Exposure (2 page)

Someone taps me on the shoulder. I
turn and it’s the guy next to me, the only thing separating us a
vacant chair. “You mind? My pencil rolled under your chair,” he
says.

I shift and bend forward,
reaching beneath my seat. When I find his pencil, I raise my arm to
give it to him and catch sight of his bag. His open bag. With the
newest issue of
East Park Exposed
tucked right next to his laptop.

Oh,
God
.

And there is me in all my softcore
glory, snuggled up next to that stuffed animal. The tips of my
fingers go cold.

“
Uhh… my
pencil?”

I meet his eyes. The guy looks
incredibly annoyed but that’s about it—nothing about his face tells
me that he recognizes me at all.

I lean forward enough so that we can
make the exchange. “Thanks,” he mutters. I sit up and breathe a
sigh of relief.

Messy bun, baggy sweatshirt,
a-la-naturale. I have to learn to trust myself and my own damn
clever disguise. That’s the real trick.

I’m still waiting for it
though—the moment where someone sees me from across the lecture
hall and
knows
who I am. I’ve managed this shit for two years without being
recognized. I can manage one more semester.

One more.

Professor Gates takes the stage, and
no one out of the two hundred of us really goes quiet until he
says, “I’ll be taking a seat today. We have a guest lecturer today.
One of my brightest students, Dallas Whitley.”

One of his students? Must be a biology
grad student. Everyone knows bio students are either med students
or really boring nerds. And if this is one of Gates’ “brightest”
students, I would bet my ass that the lecturer is a boring
nerd.

And there is nothing worse than a
two-hour-long boring nerd lecture from a grad student.

Even though I’ve already wasted gas
getting here, now seems like the perfect opportunity to ditch. I
have stats homework up the ass anyway.

As I stand to shuffle to the aisle,
the grad student steps up to the podium.

I slowly lower my bag back down to the
ground.

And sit.

I’ve never seen a human
being like him. He’s tall and well-built (I can only imagine what
he looks like under that pale blue button-up). Beneath a shag of
wavy, chestnut hair, he has the most piercing,
blinding
blue eyes I’ve ever seen in
my life.

A flutter of whispers spark up behind
me. I crane my neck a bit to see a couple of girls hunched close
together and gawking. Seems as though I’m not the only one noticing
that a Greek god has just walked into the classroom.

He has just enough of a square jaw to
keep him youthful without giving him a baby face. He shuffles his
papers and pushes that careless mess of a hairdo to the side. He’s
nervous. Freaking adorable.

“
Hello…err…
class
. So today, I’m going to continue Professor Gates’ lecture on
tumor suppressor genes.”

Fabulous—a topic I’ve already read
ahead in. I close the top to my netbook. I can watch this gorgeous
grad student stumble his way through a lecture without the hassle
of needing to take notes. His voice is a smooth baritone—an easy
one to get lost in.

I realize now my deep
fascination with this eye and ear candy, and let out a silent
sigh.
This is as good as it gets, Evan.
Soak it in while you can.

Snagging a boyfriend right
now is a straight-up laughable thought. First there’s the fact that
I don’t know if I could ever hide my double life from the boy that
I’m with. And that conversation wouldn’t be the most pleasant thing
in the world.
Hey Babe, I just wanted to
let you know that the reason why I don’t have any student debt
isn’t because I have rich parents. It’s because most of the male
population at East Park has seen my tits.

And secondly, there’s grad school.
Getting into UC Berkeley is happening. Why bother starting a
relationship here when I’m destined to go south?

So I’ll just have to make do with Mr.
Dallas Whitley here, finally getting the ball rolling and fluently
making his way through Power Point slides. But I’m not taking notes
on the slimy, monstrous looking photos of tumor developments
flashing across the projector screen.

I’m undressing Dallas with my eyes,
thank you very much.

Dallas

Tricia has tried to call me eight
times in the past two hours. She probably wants to remind me to
pick up milk on my way home.

Which is why I’m not
expecting the first thing out of her mouth to be, “Oh. My. God.
Dallas…
Dallas
!”

I slide into the seat of
my beat-up Toyota. “What, Trish?
What
?”

“
East Park
Exposed
. The photographer… she already got
back on your headshot submission. She wants you to come in
tomorrow.”

I pause in starting the ignition.
Okay, good news. So why is my stomach twisting? Oh yeah, because I
wasn’t the one who sent in my headshot.

Tricia was.

Yes, my girlfriend wants
me to pose for
East Park
Exposed
. The mag is so popular, she said.
You’ll get your face out there. Your modeling career will take
off.

She’s been pushing the modeling thing
ever since I decided to go into field research instead of med
school. It’s her way of making sure I’m still going to be paying
some bills, since now I’ll be getting my PhD for a five-figure
salary.

Like modeling will really cut me a
nice paycheck. I guess she has faith in my body.

“
That so?” I say. “So what
is it? An audition?”

“
I’m not too sure,” Tricia
responds. “I think she just wants to see you. Maybe do a test
shoot.”

“
Which means I’ll be
grinding up against mostly-naked girls… tomorrow. You know that,
right?”

Her sigh is loud. “We already talked
about this. I told you… work is work.” She scoffs. “You really
think I’d be jealous of those sluts?”

“
Just double checking.
Love you. See you in a bit.”

“
Don’t forget the milk.
Kisses,” she says, and hangs up.

I drop my phone in the cup holder and
rub my eyes. Already a reply from the photographer… am I ready for
this? Posing isn’t a deal at all. I’ve done underwear shoots
before.

