down deep inside me, I might have thought I'd have a chance with Isaac once I lost weight. I'd already considered the possibility of staging another chance meeting with him since I basically knew his travel plans through Instagram.
That thought made me pick up my phone and open the app. You would know the very first photo on my feed was one posted by @newyork_nicky. I stared at it in nervous wonder. It was a black and white photograph of his glorious, shirtless upper body in what looked like the bathroom of his new hotel room. I smiled as I stared at it, thinking about the fact that those lips had touched my cheek. The caption said he was stoked to be in L.A., and I was thinking L.A. was stoked to have him here when I glanced up to see Greg holding his hand out for my phone.
He glanced at it then up at me. "Seriously?" he asked. "That's the guy?"
I nodded.
"You're into tattoos like that?"
"I took my phone from him. "Not really. I don't even see him for the tattoos. I just see an overall gorgeous package. The tattoos just happen to be a part of it. I mean, look at his face. It's like a perfectly sculpted work of art, complete with these brilliant green eyes that you can't even see in this picture. He's so gorgeous it's crazy. You can't help but be attracted to him. It's like a law of the universe or something."
"Why's he called New York Nicky if his name's Isaac or Ethan or whatever you said?"
"It's Isaac, and I don't know. He lives in New York, but I don't know about the Nicky part."
"Well, I'm not entirely sure he's worth all the trouble, but you can have that thirty-day trial thing if you want it," he said. "It's over there on the catch-all by the door."
Chapter 4
Isaac
My trip to L.A. was amazing. Shane and I were there for four days. The photographer was a guy named Alex Sanchez, and the campaign we were shooting was for a new Christian Dior fragrance. I'd never worked with him before, but the other models had and they told me going in that we'd have a lot of fun.
There were four other models on the job, (three girls and one other guy) and we all got along well. I'd worked with one of the girls in the past. Her name was Carly Powell. I text her a little bit once I figured out we'd be working together, and she told me we were going to have the most fun we've ever had in our lives. She was fuckin' right. We worked for two days, shooting the campaign on a private stretch of coastline in Malibu. It was literally how I imagined paradise. I loved New York, but could seriously get used to life on the California coast.
It helped that I was getting paid to hang out on the beach with a bunch of gorgeous girls. I'm not talking about just the models, either. There were sexy ladies everywhere. We had one for hair, makeup, wardrobe, and a few of them helping the photographer. Obviously, Los Angeles was crawling with beach babies, and I wasn't about to start complaining.
We had a couple of productive days of shooting, and on the last day, Alex wanted to play with different lighting, so we started shooting in the afternoon and went on through sunset. He picked up on the chemistry I had with Carly. He knew it was just because we were acquainted with each other previously, but he paired us together for the sunset shots. She and I went into the ocean up to our knees so we could splash some water on ourselves, then made our way back to the ankle-deep water. He asked us if we'd be comfortable kissing, and we both agreed without hesitation. I'd kissed girls in pictures more times than I could count, and had no problem whatsoever with kissing Carly.
He shot from the shore with the sun behind us. He did a few individual shots of all of the models before pairing Carly and I up. We kissed for about five minutes straight during the most beautiful part of the sunset. Alex and his assistants moved around us, fussing over our clothes and hair in an effort to land the perfect shot. Carly and I got along great and we had no