They’d only stayed at Claudia’s party for a few hours. Eden got talking to a director with contacts at Sony but otherwise it was kind of anticlimactic. He’d found that celebrity stuff usually was. Everyone was too paranoid about getting taken out of context to relax. Give him a backyard full of footy players and their wives any day. He took some great photos of Eden though. One of her arm-in-arm with Claudia was like something out of a fashion magazine. The camera loved her. Absolutely ate her up.

He’d showed Eden the photos in the car back to the hotel. “You should be a model.”

She shook her head. “Too short. That was amazing.”

“You’re amazing.” He’d hesitated. “I’d love to see more photos of you sometime...”

Eden had touched her collarbone. “Photos of me? Like nudes?”

A throb ran through him, and he was just buzzed enough to say, “Yeah, if you’d be okay with that.”

Eden had looked hard at him and somehow picked up exactly what he’d been putting down. “Is this your fantasy? Do you want me to tease you?”

“No. I mean, kind of. I want to watch you from a distance. Wish that I could get closer.”

“Really?”

It had been too much. Embarrassed, he’d turned his attention to the Sydney skyline. “Where do you wanna go next? A mate of mine is having drinks by the water, or do you want to find somewhere to dance?”

Eden had slid a hand over his thigh. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”

“Are you tired?”

“Absolutely not.”

He’d thought they’d fuck then head out for drinks. They never came close. For the next twelve hours, Eden was on his face or his dick. They didn’t sleep. They barely drank water. He’d fucked her like an animal. Like he was going to die. They missed the 10am checkout and when he finally got Eden to put her clothes on, it looked like someone had run a lawnmower through their suite.

“How?” Eden whispered as he handed their room keys to reception. “How do you keep going like that?”

“Natural talent, baby.”

It was a lie. He’d been a hair away from blacking out and he was still unsure he’d ever nut again. ‘Try to keep the mystery alive’, his dad once said about relationships. Willow figured this fell under that umbrella.

He’d improved by the time he and Eden hit Bondi for an ‘impromptu’ beach trip. He’d drunk two Gatorades and they’d discovered Eden’s Instagram followers had jumped from fifteen to thirty thousand. Willow roped his mate, Daniel Decaux, into filming Eden jumping into his arms as he lifted her like the chick from ‘Dirty Dancing.’

“Isn’t that kind of a cliché?” she asked afterward.

“People love clichés. Now it’s food time. You need vegetables.”