But the fact that the mag is
affiliated with East Park just makes me feel so unprofessional. On
top of shooting with girls that aren’t Tricia.

But she doesn’t care, so I shouldn’t
care.

I pull out of the parking lot, looking
forward to nothing but buying milk and grading undergrad papers
tonight.

And being poor.

And whoring myself out to EPE
subscribers.

Fuck college.

Chapter Two

Evan

“
I’ve narrowed it down to
four sexy models,” Britain says right when I walk in the door. She
sits at her computer. “They’re all gonna stop by
tomorrow.”

“
Okay,” I say as
indifferently as possible. I throw my bag on the couch and head to
the kitchen to wash out my smoothie cup.

“
Well
, aren’t you interested?”

“
In seeing what these
model boys look like?” I yell over the running water, and shrug.
“Not really. I mean,
I’m
not going to be posing with them. And they’re
just temps, right?”

“
Jesus, Evan. Stop being a
prude and come check out some hot ass with me.”

I roll my eyes and turn off the water,
trudging into the living room. I pull up a chair and sit at the
desk with her. She has the first on already open. He’s… hot, I
guess. Nice abs.

“
His nose is kind of
big.”

“
You’re impossible,” she
says.

“
Show me the next
one.”

She clicks her mouse, and a new photo
pops up. He leans against a brick wall, crossing his meaty arms.
Meaty is an understatement.

“
This guy is huge. And
short. And bald. God, you have terrible taste in men. Why am I just
realizing this now?”

“
Shut your
face.”

She clicks to the next portrait, and I
stop breathing.

The model lounges on the couch wearing
low-rise jeans. His white shirt is completely unbuttoned, revealing
his tanned chest—the ripples of his six-pack.

I exhale. “Oh my god.”

His neck is craned as he glances at
the camera behind him with those gorgeous blue eyes.

“
Evan has a lady boner,”
Britain sings.

I open my mouth, but what the hell am
I supposed to say? That she’s late to the party? That I’ve already
been mentally masturbating to this guy for the past two hours? “I
know him. Well, sort of. He was our student lecturer today in
bio.”

“
Wait. You’re telling me
that he’s a
grad
student
?”

“
Yeah. But what does that
have to do with anything?”

She shrugs. “Older guys
are at our maturity level. Adam is
so
already getting on my
nerves.”

“
Which is why we shouldn’t
have any boys in our shoots.”

“
No, which is why we
should hire this one.”

When I jump up, I almost knock my
chair over. “Hell no!”

“
Are you kidding me? We
have to. He’s perfect. I heard the way you gasped when I pulled his
picture up.”

“
He’s in my department,
Brit. The first time a subscriber sees the two of us near each
other, they are going to figure out exactly who I am.”

She pushes her blonde hair out of her
face at the same time that Delilah swaggers down the stairs wearing
booty shorts and a crop top. “You really need to get past this
whole double life thing. You’ll be way less stressed out.” She nods
toward the stairs. “Take Delilah for example. Delilah’s never
stressed.”

Delilah swings from the bottom end of
the banister, her curtain of auburn hair swinging back and forth.
Delilah—EPE’s Jessica Rabbit. Full hips and boobs, tiny little
waist. Huge lips and eyes. She doesn’t just play a vixen on
television either.

“
I’ve told Evan this a
million and a half times,” she says, sauntering over to us. “You
get used to the cat calls. The free drinks make up for it. Plus the
sex any time you want it.”

Delilah isn’t like me—she doesn’t have
a pseudonym.

“
And if I did that then
I’d never get any work done.”

“
You’d be too busy
fucking.”

“
Well… no—”

But she cuts me off. “Who.
Is.
That
?” She
leans in toward the computer. “I want to lick every inch of
him.”

“
You might get to.”
Britain zooms in on Dallas’s picture.

“
He’s one of our new
boys?” Delilah bites her bottom lip.

“
No…
No
.” I put my hands on my hips.
Nothing says serious business like hands on the hips.

“
Think about it, Evan.
You’d have someone in your own department who understands you. You
guys could be buddies.” Britain bats her eyelashes. “While Delilah
climbs him like a tree for our benefit.”

I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”

As I trudge up to my room, Britain
yells, “So you’ll be around tomorrow to meet him,
right?”

I don’t answer.

“
Hey Evan, want to have
a
How I Met Your Mother
marathon this weekend?” Delilah asks.

“
Can’t. Homework. Always
homework.” I watch as she pouts from below. “Try after
graduation.”

^^^^

As I lie in bed, I clutch my stomach,
wondering why it’s twisting so much. I’m not jealous of Delilah.
I’m not. I’m making money. I’m getting great grades. I’m going to
get into grad school. The last thing I need is to be distracted by
a bunch of male models. Bringing them in to work alongside us is a
bad idea in the first place.

When Britain sees that having them
work with us will just turn off male readers, then they’ll leave
and things will return to normal.

I just have to wait.

^^^^

When I hang around shoots that aren’t
mine, waiting for my own turn in front of the camera, I usually
wear something comfortable, but much trendier than what Evan would
wear to school. Sexy Rylan comfy. Today, it’s a black romper and
gladiator sandals while Nora does my makeup and hair.

I guess Nora would be another one I’d
consider to know both of my identities. But I don’t really care
that she knows—she graduated from a cosmetic school on the other
side of town, is not-so-secretly super goth, and wants nothing to
do with us college skanks.