Hard Focus (BAE Book 1) Read online

  Copyright © 2018 Vic Tyler

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  Cover Design by Vic Tyler

  Additional:

  Brushes from Ivan Bábela

  Fonts from Jroh Creative, Khurasan, Dieter Steffman, Aldedesign, James Paul Fajado

  Emoji icons from EmojiOne

  Clipart from Openclipart

  Disclaimer: The following story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, locales, private or commercial bodies, etc. is coincidental.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18.

  This work contains strong language, sexual content, and violent content that may not be appropriate for underage persons.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hard Out Here - Lily Allen

  CHAPTER TWO

  Coming Down - Halsey

  CHAPTER THREE

  Bed - Nicki Minaj feat. Ariana Grande

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ho Hey - The Lumineers

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Stereo Hearts - Gym Class Heroes feat. Adam Levine

  CHAPTER SIX

  Somewhere Only We Know - Keane

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Unsteady - X Ambassadors

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Maria - Christina Aguilera

  CHAPTER NINE

  Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You - Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons

  CHAPTER TEN

  Fine By Me - Andy Grammer

  Epilogue

  Everything - Michael Bublé

  Author’s Corner

  Click here for Youtube playlist*

  *Note: Songs are matched to chapters, not necessarily to be played sequentially.

  Fan covers used if better suited to the mood of the chapter.

  Thanks!

  I hope you enjoy the story!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hard Out Here - Lily Allen

  Allegro agitato. Fortissimo. Accented chords.

  My body remembered.

  The horse hairs on my bow frayed as I sliced through the angry rumbling of my strings. The deep reverberation of my cello’s wooden body trembled between my knees, shaking me down to my bones. Dies irae playing to the accelerating tempo of my heartbeat.

  There was a reason this man was notorious. An irrational force, a self-contained bomb. He inspired geysers to spew and volcanoes to erupt. He would croon to the restless animosity in the Pandora’s box, hidden deep in your soul, to coup d’etat your ass.

  Asshole Supreme. The Devil Photographer.

  And yet I was desperate for a sliver of his generosity. Maybe ‘generosity’ is too strong of a word for him. I would settle for charity and take what I can get. Here I was, in front of a man who would rather burn his ship than drown with it, offering him the match.

  When Brie asked me last night if I could fill in as a photography assistant for a friend, I said sure, why not?

  Even though I meant definitely. Yes. Hellz to the yeah. Hallelujah, praise the lord, please let me be able to pay my rent this month.

  I’d gotten to the point where I was thinking about finding a sugar daddy to survive. With all the bills, student loan reminders, and the practice eviction notices my petty landlord slipped into my mailbox, my life was a mess.

  Sigh.

  It’d be nice if I got a piece of mail that didn’t have a dollar sign on it somewhere.

  “Benji’s a pretty difficult photographer to work with behind the camera,” Brie said, blowing onto her freshly painted toenails.

  (It was The Underestimation of the decade, I’d realize 12 hours later.)

  “Which is why two of his assistants quit before the shoot even started.” She scowled. “Such a diva.”

  With long golden hair that Rumpelstiltskin would covet, a visage worthy of Aphrodite’s spite, and legs that stretched for days, Brie Hill was too perfect for her own good. She was determined, self-made, and charming, which made her debut into the modeling industry a smooth cruise.

  “How hasn’t he been blacklisted already?” I shoved a handful of popcorn in my mouth, watching the one and only, young and fiiine Heath Ledger singing and dancing around in “10 Things I Hate About You.” I’d eat that baritone vibrato. Yum.

  “He’s not awful to work with,” Brie said, absentmindedly fiddling with her necklace — a gold shell with an inlaid pearl. She never took it off except for work. “Unless you’re assisting. Benji doesn’t want any assistants, and he makes sure that none of them stick around. Totally Type A. But people let him do it ‘cause he’s that good. They’re already calling him a once-in-a-lifetime visionary.”

  This dude already sounded like a pain in the ass. But Grant — Brie’s childhood friend and photographer-man’s investor — seemed pretty desperate. And for Grant, desperate was a rare occurrence. So Brie begrudgingly said she’d ask me.

  I started working as a photography assistant a year ago. Brie knew a couple of small studios that mostly did family portraits and smaller assignments. But that didn’t bring in much money, since the studios didn’t have enough work for me to work full-time.

  “I’ll kind of, sort of vouch for him,” Brie said, scrunching her nose and sighing. “He really does have some crazy ideas that get your adrenaline pumping, and the prints are top-notch. My agency is trying to book him all the time.”

