The Ex Best Friend

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Left, right, left, left, right. Damn it! My heart beat quickened as I fumbled to keep my balance.

“Stop!” Jake shouted.

The music and flashing lights stopped immediately. I stood on the catwalk, looking at my feet. I could hear the other models’ laughs as they watched me fail.

Jake looked at me emotionlessly. “Again.”

Instead of walking back and starting again, I looked at him pleadingly. “But I’ve done it so many times. I can’t get it right!”

“Which means you need to do it more,” he said.

“Can we just take a break?” I begged.

“Fine,” he sighed. “Okay, let’s take a 5 minute break!”

I quickly hopped off the catwalk and grabbed a bottle of water. Sitting down on a bench, I watched as a group of models jumped around, doing impressions of me. I was pretty sure they knew I could see. Like they could read my mind, the models all walked to the refreshment table.

“I don’t even understand why she got to be on the cover of the catalogue,” the tallest one said.

“Come on Michaela, she is pretty,” Brianna said. I knew her because she actually tried to talk to me today and seemed nice.

“Okay, she’s kind of cute, but in like a baby way,” Michaela said. “I could’ve done that photo shoot. I’m a better model and let’s face it girls, I’m way hotter.”

Rolling my eyes, I got up from my seat and walked to the door.

Jake saw me and ran up beside me. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said, still focused on the door.

“Where are you going?” he asked curiously.

“I’m leaving,” I told him.

“Leaving?”

“Yeah,” I said, grabbing the door. “This is stupid.”

Jake grabbed my arm. “You can’t go now; we’re only 2 weeks away from the show!”

I shrugged. “So? I can just wing it.”

“You can’t wing it!” Jake cried, shaking me by the shoulders.

“Well I’m certainly not going back up there again. Those girls were practically feeding off my embarrassment,” I said.

“You need to practise,” he said sternly.

“I can do it at home,” I argued.

Jake looked at me dryly. “Yeah right.”

“Fine,” I sighed. “I can do it in my head.”

“How about this – either you practise now, or you come by my office after work and we’ll work on it then?” he smirked.

“What’s the difference? They will still be there,” I said.

“Nope,” Jake shook his head. “Just you and me.”

“Alone?” I gulped.

“Yup,” he said, popping the ‘p’.

I eyed him carefully. He had this smirk on his face that people only have when they’re winning. Of course, he was winning…in a way. If I said I’ll go after work, I’d be stuck with him for God knows how long. If I said no…I’d be stuck with the embarrassment of a life time plus even more embarrassment. Either way, I’d be stuck with something that I don’t want to be stuck with. What a sticky situation. Haha… sticky situation. Get it?