I pull out my desk chair, flip it around and sit down all the way across the room, facing Nate.
Then I realise.
Why his eyes haven’t been on my face.
Why he’s sitting over there, one leg tossed over the other, his arm shielding my view from his lap.
When I rest my arms on the armrest of my desk chair and feel my boobs through my tank top, I do not feel my bra.
My eyes go wide, and two things happen.
One, I look down and see dark circles, and my nipples poking out. My breath goes in an instant and I can’t take another, let alone move. I just take in my nipples. Dark. Poking.
But then I snap up my gaze and zero in on Nate’s hand ever-so-well-placed on his crossed leg that shields his lower abs, crotch and upper thighs. The meaning of his actions rocks my core, sending a hot, erotic wave spilling over between my thighs. I wonder how hard he is, if I’m making this all up. Because that is likely given my circumstantial celibacy and month-and-a-half bout of loneliness. I could imagine Nate kissing me now, too. Anything’s likely to be imagined.
The look in his eyes is real. Hot cheeks, a nervous lick of his lips, and the giveaway when he tries to cover his shifting in case I can see what he’s hiding.
I leave and come back in a bra underneath, boobs restrained.
Getting into things, he says, “Well, it’s pretty simple. I’ll explain it quickly, but you read the terms and sign the model release form.”
“What?” What on earth are you talking about? Because that doesn’t at all have to do with cock, or nipples.
“Sorry. I’ll start from the beginning about how it all started and payments for the photo and such. Well, photos, plural. They want to purchase the rights to use a few, in case they want to do a larger spread, or for a different look on their website version.”
The photo shoot. Release form. Okay.
“Ah, cool. Come sit here and we’ll get it sorted,” I say, turning my chair and leaving to bring back another for him.
“Wait, we’ll just lie on the bed. Do you have a hardback or something?”
I know I’d be much safer doing it at the desk. I can handle the possibility of rubbing shoulders or fingers when swapping a pen, but I am highly likely to snuggle into Nate or straight-out hook a leg over his thigh if he’s lying parallel to me.
“Cool,” I say instead, again.
Don’t I have better control over sounding stupid? I’m nineteen, not sixteen and smitten.
We start off by discussing how he was approached after he featured the photos on his tumblr page. Everything sounds incredible, working his way up in exposure until he got offered $700 for the three photos. He wants to go 50/50 with me but I did nothing but cause trouble, and the fact he wants to pay me $350 for that is embarrassing, so we just spend the next amount of time fighting over it.
I get why he wants to pay me, but he doesn’t owe me anything in the general sense of our relationship, whatever that is. We aren’t close now, and he doesn’t have to pay me to get me to sign, which I’ve already done, stating nil payment to me.
“Just shut up and take it, Kall Bell,” he finally shouts.
We’re lying on our tummies, angled toward each other at our heads, resting on our arms. I’m sure my arms, and the fact my boobs are resting against the bed mean they’re pushed together, and way past the exposure level for whatever type of friends we are.
“Did you call me Kall Bell?”
He looks around as if he missed the punch line. “Yeah …?”
I could say that he hasn’t called me that in so long, and we could both go back to being distant strangers, or I could say this, “Oh, that’s okay, thought I heard something else,” and silently love it.
Deep down, my chest feels like it’s tingling, knowing I’m good enough for my nickname still.
“You just diverted the subject. I swear …” He reaches out and holds my shoulders still so I’m conveniently stuck looking directly at him. “You couldn’t be photographed without me as much as I couldn’t get that shot without having you in it. You. Deserve. It.”
“No, I don’t,” I mumble.
“What?” Nate looks down at me.
He’s testing my control. I could lean up a few inches and taste those lips. Plunge my tongue inside his mouth and get lost in him like I’ve wanted and wanted.
He gulps, and I follow his jaw, his Adam’s apple bobbing. It feels incredibly more intimate than the simple action it is.
“You deserve this,” he says, staring at my lips in a way that makes me think kiss and nothing to do with whatever he means.
In fact, what where we talking about? I can’t focus on anything but his hair flopped over his forehead, and the way the sunlight streaming through the curtains filters through his eyelashes and brightens the flecks in his eyes. I can’t even picture the rest of the room, but knowing our bodies are lying in touching distance, his lips in kissing distance is too much for me to handle.