  Apparently she and Benji helped each other early on in both their careers when they worked TFP — a model and a photographer exchanging Time For Prints as currency.

  “It’ll be great experience, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Brie wiggled her shiny flamingo pink toes.

  “Alright,” I said, shrugging. I was used to divas, and this one would be paying me to deal with his shit. “How bad can it be?”

  Real bad.

  Time travel should be invented just so I could rewind 12 hours and smack myself in the head.

  BAYRE Studio.

  Brie sent me the address last night and told me to be there at 8:00 AM. Whoops.

  It was now 8:10 in the godforsaken morning, and I blame it on my hand for accidentally snoozing the alarm a few too many times. I texted Brie as soon as I saw the studio from around the corner and rushed in.

  The small lobby was sleek, clean, and modern. There were those long black leather couches on each wall that were definitely not from IKEA. And the huge flourished sign that demanded your attention as soon as you entered the studio was intimidatingly avant-garde, with the morning sun glaring off the glossy, cold, black ink.

  Brie

  Studio’s in the back! Finishing face prep. Be right thereeee

  Now stamp this on past-me’s forehead in huge red letters: ABORT.

  But no, that’s not what happened.

  I eyed the two
hallways on either side, skittering from one to the other and peeking through. They both seemed to lead to the same dark room with some studio lights set up in the back. I tiptoed through one, each of the room signs dauntingly closed:

  OFFICE, CONFERENCE ROOM, DO NOT ENTER

  And geez.

  Believe it or not, there were barrels everywhere. Wooden barrels. Everywhere.

  A table fifteen feet ahead of me was practically bending under the weight of various wine glasses and enough bottles of wine to intoxicate the entire neighborhood. The air was heavy with the smell of fermented grapes seeped into oak, chestnut, and cherry.

  A man stood behind all the equipment, examining the set distastefully. I approached slowly, and when he turned to look at me, my breath caught in my throat.

  He was easily the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen, with messy auburn hair and emerald eyes that glimmered from the few lights in the room. I mean, I collected all the magazines and pieces that Brie ever featured in, and surprisingly, I didn’t recognize his face. Maybe he was an exclusive high-fashion model that rarely graced the sights of regular people like me.

  The man was wearing a loosely buttoned white shirt, his sleeves rolled up, revealing strong, toned arms crossed in front of his broad chest. His face was sharp with high cheekbones and a strong square jaw clenched in a dissatisfied look.

  Yikes. Maybe this model was late like me, but at least I didn’t have to get all dolled up.

  “You should head to the dressing room,” I told him, looking at a clock on the wall and approaching the wine table. “All the other models already started hair and makeup.”

  His intensely green eyes pierced into me, narrowing as he turned to look at me. I laughed nervously, picking up a bottle of wine. Beringer Cabernet Sauvignon. Huh, seemed a little cheap for the set-up.

  “Wow, I heard the photographer is a nut,” I said, looking around and nudging a nearby barrel with my foot. “Totally weird set, am I right?”

  “Maria!”

  Brie strode in, slivers of her smooth, honey tan legs peeking through her robe. “Oh, have you already met Benji?”

  Oh, crap.

  I actually heard my first impression cracking and shattering into sand. I eyed the barrel next to me. It suddenly looked like a very comfortable place to crawl into.

  “Pets aren’t allowed in here, Cheddar,” Benji said in a deathly calm voice, turning to face her. Whoa, his voice was so deep. I could definitely be All About That Bass.

  “Benjamin,” Brie warned in a I-dare-you-to-keep-talking tone, glaring at him. “This is Maria, your assistant for the day.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t get to say ‘no.’” Brie rolled her eyes.

  “Do I look like a bitchsitter? What the hell do you think this is, a kennel?”

  “I’m here to work,” I shot at him, hearing the percussion of my heart angrily pounding against my ribcage. “Not to be babysat.”

  “Work,” Benji scoffed. This asshole hadn’t looked at me again since Brie came in. “We’re not making cookies here. Go back to your little Keebler frat house. I’m not using you.”

  This. Condescending. Asshole. It didn’t matter how good looking he was if he was sauntering around with that attitude.

  “No, you won’t be using me. I’ll be assisting you,” I reminded him. “Do you need a dictionary to differentiate the two?”

  His sharp green eyes flashed over to me. “On second thought, sticking a puppy in a barrel and tossing it into the Hudson doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”

  “Wait, what’s with all the barrels anyway?” Brie asked, looking around half in amusement and half in horror. “This is still the ‘Ripe Aging’ concept for that housewife journal, right?”

