Hard Focus (BAE Book 1) Read online

  “Photo shoots in nature,” Grant repeated slowly, raising his eyebrow the tiniest bit. “It is a novel idea but a bit hard to do that in New York City.”

  “We’re going location scouting in Maine somewhere next weekend,” I said, munching on a pretzel. “I did tell him that’s pretty far for a photo shoot though.”

  “Maine next weekend,” he repeated.

  His face broke out into a smirk as he took his phone out, suddenly absorbed in it.

  “You guys are closing the studio for the weekend?” Brie said, frowning. “When’s the last time that happened?”

  Her head whipped to look at Grant.

  “Oh.”

  She turned to me, suddenly excited.

  “Oh!”

  Grant put his phone away, and he and Brie looked at each with a knowing look, both looking way too pleased with themselves.

  “What?” I asked suspiciously. “Why are you two acting so weird?”

  “Benji’s a workaholic. He never closes the studio, even on the weekends, except for major holidays when he’s forced to,” Brie said, her eyes twinkling. “And his birthday.”

  “He didn’t even want the time off, but I put it in as one of the conditions in our work contract that the studio remain closed that weekend,” Grant explained.

  “We tried to get him to go out with us or throw parties for him, but he never wants to celebrate his birthday,” Brie said. “He just disappears after he closes the studio until he comes back to open. He never talks about what he does. Grant practically stalked him to find out he goes camping every year by himself.”

  Brie looked pointedly at Grant, who shrugged with an innocent smile.

  “A GPS tracker is hardly stalking,” was his response.

  “It’s his birthday?” I asked incredulously. “Why is he inviting me? Isn’t this just work?”

  Brie scoffed. “He’s never invited anyone else to go with him.”

  “Maybe we should crash the party.” Grant looked at Brie, eyes gleaming.

  “Yes,” she agreed immediately. “He’ll hate us forever.”

  “Worth it.” Grant shrugged.

  “Bring a huge cake too.”

  “Bubble gum flavored.”

  “With koalas on it.”

  “Are you trying to kill him?”

  Brie scrunched her nose. “He won’t die as long as he’s not camping in Australia.”

  “Wait,” I said, feeling slightly panicked. “What do I do? It’s his birthday. What should I do?”

  “You should make sure he’s not murdering children or doing anything illegal up in the woods,” Brie said, grimly.

  “Should I get him something? What do I even get for someone like him?”

  “I’m sure he’d be happy with anything you get him,” Grant said.

  His smile a little softer than usual. I blinked to make sure I was seeing him right.

  “Get him a buttplug,” Brie said firmly, placing her hands on mine. “To replace that stick up his ass.”

  Grant excused himself and practically skipped out the door. Brie bustled around the apartment, gathering the camping supplies she was going to lend me.

  “Grant stopped by the studio the day after we went to the bar,” I started, leaning my chin on the back of the couch as I watched her flit around.

  “Isn’t he always there?” Brie asked, distractedly.

  “He seemed particularly disturbed,” I said. “Any idea why?”

  Brie paused, her hand flying up to her neck. I frowned when I saw she wasn’t wearing her necklace.

  “Wait, what happened to your necklace?”

  “Oh, the clasp broke,” she said sheepishly. “That’s actually what we fought about. Kind of.”

  “What? Why? Wasn’t Grant the one who gave it to you?”

  Brie hummed, absentmindedly rubbing her empty neck.

  “Yeah, but he thought it was time I stopped wearing it,” she said softly.

  She shook herself off and started jumping and stretching.

  “It’s my necklace,” she declared. “I’ll do whatever I want with it.”

  I smiled, watching her run around again. It was amazing how Brie’s feelings were still so strong after all these years. I admired her tenacity, and in a lot of ways, she held the standard for what I saw as true love.. Anyone would be lucky to be on the receiving end of Brie’s love, and Grant was a downright fool for not seeing that.

  But it also brought my spirits down a little bit. Would I also suffer the same fate? What if I wasn’t able to stop my feelings for Benji from cascading into something more dangerous? Would I find myself longing for him years from now? Would I ever be able to find someone else that made me feel like he did?

  What’ll happen to me after I leave BAYRE?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Somewhere Only We Know - Keane

  “Taking a plane to Maine seems a bit over the top for a location scout,” Maria said carefully.

  I grunted.

  The asshole went ahead and closed the studio a day early, changed the locks, booked two tickets to Maine, and sent me an email saying exactly that. I was banking on the fact Grant wouldn’t find out until later, but…

  Sigh.

  Not to mention, he had the nerve to end it with ‘Toodle-oo, happy birthday, use protection, much love. - Mom.’

  I think I really might kill him one day.

  But I should’ve known it wouldn’t end there. Why I kept underestimating Grant Bayer was beyond my understanding.

