before you start. Are you still interested?”

He sat back in his chair and threaded his fingers on his lap. Stacy and I looked at each other. I shrugged. She looked unsure. I didn’t have anything to lose. It was either this or admit defeat and tell my sister I needed money, or go back home. I’d been in Seattle for three weeks and only one restaurant had called me. We were living in a hotel, our shit was in storage, and school started on Monday.

“Sure, why not,” I said. Stacy sank in her chair as I stood. “You don’t have to do it, Stace. You can just watch me. You already have a job.” Her shoulders relaxed, and she smiled at me. “What do you want me to do?” I asked Marcus.

“There is a bathroom down the hall. Go ahead and change in there. You can put on the bathrobe on the hook behind the door. It’s clean. Then come out and I’ll tell you where to stand.”

I agreed and walked down the hall to the bathroom. Part of my brain couldn’t comprehend that I was about to take my clothes off for a complete stranger. The other part of my brain looked at it objectively. Marcus seemed like a decent guy. He had a nice place without an ounce of sleaze factor. I liked art, and I didn’t see anything wrong with nudes.

Marcus’s bathroom had dark wood cabinets and a white marble floor and counter tops. A pink orchid sat on the windowsill. A large, round mirror hung over the modern raised basin tub. I found the pink silk robe behind the door. After I took my clothes off, I slipped it on and went back into the studio, barefoot.

Stacy sat in the sitting area with her legs crossed, bobbing her foot up and down nervously. Her arms crossed tightly over her chest, and her brow was pinched.