When No One Would | Danny Amendola

Chapter 4

** Double update today! Hope you enjoy! :) 

Mondays-- they're always the best thing ever, right? Wrong. I sighed as I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and then grabbed my purse. Just as I was shuffling out my door, Danny was leaving his apartment. He didn't notice me at first, but when he did-- he was on his way toward the elevator and I was on my way over to the stairs, to avoid him.

"Hey Jess," he mumbled as he saw me. His beautiful brown eyes lit up.

I nodded at him and continued my way to the stairs. "Hi, Danny. I gotta go to work, I'm late," I lied and quickly made my way into the staircase. I couldn't face him. I just couldn't. On my way down, I stopped in the middle just so I wouldn't have to face him in the lobby. After a minute or two, I made my way out and pushed my way out the doors and into the cool Boston morning.

As I made my way down the street, I pulled my jacket to me. Julian dropped me off from the game at 10 from the Bruins game, and the night had me completely whipped. I had to keep deflecting questions about Danny... And... I didn't want to talk about him. I didn't want to think about him... I didn't want to live anywhere near him.

I shook my head as I walked into the front doors of my building. When I got into my 10th floor office, pulled my coat off and hung it up. I then sat down at my desk and instantly unlocked my computer.

37 emails. I rolled my eyes and began to scroll through them, most of them were things that needed to be proofread. "Oh my god. Why am I doing this," I mumbled to myself. "Why is the marketer proofreading?"

Once I got to the ones that were actually for marketing, I furrowed my eyebrows. An email was labeled "Assistance Needed for October 2013 Cover Shoot". When I opened it my eyes nearly popped out of my head.

"Hi Jess,

I am not able to make it in today due to illness, could you please head over to room 374C at 1:00 to supervise the photoshoot we have lined up with Danny Amendola, and Chandler Jones? If not, it's no big deal... Just let me know by 10:30.

Thanks,

Tina"

"Fuck my life," I mumbled. I could really use the bonus I get for taking over for someone, but I'd have to face Danny. I quickly typed back a yes before I could change my mind-- money was much more important than Danny and my well being.

The rest of the morning went by fairly quickly, but I was so nervous that I went over my self-determined limit of 4 cups of coffee-- I had 6. At 12:30 my phone on my desk rang.

"Hello," I asked as I bounced my leg up and down and looked out of the window of my office, it was raining.

"Hi Jess, the people for your one o'clock shoot just got here. Would you like me to send them straight to wardrobe and makeup," the voice of one of the receptionists asked.

"Uh... Yes, please. I'll be down in a few minutes. Thank you," I mumbled and then put my phone down.

I put my elbows on my desk and put my face in my hands. "You need to do this, Jess. You could really use the extra cash... You need to face your fears. Be fucking professional."

I pushed myself out from my desk and stood up. "Okay. Let's fucking do this," I mumbled and made my way out of my office. When I got to the elevator, someone was just getting off, so I hopped in and hit the button for the third floor. As the elevator began to move down, my heart was pumping-- thumping against my ribcage. I was surprised that it didn't break one of my ribs.

The elevator stopped, and I stepped out. With every step toward the room, my heart began to beat faster-- if that was even possible-- and my stomach began to flip and flop. Danny would be in there. Oh god. Oh god.

I got to the room and sucked a breath in. Once I had myself composed, I pushed the door open, and to my surprise, neither Danny or Chandler were inside. I let out sigh of relief and made my way over to the photographer, Josh Rogers.

"Hi Josh, thank you for coming in for this. How are you today? I don't know if you heard, but Tina couldn't make it in, so she asked me to supervise today," I greeted and shook his hand with a smile on my face. I was speaking too fast-- damn coffee.

"Hi Jess, I'm well. And I'm glad to have come in today. It's always a good time doing photoshoots for y'all," he informed as he shook my hand in return. "Granted, I'm a Panthers fan... But this is still pretty cool."

I nodded. "Yeah it is."

"Nah man, I look damn good." I could hear his voice before I could see him. My heart began to race again as Danny and Chandler Jones made their ways around the corner and toward us.

My heart practically leapt up my throat. Danny did look good. He was in a black button up, gray dress pants and, gray suit jacket. There was a rather large smile on his face, and his dark hair was perfect. Holy fuck. My stomach flipped.

"Hello, Mr. Jones, Mr. Amendola," I greeted and moved toward them. When Danny looked over at me his dark eyebrows raised in surprise. His brown eyes were wide. "It's nice to meet you, I am Jess. I will be the supervisor of the photoshoot, today," I mumbled and shook Chandler and Danny's hands. "Thank you for coming out." Danny's eyebrows were no furrowed.

"Thank you for having us... Dola here loves to have his photo taken," Chandler joked as he elbowed Danny in the ribs.

"Hah... Yeah," Danny mumbled as he gave a slight nod, shaking his head at whatever thoughts were going through his head.

"Well, this is Josh Rogers... He'll be your photographer for the day," I introduced them as Josh walked over.

As Josh began to explain to them what we'd be doing, out of the corner of my eye, I could see Danny looking at me with his eyebrows scrunched together. He's such a beautiful human being-- He's perfect.

"Okay, guys, are you ready," Josh asked as he clapped. He directed the two men over to the black backdrop and had them pose the way he wanted them.

I sat down in a chair behind Josh and watched them pose and smile shot after shot. After three or four different poses, Danny stopped smiling, sucked in a breath and quickly turned away so he could sneeze. Somehow the beautiful bastard managed to mess up his suit coat as well as his hair in the process.

"Hang on, Danny. Jess, can you please fix his hair and his coat for me," Josh asked as he turned to me and rested his camera on his shoulder.

I sighed and nodded as I got up. I could feel Danny's beautiful brown eyes on me as I made my way over to him while looking down at the ground. When I got to him, I was only inches from his face-- I couldn't breathe.

I held my breath and I grabbed ahold of the gray material in my hands and straightened it out, then ran my hands over his chest to make sure there were no wrinkles. I swear-- His chest was rock hard... And he was warm... And oh god. I could hear him breathing-- his breaths were just as uneven as mine... No... I think I was just imagining it.

He was looking straight at me, I could feel it, but I couldn't look him in the eyes. No way... No fucking way.

I moved my hands up to his dark hair and moved a bit of it off of his forehead. I sucked in a breath and placed my hand on his shoulder as I turned to look at Josh. "Is this better," I asked and raised an eyebrow.

Josh nodded. "Yeah, that's perfect. Thank you, Jess."

I dropped my hand from Danny's shoulder and made my way over to my chair. When I sat down I looked back over to the two men infront of Josh... Chandler was looking at Josh with a smile on his face, and Danny was looking at me with his head tilted and his eyebrows furrowed, yet again.

"Danny, look at me, please," Josh mumbled with the camera up to his face.

Danny's brown eyes went wide, and then he looked over toward Josh with an obvious fake smile on his face. "Sorry."

I couldn't help but sit there and stare at his beautiful jawline... or his perfect dark hair... I also found myself mesmerized by the way his dark eyes shined in the lights.

I was digging myself a deeper hole. Fuck.