Life Begins at Midnight

Pride

"We could have a problem with the shoot, Zoe." Ricky West told his photographer.

"The High-School one? Why, what's wrong?" she asked.

"There may not be any takers." He said. He liked to talk with her. She was frank, and she didn't butter up to him like everyone else. It was probably because anyone would snap her up quickly if she wasn't already taken by him. She was good.

"No takers? That's not possible, Ricky. Your name is enough to get a line of young ladies begging for a chance to model for you. In fact I'm sure that everyone who's applied for you must have checked against someone else's name too. Because nobody would ever be so sure of getting to work for you." Zoe stated.

"That's exactly why. I just had Julia shred all the entries which had a check-mark against any other name"

Zoe was shocked and didn't bother to hide it. "You haven't even let her see the preliminaries!" she remarked.

"I'll be seeing them myself, if there is anyone who has chosen just me." He smiled one of his rare genuine smiles, not the fake ones that came so easily to him from his modelling days. Because if some girl had the nerve to choose him, and him alone, he knew he'd found the one he was looking for. She would have the courage and the dedication he wished to portray.

Zoe shook her head "You just broke a thousand hearts" she said, not quite knowing whether to be appalled at what he'd done, or whether to admire his daring decision, which could end up with a lot of criticism and publicity if it didn't work right. But she trusted him to know what he was doing, so she let it be at that. If there was a shoot now, it was bound to be an interesting one.