Helen turned to Mark and said, “This photo was up on my friend Shellie’s wall when I was still in junior high.”
“Really?” he asked, looking completely aghast.
“Yeah, really. Don’t blush, Mark. You looked hot.”
“Which is why I want him to take Alexander’s place,” Trevor said. Helen stared at Trevor. “Can you do that?”
“Well, since I can’t seem to get in touch with Collin, I guess I can do whatever I think is best. It would be a hassle to have to rebook all the locations and to rehire the temporary staff. The best thing is just to dress Mark up like Alexander—sans turtleneck of course—and to just get on with it.” Trevor added, “Mark looks terrible in turtlenecks.”
Helen couldn’t believe what Trevor was suggesting. Switching Alexander for Mark would make the photoshoot fun, the opposite of hell on earth. Her pulse was already racing at the very idea.
“The best part is that Mark has modeled for me numerous times and I know he can deliver what Collin wants. And since I let him live in my place rent-free, he can’t turn me down.”
“Is that true?” Helen asked.
“Yes,” Mark said slowly.
“So,” Trevor said with a note of finality, “Eat up and we’ll head back to the set. I want to finish the coffee shop pictures before the end of the day. I’ll show Collin the pictures once we’re finished. He’ll like not having to dish out the big bucks for Alexander—especially when he’s such a pain in the neck.”
***
Trevor swapped Alexander’s turtleneck for a white button-up-the-front shirt. “Mark’s dark, see?” Trevor said, pulling a shirt out of the makeshift wardrobe. “So, we need a white shirt to contrast his coloring. He’s not as tall as Alexander though, so he needs to wear a different size of trousers.”
“Are you faking an English accent?” Helen suddenly asked.
Trevor smiled. “Not intentionally. I work with a lot of Brits. It rubs off." Then he jumped back into work. He thumbed through the spare clothes. “Hmm… nothing that would fit Mark.”
Mark snorted. “Excuse me for being short.”
“Well, what you’re wearing isn’t suitable. A cat has better fashion sense than you.”
“You only think that because a cat runs around in the buff,” Mark retorted and Helen silently agreed Trevor’s modesty left something to be desired.
“You’ll have to wear mine. Switch me,” Trevor said, immediately unbuttoning his own black pants. He didn’t even give Helen a chance to turn around. Apparently, he didn’t mind if she saw his shiny black briefs.
Helen bolted out of the trailer. “Whoa,” she said, leaning against the door after she clamped it shut.
“Hey,” Mindy said coming up to her. “Trevor said we had to find a different shirt for you, too. What are you doing out here wearing the same thing?”
“Let’s just give them a minute,” Helen said, shaking her head.
Within half an hour, Helen and Mark were ready to go. Helen’s wardrobe had been altered so that her blouse and coat were gone. Instead, she was wearing a black off- the-shoulder sweater and a scarf around her neck. Trevor liked the change because he said it made her more feminine. Plus, she had been wearing something similar in the initial pictures Collin took.
So, there was Helen up against the wall for a second time, but unlike the last time, it was Mark pushing her instead of Alexander. It was lucky... sort of. With the change, she was uncomfortable in a completely different way. She’d never seen Mark pretend before, and so she wasn’t sure how much of his behavior was real or for the benefit of Trevor’s camera. Were his eyes always dark, full of passion and awareness? Had his hand always felt confident when she held it before? Did the two of them always get along so well? Did he always look at her like with such awareness and did she just not see it before?
It was then Helen realized the flush on her cheeks wasn’t one of her brain-induced rushes. It was quite the opposite——the real thing. Mark might not be able to tell when she was real, but Trevor did. He always shot off his camera shutter insanely at the most inopportune moments—right when Mark’s gaze got too intense for Helen and she was about to look away. It made Helen blush even more furiously to have her heart exposed like that. But whenever she looked at the crew, it was just business as usual for them. They were selling phones. They didn’t know it was her real heart on the line.
Trevor had a lot of poses up his figurative sleeve and he did rounds of more poses than she could count before he called it a day.
Helen was completely and totally drained. She stretched her arms and cocked her neck hoping to hear a satisfying crack.
“I don’t feel like doing dinner tonight,” Helen told Mark as he gave her a bottle of water. “I’m beat and by now, I’m probably too emotionally frazzled to appear in public.”
“That’s okay. I’m not really in the mood anymore either,” he said shortly.
“All right then,” Helen said, wondering about his dark mood. Maybe he didn’t really want to pose after all. “I’m going to change.”
Helen turned to go into the trailer and was surprised to see Mark walking behind her. She peeked around at him a couple of times and looked at him meaningfully trying to communicate to him that she wanted to go alone because she was obviously going to change into her street clothes. But he didn’t seem to catch the hint and kept right on following her.
At the door, she stopped, “Mark I…”
Mark reached past her and opened the door. “After you,” he said, steering her into the trailer.
Helen felt lost as she stumbled into the empty trailer. What did he need to talk to her about that couldn’t wait until after she had taken her wretched wig off? Regardless, she couldn’t wait to start getting comfortable. Whatever. If he wanted to watch, it wouldn't be the first time.
“What is it?” she asked him as she stepped up to her dressing table and started unscrewing the backs of her earrings. She set them on the table as Mark gradually came up behind her and started rubbing her shoulders.
“You’re tired, aren’t you?” he whispered as he drew back the curtain of her hair and began kissing her ear.
Helen could see their reflection in the mirror as he worked his way down her neck. His kisses were soft and his breath warm. Helen’s legs felt wobbly; she didn’t know if she could keep standing. One of his hands went to the back of her throat and tugged her scarf free. He wrapped it between his fingers, to keep it from falling. Helen felt so weak she couldn’t keep her eyes open. But even as his arms encircled her and he pulled her around to face him, somehow she couldn’t lose sight of where they were.
“Mark,” she sighed. “Do you really think this is a good place? What if someone walks in on us?”
His dark eyes locked on hers and he asked roughly, “Don’t you want me to touch you?" He kissed her again and she could sense his desperation for her. It was in every one of his motions.
She didn’t know what to do. She felt like such a tramp. How could she make out with her boss at work? It seemed so sleazy, except for the pounding of her heart. She was so excited by him that she didn’t know if she could push him away.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Helen thrust Mark off her and quickly turned around to continue taking off her jewelry. She was just in time because Trevor and Mindy came crashing into the trailer talking about how great work had been that day. Helen was beet-red, but she acted as if nothing happened. She was pretty sure they hadn’t seen anything, but when she looked at Mark… she saw she had offended him.
He stalked behind a Chinese screen to change his clothing and when he emerged, he didn’t look the least bit happier. Before he left the trailer entirely, he gave Helen a look that was both disappointed and extremely frustrated.