Trust Me, Princess (NOT MAFIA RELATED) (COMPLETED)

Chapter 23 - Photoshoot

(Austin's POV)

After breakfast we get in the car and drive back home. Quinn is sitting behind me as I'm driving. "Uncle Aussie?" She speaks up. I look at her through the rearview mirror. 

"Yeah?"

"Daddy works with books." She tells me. 

'Very useful information.' I think. "That's right." I tell her.

"What do you work with, uncle Aussie?" She asks.

"Photos." I reply. "I take photos and sell them." 

"What is on your photos?" She asks.

"Whatever people want. People, animals, trees, flowers and all sorts." I shrug.

"Who buys them?" I can see her cock her head through the mirror.

It honestly sounds like she's mocking my job when she pulls faces like that. "Quite a lot of people actually."

"Do you buy photos from uncle Aussie, daddy?" She turns to Sam. 

Sam shakes his head. "I get them for free." He smiles. 

"Why?" That's a good question.

"Uncle Aussie doesn't take my money, no matter how much I try." That's a fair point.

I suddenly speak up. "If you want, I can take you to work on Saturday. I have a few gigs." 

Quinn gasps. Then she looks at Sam, who has a few very important meetings that Saturday anyway, seeking for permission. Sam nods. "Not a bad idea."

"Yay!" She giggles and my chest rumbles with a chuckle. I park my car in front of Sam's house and let them get out and take their bag. 

"I'll see you lot soon. I've got a few edits to make." I high-five Quinn and nod at Sam.

I get home and throw my bag on the couch. I take my laptop and start editing a few photos I took on some wedding last week. After an hour, my eyes get tired and I get away from the screen. I decide to move onto the photo album I keep on the shelf above my TV.

I open it on a random page, like always and look at the picture on the left side. It shows my mother and I, smiling at the camera one Easter. It was right after she left my father, and at roughly the same time Sam and I's friendship started. My mother is an amazing person, but both her and I know, that her mind is weak. It took her ages to leave my abusive father, because she was scared. I never blamed her for that, but she did. 

The photo on the right is me and Sam on a tree branch. Exactly a year after our meeting. I trace the photo with my fingers. Sam. Sam was always there for me. From day one. After an hour of a conversation, he looked at me and said 'I think we should be best friends' and we have been that ever since. When I got my first detention on the second day of middle school for throwing a book across the class, Sam turned the table over, so that he could be in the detention with me. After a day of knowing each other, perfect Sam, became a rebel.

I turn the page. Christmas. I was fifteen. My mother and I have been invited to spend Christmas at the Parkers' for the first time. Sam got my first camera then, which I still use. I got him a sweater with 'idiot' written on it. He loved it. Really. He wore it for like five months after that, with day breaks to clean it.

I close the album and put it away, getting back to my work. I stare at one photo a bit longer than I should. The groom and bride look really happy. Everyone does, on their wedding day. I suddenly feel strangely lonely. I'm nineteen. It's not time for me to settle down, and yet, with all the girls I have slept with, whilst feeling nothing for them, not having to emotionally attach and detach myself from them, I am feeling lonely, for the first time in my life.