Senior Year Box Set

It surprised me to see Sarah and me featured on the front page of Jade’s website. I would say it was probably time they updated that. I remembered taking that picture the summer of my freshman year. If I remembered correctly, I’d also recently seen it in their magazine advertising.

“Tyler told me that you’re the ‘face’ of Jade and that that’s something not many models achieve. She also said you’re the main model for Dakora and Range Sports. I knew you modeled for them, just not to what extent,” Jill said.

“Is that a big deal?” Mrs. Lacier asked.

“Over my modeling career, I’ve only been asked to be the ‘face’ of two lines,” Adrienne explained. “Being the featured model is both good and bad. The good is they pay you a lot of money. The bad is they put handcuffs on you as far as who you can model for. In David’s case, he got lucky. Even though Jade, Dakora, and Range Sports all sell clothes, they’re different enough not to trigger the noncompete sections of his contracts.”

“Plus, they like me,” I added. “Jade has been flexible. They let me do jobs with Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch. In most cases, they would have had every right to disallow that because they sell similar types of clothing.”

I flipped through a couple of pages on the site.

“Notice that Jade has their models in minimal makeup. They want us to appear as normal as possible. They don’t try for a high-fashion look,” I shared with Jill.

“I see your shirt is off in a lot of them,” Jill said.

“They want to feature the pants he’s wearing,” Tyler said.

“I’m sure that’s the reason,” Mrs. Lacier said doubtfully.

“You have to be comfortable showing your body. That type of photo sells a lot of clothes,” Adrienne explained.

I knew she’d said that to prepare Mrs. Lacier for what clothing companies expected of models. Jill’s mom seemed to consider what Adrienne had said, and her lips pinched. I would be concerned, too, if she were my teenage daughter. I was happy when Mrs. Lacier let it go for now. She would see how today went before giving her blessing to allow Jill to follow her dream.

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Once we arrived at Jade, I took the lead since I’d been there before. Their home office was more of a warehouse. Jade designed their clothes on site, and they had a corner set up to do photo shoots. Waiting for us was their Vice President of Marketing, Michael Reese. He’d been my primary contact since I first started working for them.

“David,” he called out and rushed over to give me a hug.

Someone was glad to see me. Hugs were new.

“Adrienne told me you’d discovered someone and wanted us to have her first,” Michael said.

Did she, now?

“This is Jill Lacier. She and I go to the same high school. Jill, meet Michael Reese, who runs Jade’s marketing division,” I said by way of introduction.

I saw Michael glance at her chest. Most models weren’t built like Adrienne up top. Larger breasts weren’t the asset you might imagine in this line of work. Designers wanted their female models to be flatter-chested so their clothes hung better. Jill also wasn’t anorexic. She had a muscular, athletic build that looked damn fine on her, in my opinion. I only hoped that Michael agreed.

“I’ll take them back to get ready,” Tyler said.

Adrienne and Michael strolled away to talk. I expected she would convince him Jill would work for what they needed.

For today’s shoot, they’d converted a conference room into our dressing room. Mrs. Lacier had tagged along and looked concerned.

“There aren’t separate rooms for them to change in?” she asked.

“That rarely happens. Yes, the guys are usually off to the side, but they’re often in the same room. It’s not very sexy because everyone’s there to do a job. I sometimes change on set in front of everyone to save time,” I explained.

“He’s right. This is part of the job,” Tyler said.

“AT Modeling will make sure someone is with Jill at all times. She’ll be safe,” I assured Mrs. Lacier.

“Maybe I should go outside,” she offered.

“And miss the show?” Tyler asked.

Jill gave a nervous bark of laughter and then covered her mouth. Mrs. Lacier closed her eyes for a moment to collect herself and then left.

“She has to get over that,” Tyler said.

“I know. But it is a little much to take in all at once,” I reminded Tyler and then turned to Jill as I waggled my eyebrows. “Let’s get naked.”

“What!?”

I began to take off my clothes.

“He’s not serious, is he?” Jill asked Tyler.

I noticed the two women’s eyes never left my body. When I got down to my boxers, I grabbed a robe and stepped over to the makeup table where a girl waited for us. While she started on me, Jill finally joined me in her own robe.

“My mom is going to kill you if you keep joking around,” Jill predicted.

“Your mom will be fine. She likes me.”

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