Camera Shy (Lessons in Love Book 1)

Her eyes.

The lukewarm water from the showerhead cascades over my shoulders, runs down my back, and splashes at my feet.

Those fucking eyes.

I shut my lids and see Avery’s eyes engrained in my mind. They were so light in front of the mirror, underneath the bright closet lights. They were the prettiest shade of seafoam green, with a hint of fire right when she told me to take her panties off.

I should’ve.

What stopped me?

The dickhead she wanted to marry who cheated on her, then dumped her instead. That’s who. He even had the nerve to blame her sex appeal. Avery is now the most emotionally fragile woman in the world. What’s gratuitous sex going to do except confuse the shit out of her? She doesn’t need to spiral like I did after Nora and I broke up. Hooking up left me feeling so much worse and constantly nervous that I’d contracted an STD or accidentally gotten a one-night stand pregnant. Add anxiety to heartbreak and what do you get?

A fucking hot mess.

Avery’s better than that. It’s probably why I like her. I like her company. I really like her tits. I really, really like that she’s the only woman outside of Lennox who doesn’t see me as something to use or possess. It’s obvious from how comfortable she is around me that she thinks I’d never be interested in her. She’s wrong, of course. But she’s comfortable, which means the conversation flows. Maybe I’m an ass for doing this, but Avery is my little experiment in building trust with women again and relearning how to let my guard down.

How many conversations do I need with her to really get over Nora? Let’s find out.

Still, though…

Those goddamn beautiful eyes.

The more pornographic part of my brain is envisioning her looking up at me from her knees, my tip in her mouth as she smiles between sucking. In my fantasy, Avery’s taking her time sucking me off because she’s already thoroughly sated. I’ve taken care of her three times. Once with my fingers, then with my tongue, last with my cock.

I fist my erection in the shower, hard, as if I could stop it from growing.

This keeps happening. Every single time I think about her, I need relief. It’s more of an annoyance than anything because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since last night. Glancing down at my eager cock, I grumble. Dammit. I’m already worked all the way up. Not even an eight-mile run was enough to exhaust me. Stroke. I give in to running my hand up and down my shaft, massaging myself under the water stream.

I wonder what she likes in the bedroom.

Stroke.

If she trusts me enough to see her naked with the lights on, I bet she’d let me fuck her with the lights on too.

Stroke.

I wonder what she sounds like when she’s com—”

Pound! Pound! Pound!

“Finn! You in there?”

The aggressive knocking on my bathroom door makes me jump out of my skin. She even attempts to jiggle the bathroom handle. I locked it. Maybe I sensed my cousin would once again barge into my home, unannounced.

“Goddammit, Lennox!” I bark. “We need boundaries.”

She yells back, loud as all hell so I can hear her over the shower stream. “I have your phone. Your dad called.”

Fuck. I roll my eyes and shut off the water. “Cool. I’ll get back to him.” The mention of my asshole of a father has deflated both my erection and mood. I grab my towel off the hook, pat myself dry, and then wrap it around my waist.

“Yeaaahhh…about that.” Now that the water is off, I can hear her apologetic tone clear as day through the door. What did she do?

Ripping the door open, I see Lennox holding out my phone…which is connected…to a call with my dad.

“What the fuck?” I mouth at Lennox.

“He’s on mute,” she says out loud.

“Why in the hell would you answer my phone?” Especially if it’s my dad calling? Lennox should know better. She knows how strained my relationship is with my dad. I’m his only son out of three children. He’s desperate to connect. I’m desperate to keep him at arm’s length.

She shrugs innocently. “Sorry. He called like three times in ten minutes. I thought it was an emergency. You know, you’ve been up here forever.” She smirks at me. “Were you rubbing one out?”

I snatch the phone from her hand. “Can you go downstairs, make a fresh pot of coffee, and then leave your key to my home on the counter,” I say through gritted teeth.

She snorts. “Fat chance.” But she scuttles off to follow at least the first part of my demands.

I fill my lungs with as much air as possible and blow out an irritated breath before I unmute the phone and place it by my ear.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Son. Hey! How are you, Champ?”

Jesus, he’s so fake.

“Pretty good. How are you?” Then again, so am I when it comes to him.

“Good, good. Great, actually. I just got my schedule for next month. I’m flying a Boeing into Vegas on the eighteenth. Can I interest you in a Wagyu steak, on your old man?”

No. “Um…the eighteenth?” That’s in a month. It gives me plenty of options for an excuse. “I think I have back-to-back sessions that day and I can’t afford to cancel. Damn, if you were one day earlier or later, I’d be free.” That’s the great thing about my dad’s schedule as a pilot. He has very small windows of opportunity to visit when he’s in town. Unfortunately, I don’t get to see the man often. Bummer.

“Well, that’s the great news. I arranged for a little time off. I’ve got three days and two nights. If you’re busy on the eighteenth, how about dinner on the nineteenth? You just said you were free.”

Shit. Walked right into that trap. I clear my throat, stalling. I try to think of any emergency that could’ve happened in the last seven seconds to get me out of dinner with my dad, without me actually having to tell him how much I hate his guts. “I guess I did.”