  “Cooper,” Benji spat, disdainfully. “This is the shit he sent instead of the French furniture set we discussed. I’m already talking to Grant about it.”

  He ran a hand through his unkempt curls and grunted.

  “I should’ve known when we said ‘wine-red’ for the color scheme, he’d only pick up on the ‘wine’ bit,” Benji said, grimacing. “That Harvey Weinstein piece of shit likes his alcohol aged inversely to his women. Why the hell anyone put him on this project is beyond me. I guess we should be thanking him for not sending underage prostitutes at least.”

  “Oh,” Brie said, mirroring his displeasure. “He really hates you, doesn’t he?”

  “Believe me, the sentiment is mutual. And meanwhile, you two are wasting my time while I’m trying to figure out what the fuck I’m going to do,” Benji snarled.

  “Huh, ,what about a ‘female empowerment’ angle?” I asked. I put my fingers together in a rectangular frame and squinted through it. “Wine night’s a classic.”

  “Juvenile and unoriginal,” Benji grumbled.

  I rolled my eyes. “How about an extra “fuck you, go drown in your cheap wine’ idea? Embody youth. Wine, pool, music, party.”

  I turned to Brie, delighted. “Hey, we should do that.”

  Benji raised his hand.

  Shut up, he was telling us. His eyes flitted over the set from wall to wall like he was considering a Slip-N-Slide installation.

  Silence.

  It was almost unnerving after the whole spectacle the moody photographer put on to piss all over his territory. Who was the bitch now?

  An excessively drawn out, exasperated groan broke the silence. Benji tousled his already mussed hair with both his hands. Then he whipped around to look at me, his piercing green eyes making my heart skip.

  “Go buy enough tarps to cover a 60” by 72” space and ten boxes of boxed wine,” he said, pulling a credit card out of his wallet and tossing it at me.

  Holy crap, gold American Express. Benjamin Reed. Wait, what?

  “Also, various cheeses, grapes, crackers — anything you’d find on a cheeseboard. Buy generously. Take an Uber, and while you’re twiddling your thumbs in the car, take a look at these. Forget the moodboard — Cooper shit all over it — and memorize these lighting sets. Familiarize yourself with the magazine’s style in their previous features — we won’t be straying too far from it. Some people are terribly unimaginative. When you get back, set aside a good wine for everyone here and start setting up the fixtures.”

  A thick binder was shoved into my hands — ow, papercut — full of pictures, notes, blurbs about the shoot, and meticulously cut pages from previous volumes of the magazine. Benji looked at his phone.

  “Grant said he got the art director’s approval for the changes, so it’s a go,” he said, snapping on his heels and briskly walking away. “Cheddar, we’re going to talk with the stylists to change the look with what we have available.”

  “W-wait,” I stammered, confused. I struggled to keep the binder under one arm as I licked at my papercut. “You just gave me a credit card. And binder. What —”

  “Well, if you try stealing the credit card, I can guarantee I’ll hunt you down and make you pay,” Benji said in a bored tone.

  His gaze moved down to my mouth, where my thumb was firmly pressed. And then down to the rest of me, smirking. I felt heat blazing in a trail wherever he looked.

  “You’re getting one chance, so prove you deserve it.” He stalked off without looking back again.

  Brie gave me two ecstatic thumbs-up before running after Benji and following him to the dressing room.

  The bastard refused to work with me, and now here he was, ordering me around. What did I get myself into?

  A lot of cheap labor, apparently. I was starting to think the pay wasn’t high enough.

  Even though I don’t consider myself weak — years of carrying a cello around was like being perpetually suspended in the middle of a set during a workout — carrying all the materials he asked for was no easy feat.

  I had to ask the Uber driver for help, and he enthusiastically engaged me in a conversation about really shitty bosses. I tipped him very, very generously, which made the Uber was the most costly expense. But for some reas
on, I doubted Benji would care. A man who’d bankrupt himself for his art seemed like a pretty apt description.

  But that was foreplay to the torture that ensued.

  Benji had changed the blue backdrop to a shockingly white screen and set some tall, shoddily constructed wooden corners. He left a note on all of them that said “STAPLE TARP HERE, KEEBLER” with an obnoxiously large X drawn on it. It was the most disappointing treasure map I’d ever seen.

  Cluttering the periphery of the room were most of the barrels, haphazardly lined as though they’d been unceremoniously tossed from the middle of the room. In the middle of the set were a few barrels, varying in sizes and colors, carefully and gingerly poised.