When my alarm went off at six on Saturday morning, I couldn’t stop shivering. Nerves were getting the better of me. For all I knew, I’d show up today, and Asher wouldn’t. They’d break our contract, and my life would turn to shit. I’d be living in Aaron’s basement until I was forty, working at West End Pumps for minimum wage, and eating ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

In a last-ditch effort to get Asher’s attention, I texted him.

Atticus: I know you need space, but if you aren’t going today, please give me a heads up

I stared at my silent phone for twenty minutes, until I couldn’t wait any longer and hopped in a shower.

Aaron drove me downtown for the photo shoot after I fed him a long line of bullshit since I didn’t want him to know what I was really up to. I had him drop me off a few blocks away from the address I’d been given and waved him off, waiting until he disappeared down the street to walk the rest of the way.

It was ten to eight when I arrived. I scanned the fenced-in parking lot followed by the surrounding streets, looking for Asher’s Jag, but it was nowhere to be seen. My heart sank. He was going to abandon me. After all we’d done.

The studio was in a huge, three-story warehouse on the top floor. The elevator rattled and squealed as it took me up, which did not help my fragile nerves. On the third floor, I got off and was greeted by a long, drab hallway with bare concrete walls and no windows. Steel doors lined either side, and there was a huge double entrance at the end, which was where I heard voices. When I walked in, it was like a whole other world.

The room was huge, taking up a majority of the third-floor space, with high ceilings and a bank of windows along the north wall that faced the street below. The walls were painted bright white, and a large section had been set up with white backdrop curtains to form a bedroom set. There was an oak framed bed with white sheets and pillows along with random props to give it authenticity. Large lighting fixtures sat all around, shining crisp light from various angles, eliminating shadows and making me squint.

Charlotte was with Lewis as he directed two guys in work clothes as they moved this or that or adjusted a screen to Lewis’s specifications. Jay was by the window looking down at the street, talking on his phone. A woman I didn’t know was rifling through a large tackle-box-looking case, her back turned so I couldn’t see her face.

Asher wasn’t there.

Before drawing anyone’s attention, I slid my phone from my pocket to see if he’d texted back.

Nothing.