“Great. The nineteenth it is. I can get us a VIP table at the new Wolfgang Puck restaurant. The chef is a friend and I know the head maître d’ personally. Sweet girl.”

Of course you do. The real question is if he knows her or fucked her. The two words are interchangeable for Dad.

“Why don’t you bring Nora along? I can make a reservation for three.”

Yup, keep twisting the knife. “Nora and I broke up, Dad.”

“When?”

“Last year, at the end of summer.”

He blows out a heavy breath into the phone. “Griffin, I’m sorry. I wish I had known, but you never talk to me.”

“Please don’t call me that,” I mumble.

“Why? It’s your name.”

No, it’s your name and I hate that we share it. Griffin Harvey is a pilot. Finn Harvey is a photographer. Griffin Harvey is a womanizer. Finn Harvey builds women up. I am nothing like my dad. I will never marry a woman, cheat on her for nearly two decades, impregnate two mistresses, and then drag my ex-wife through years of litigation in an attempt to starve her of any alimony. I will not ignore the fact that she’s waiting tables in twelve-hour shifts and can still barely pay the bills, while I’m sipping rum in Fiji and trying to fuck everything in a bikini.

“Hey, I hate to cut this short, but I have to prep the studio for a client that’ll be here soon.” Lies, lies, lies.

“How’s the business going?” Dad asks, clearly desperate to prolong our conversation.

“It’s…going,” I answer honestly. “Could be better.”

“You know if you need a loan—”

“I’m fine.”

“It doesn’t have to be a loan. If it helps, a gift—”

“Dad, I’m good. Thank you, though.”

He sighs heavily. “I’m proud of you, Finn. It’s not easy staying afloat as a small business owner. If you ever need anything, I’m here.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“I mean it, Champ. What good is my money if not to help my son?”

A knot twists in my stomach. Dad traveled a lot when I was growing up, but he made a point to keep his flight schedules strictly domestic when I was in little league. He couldn’t catch every game, but he made it to more than any of the other pilot dads.

He was a great dad.

I just didn’t realize what a shitty husband he was until I left for college and Mom finally felt free enough to leave his sorry ass. For ten years now, I’ve tried to separate the two versions of my dad. My mom tells me not to fight her battles. She’s given me her blessing to have a good relationship with Dad. He’s never treated me poorly.

But I just can’t ignore the kind of man he chose to be. He unapologetically stole the best years of my mom’s life. He tore our family apart.

“Dad, I have to go. I’ll see you on the nineteenth.”

“All right, Son. I’m really looking forward to it.”

“Mhmm,” I say right before I hang up. It’s all I can manage without sounding like a dick. I didn’t want to end the phone call with, I’m not.

I pull on some sweatpants and a clean athletic shirt before heading to the kitchen. The smell of coffee fills the halls and the entryway of my ranch-style house.

“Poured you a cup,” Lennox says without looking around. She’s sporting quite the goth look today. Black jeans shorts, fishnet stockings, black tank top, and her hair is jet-black once again.

“Hey, you got rid of the purple?” I ask, pointing to her hair.

“Meh,” she says, shrugging, “I bore easily.”

I glower at her. “Is that why you’re here so much?” I grab my steaming cup of coffee off the counter and inhale. Lennox does make a great cup of coffee.

“You’re better company than my roommate,” she says, sipping from her own mug. “Do you want creamer? I bought some of the oat milk stuff you like.”

“Oh yeah?” Opening the fridge, I find it stocked with a few new items. Tonic waters, yogurt, fruit, my preferred brand of orange juice, and some deli meat for sandwiches. “Well, Lennox, you’ve redeemed yourself. I think I’ll keep you.” I pull the safety seal off the creamer and douse my coffee.

“Sorry about your dad,” she offers. “He called the first time, and I figured if you were around, you’d let it go to voicemail. But then he called again and again, and then something dawned on me.”

“What dawned on you?” I ask, leaning against my kitchen island.

“How else would you know if something happened to your sisters?”

Fair point. I wouldn’t. I don’t really keep in touch with my dad’s daughters.

“I know Griffin is a dick and all, but you always said your sisters were innocent in all this. You’d want to know if either of them was in trouble.”

It’s true. My half-sisters and I have a shared disdain for my dad. From what I understand, Molly and Alaina also keep him at arm’s length. We’re spread out across the country. I’m in Las Vegas, Molly lives in Baltimore, and Alaina attends college in Fort Lauderdale. We keep him busy with his annual apology tours; he treated all our mothers like shit. But we have nothing against each other. We just don’t have much in common. We’re connected by blood, but nothing else.

“He’s coming into town on the nineteenth of next month. Do you want to go to dinner with us?”

Lennox sticks her finger in her mouth and makes a gagging sound. It’s worth noting that Lennox is my mother’s sister’s daughter. They are the lead chairmen of the We Hate Griffin club, so I’m not surprised she doesn’t want to break bread with Dad.

“Fine. Abandon me then.”