  Maria and I arrived at the car rental, and the worker drove out a Lamborghini, insisting that’s what the reservation was changed to.

  The employee fidgeted uncomfortably as I cursed at a spiritually present Grant, throwing in a couple of death threats. He didn’t argue when I insisted on taking the Nissan Xterra, telling them to keep the payment for the upgrade.

  Once the actual car we’d be renting came out, Maria and I ended up sitting in there for 10 minutes while I had to sit back and take a breather from the day’s ridiculous events.

  Maria was having difficulty managing her giggle fit, so I helped her smother them by occupying her mouth otherwise.

  We had to stop by the grocery store first, making sure we got enough provisions and those s’mores that Maria wanted. The employees there got annoyed by us when we raced our carts down the aisles and argued loudly about what snacks to buy. Maria was a little glutton when it came to her sweets, and I probably indulged her more than I should have.

  It was a short drive to the national park. Maria and I argued about what music to put on, but our voices slowly faded as the scenery around us changed into tree trunks and green curtains.

  Maria was practically stuck to the window, her head speedily turning every which way as she tried to look at everything. It was amusing and we weren’t in a rush, so I slowed the car down a little.

  When we got to the parking lot and started our hike, Maria moved at a snail’s pace, stopping every so often to gape at the forest and the green canopy that fluttered above us. Even though I generally appreciated the scenery, watching Maria gave me a second opportunity to experience it all for the first time.

  It was weird hiking with someone else. Being here with someone else. In the past I used to revel in the solitude of the mountain, away from the noise of the city and the people. But when I was planning this trip, I remembered Maria saying she’d never been camping, and it crossed my mind that I would enjoy her company.

  We stopped at a flat bend to take a break, setting down our gear on some nearby boulders. I took out my Hasselblad, a camera I was excited to try out, not having had the chance to experiment with it yet. It was a special sponsorship they offered, but it was a slow camera, making it difficult to use in most shoots.

  “Turn your head a little to the left, and relax your foot. Stay like that,” I ordered.

  Maria blushed a little and fidgeted self-consciously, stopping only when I glared at her.

  “I’m pretty sure I came her
e as an assistant,” she said.

  “You’re assisting me by modeling,” I said.

  It felt a little low to pretend like I was using her as a model while scouting locations, but I didn’t want to tell her she was the cause for and the model in the ideas I wanted to see and capture here.

  “It feels weird being on this side of the camera,” she said, her gaze flying up, distracted by flying birds.

  “It’s nothing new from the other times we scouted locations.”

  Maria looked at me, cocking her head. Got that on camera now. “What do you like about being out here?”

  “Change in scenery.”

  “Besides that.” She rolled her eyes. “That’s a given.”

  “It’s familiar, even when I go to different places,” I said, mostly focusing on my viewfinder than the conversation. “It’s the closest thing I have to a home.”

  “Why?” Maria furrowed her brows.

  “I used to log in Michigan, and I slept outside most of the time,” I said. “It was more comfortable than being in any foster home.”

  “Why did you run away from your last foster home?”

  Even though it was years ago and I felt safe here — in the mountains, especially knowing I always had New York to return to — dredging up those old memories was still bitterly painful. There was a lot of burdens and scars to unpack, and I preferred to keep that box tightly shut and chained, screwed down, shoved into the darkest depths out of sight.

  I didn’t realize that I was taking long to answer, Maria’s face gradually looking guiltier and nervous.

  “My foster dad and I fought a lot, and it just got annoying so I left,” I said, picking up my pack again. “So stop looking like you killed a puppy or something.”

  We got moving. Since this was my first time in this national park, I shared the excitement of exploring with Maria. We stopped more times than we should’ve before arriving at our campsite.

  The site was deserted in a large clearing. We set up our equipment up and sat around, sampling the snacks we bought earlier. It was way later than I had anticipated arriving at the campsite, but hell, we had all weekend and it was fun enough. I was almost grateful to Grant for the extra day off. Almost.

  There was a small lake not too far from us, so we took it easy and decided to sit around and fish for a couple of hours. Maria squirmed about the bait, but she was a quick learner, which I already knew.

  “So how did you meet Grant?” Maria asked, leaning her head between my shoulderblades. We were sitting on some protruded rock, back to back. It would’ve been neat to get that picture.

  “He found me in Michigan,” I said, absentmindedly reeling in the line. Oops. “We went to the same high school, but we weren’t friends. We never even talked. But somehow he found me a year after I ran away. A teacher we knew asked him to find me apparently. And Grant propositioned a business partnership. Said he’d manage a studio while I photographed. Sounded like bullshit, so I told him to fuck off. But he stuck around for a while until I changed my mind.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like Grant,” Maria said. “But whoa, we had that one degree of separation between us even back then, huh?”

