When Troy doesn’t seem to be agreeing, I nod my head. “That’s a great idea. What’s your name?” I ask the redhead.
She’s looking at Troy, but she answers me. “Holly. My name’s Holly.”
Troy looks between Holly and me and then over at the women, who are glaring holes into Holly. “No props? Nothing?”
Holly shakes her head. “I have props,” she assures him.
“Fine. Put the girls on standby. And then work your magic,” he tells Holly before turning to me. “If this doesn’t work, we use the girls,” he negotiates. Holly looks at me over Troy’s shoulder and I can see the confidence in her now.
Shrugging my shoulders, I answer him, “Sure, if Holly’s plan doesn’t work, we use the models.”
Holly walks over to me after she asks the women to wait on the side. “So let’s go get you changed into something else.”
She looks at me and my board shorts I have on, shaking her head.
I hold my hands out. “What? You don’t like the shorts?”
She leads me out of the studio to the dressing room. She’s hustling and even with my long legs I have to speed up to catch up with her. “No, it’s not that. They look great. But every shot we’ve done for the ‘sexiest bachelor’ have all been the same. It doesn’t make sense to me. You’re sexy as you are. Why wouldn’t we just expand on that?”
As soon as the words leave her mouth, I hear her gasp. She turns around, slapping her hand to her mouth and her face is flushed.
I smirk at her and if anything, her face gets even redder. I can see from her expression that she didn’t mean to say that out loud. She got to rambling and it just came out.
She busies herself looking through the wardrobe and pulls out a white muscle shirt. When she holds it up to me, I can’t resist. “So you think I’m sexy.”
Holly
I knew the minute the words left my mouth, it was a mistake. He’s had all those women falling all over him and even though I was determined not to do the same, look at me now.
I ignore his question and ask him one instead. “I don’t think I have jeans that will fit you. Can you wear the ones you came in wearing?”
He nods and reaches for a pair of jeans across the room. Instantly, he starts pulling his shorts down and I’m frozen in my spot, staring at him with my mouth hanging open. When I start to see his underwear I flip around the other way, squeezing the shirt in my hands tightly. I force myself to take deep breaths.
I’m concentrating so hard on my breathing that I barely realize he’s moved toward me until I can feel the heat of his body behind me. “Uh, you decent?”
His deep voice fills my ear. “Yeah.”
I turn around and he’s standing right in front of me. I have to lift my head backwards to look up at him he’s so much taller than me. I hold the shirt that I’ve been gripping in my hands out to him. He takes it and when our hands touch, I jerk away.
He pulls the tight material over his head and puts it on. The stark white against his tanned skin causes me to be breathless. “Props,” I mutter to him.
“Sure, what you got?”
I take a step back and reach for the box I brought in earlier. It’s an arrangement of bats and when I find the perfect wood bat, I get it and hand it to him.
He smiles at me and I can tell he’s happy about my suggestion. “Perfect.”
The way he’s looking at me catches me off guard. It’s almost like he likes being around me. He was so frustrated earlier, but now he’s different. I lead him back out into the studio.
I resist the urge to fan myself. He’s older, probably at least ten years older than my twenty-three years of age, but I don’t really care.
When we walk back in, Troy looks at his watch and then at Shawn. After a few seconds, he nods his head. “Good work, Holly.”
“Oh wait, one more thing.” I go up on my tiptoes to reach Shawn’s hair and inadvertently I press my body into his. He groans, whether from the fact that I’m mussing his hair or the fact that I’m pressed up against him, I don’t know. I run my fingers through it really quickly before stepping back from him. “There, now it’s perfect.”
His eyes are heated when I look into them. Flustered, I turn away, giving Troy the thumbs-up sign.
The remainder of the shoot, I watch and take a few pictures. His eyes seem to follow me and the subtle smiles he has for me makes me a little giddy. I’m still getting death stares from the women on standby, but I just ignore them.