  I tilted my head back until it was leaning on the top of her head. “Weird.”

  “I wonder what would’ve happened if we met earlier,” Maria mused.

  My heart ached, wishing that we had. But there had been too much going on, and I doubt we would’ve gotten along.

  “You wouldn’t have even looked at me.” I watched birds soar above us, in their V formation. “It was a different time.”

  Maria laughed. “Oh, please. I was a cello nerd. With your penchant for women, you wouldn’t have noticed me.”

  “I would’ve noticed you.”

  The surface of the water rippled as a fish dipped its lips past its watery home. Birds chirped and whistled in the labyrinth of trees next to us. And Maria breathed softly, her back rising and falling against mine.

  Once the orange haze started illuminating the lake, we packed up and headed back to the camp, where we made a fire and had a simple dinner with bread, sausages, and eggs. Maria wolfed down her plate, much to my amusement, and she scrambled to get to our last untouched grocery bag.

  “I’ve never had s’mores before,” Maria chirped, excitedly sticking 5 marshmallows on a long branch.

  “Whoa, how many are you planning on eating?”

  I grabbed her stick and took 4 of them off. She pouted and then looked at the bag of groceries we bought earlier.

  “All of them?” She furrowed her brow and then looked at me, smiling. “Yupp, all of them.”

  “I’m not going to help you if you drown in a puddle of marshmallow.”

  “I’ll eat my way out,” she said, her eyes sparkling from the excitement and the crackling fire.

  “You’ll be in the news tomorrow. I can see the headlines now: ‘Death by Marshmallow; S’mores no more’s,’” I snickered, leaning back against the wooden log behind me.

  “So lame. Besides, you wouldn’t let me die.” Maria squealed as her marshmallow caught on fire.

  I blew it out and pulled the burnt layer off. Maria was amazed at the white goo melting off of her stick. She started excitedly stacking her s’more together. I’d never seen anyone else so excited about those little treats.

  Not that I made them all that often myself. I tried it when I went camping by myself the first time, but it was unmemorable. Maybe the appeal was in making them with someone else. Maybe it was just Maria.

  “Aren’t you eating any?” Her words were muffled by her round cheeks stuffed with the crushed graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate.

  “Yeah, I’ll have some.”

  There was a little white trail of marshmallow hanging from the edge of her mouth. I leaned over and put my lips over her mouth, sucking the sweet strand of sugar. She blushed and I cupped her face, turning it towards me.

  Her lips were chocolatey with the coating of sticky marshmallow and prickled with cracker crumbs. She tasted like s’mores, and in this exact moment, it became my favorite taste.

  Maybe I wouldn’t like it in the future, but if Maria was in my future, anything she tasted of at the moment would be the one I couldn’t live without.

  I pulled away, brushing my thumb over her flushed red bottom lip. I grabbed her hand and popped the rest of her half eaten s’more into my mouth.

  “Thanks,” I laughed. She mock-tackled me, jumping and pinning me down.

  “This is for my fallen s’more. May it rest in peace,” she said solemnly.

  Her small, light hands clumsily pinned my hands above my head. If she thought she could hold me down, she was sorely mistaken. And I’d make sure she wouldn’t mistake the soreness she’d feel in her body afterwards. But it was cute, so I played along.

  The flickering flames cast whips of orange and yellow light across Maria’s face. It looked like it was glowing white, her long dark hair draping down the side. Then the image of her bare body, riding me in front of this fire with the dark forest as our backdrop and the moon peering down on us filled my mind. God, she was beautiful.

  “So,” Maria started slowly. “Why don’t you like celebrating your birthday?”

  What?

  Oh, fuck. That shithead Grant. I scowled.

  Of course he would’ve told her if he knew she was coming on the trip with me.

  “I don’t care about my birthday. I would’ve forgotten about it if Grant didn’t shut down the studio every year.”

  “That’s sad,” Maria said softly.

  Her hands left my wrists, sliding down to touch my cheeks. I grabbed her wrist and pressed my lips to her palm.

  “Not really.” I shrugged. “There aren’t any good memories of it. So celebrating it is a worse occasion.”

  “Do you mind if I ask what happened?” Maria cautiously peered at me.

  I nuzzled my mouth against my hand. The memories threatened to pour out, but Maria’s touch grounded me,
reminding me of the present.

  “None of my birthdays were particularly memorable,” I started slowly. There were no cakes or candles or any of the things I’d seen on TV. At best, some candy. At worst, being ignored. Which was never so bad.

  “But my twelfth birthday —” the words felt dry and foreign in my mouth. “— was when my foster mom came into my room at night and told me she’d make me a man.”