Lennox takes a tepid sip from her cup. “Why don’t you just tell him to get lost? Cut ties if you don’t want him around, Finn. You’re justified.”

“He’s finally paying Mom her fair share of alimony. He even gifted her flights to Greece for her and her boyfriend. Everything is at peace. I don’t want to kick up the drama again.” I rotate my finger in the air. “Not to mention he cosigned the mortgage for this house. I owe the man my company for one dinner a year, at least.”

“If I were you, I’d kick him in the teeth after the way he—”

“Can we change the subject?” I ask. “This is far more Griffin and family drama than I want to deal with on a late Saturday morning.”

“Fine. What are you doing tonight? There’s a whiskey tasting at Rue 52 that my friend is hosting. It’s far tamer than the foam party. Want to come?”

“Nope, I have plans. Although if you plan on once again popping by uninvited tomorrow, please pick me up the Southwest rolls with the black beans. The eggrolls always taste better the next day for some reason.”

Lennox holds her mug to her lips and blinks at me. Her glib smile grows. “You have plans?”

“Yes.” I think. Maybe. I plan on heading over to Dex’s hot tub at eight. I’m not sure if Avery will be in the tub waiting for me or hiding under the bedroom covers upstairs. I don’t know what the fuck that was last night.

I’ve done the mirror affirmations thing for my clients a hundred times, but never like that. When a boudoir client is really insecure or nervous, I’ll place them in front of a large mirror and get them comfortable with looking at themselves, with smiling naturally. I’ve never undressed any of my clients. I am a consummate professional. Never once has that scenario been sexual…until last night.

Watching Avery cry, or more like twist up her face and try not to cry, broke my heart. I wanted to fix it. Last night, she didn’t need someone to tell her she had a sweet smile and great charisma for the camera. She needed a man she was attracted to, to tell her she was fuckable. More than fuckable. She needed me to see her naked and want her. Approve of her. Praise her. So I did.

But today, I’m wondering if I did more harm than good. No matter what happens, I refuse to be the second man to break this girl’s heart. If I’m not ready for something legitimate and real…if she’s only here for a few months…we should probably just be friends.

“What plans?” Lennox asks.

“I’m hanging out with the girl next door again.” Hopefully.

“Ah, Dex’s fish babysitter?”

“Yup. Her name is Avery. Cool girl. She’s easygoing, funny, and smart. Hey, speaking of which—what do you think about our website?”

“It sucks,” Lennox responds without hesitation.

I roll my eyes. “Excuse me. I built our website.”

“Yeah,” Lennox says, flashing me a snarky smile. “I said what I said.”

“Lennox…if I could fire you…” I take a long, drawn-out sip of my coffee, enjoying the taste of oat milk. It’s probably the only good thing that came out of my relationship with Nora. She turned me on to oat milk. I like it better than regular milk now. “What do you know about search engine optimization and click traffic…all that stuff?”

“I know enough to know we should be doing it,” Lennox says, hunching her shoulders. “I don’t know enough to actually be useful.”

“Yeah, me neither.” I nod. “That’s what Avery does. She’s a brand strategist—whatever that means. I was thinking about asking for her help.”

Lennox drains the rest of her mug. “Do we have ‘help’ money in the business account?”

Not really. I guess I could take Dad up on his offer. “How much could a consultant cost?”

“I don’t know. Let’s find out,” Lennox says, placing her cup in the kitchen sink. She grabs her laptop from her large purse and sets it on the dining table. I pull up a chair right next to her.

“Her name is Avery Scott. Brand strate—”

“Got it,” Lennox says, typing away. “She’s the first result on the search page.”

I blow out a breath. “Yeah, well, that’s kind of what her job is, I guess…”

“Fuckin’ shit, Finn. You can’t afford this.” Lennox clicks and scrolls through Avery’s website. Her firm is called Arrow Brand Consulting. Everything about her site is clean. It’s fresh, interesting, but extremely professional. It looks elite. This is exactly the kind of presence I need for Finn Harvey photography.

“How much is it?”

Lennox angles the laptop screen toward me. She opened up the services page. I read the top line where Arrow Consulting explains that a lot of brand strategists will hide their consultation fees in an attempt to bait new clients. Arrow chooses to be transparent, and while they are willing to create custom packages, their minimum fee for a basic audit and review is…

“Sixteen thousand dollars?” I balk. “For the basic services?”

Lennox meets my wide-eyed stare. “Dude, we are in the wrong business.” She cackles. “And your new girlfriend must be rolling in the dough. Look at her client list. There are Fortune 500 companies on there. I bet they are paying way more than sixteen grand.”

“Fuck me,” I mutter under my breath. I find Avery’s headshot on her company’s website. It’s a flattering photo. I’m sure I could take a better one, but this is decent, except it’s in black and white. While it looks professional, I’m missing those seafoam green eyes.

“You think she’d cut you a deal for some help?”

“Isn’t that rude to ask?” My eyes are still fixed on her picture. It’s uncomfortable when friends ask for big favors. When people find out I’m a photographer, they want hours of free labor. I’m happy to oblige, but I’ve got bills to pay too.

“Doesn’t hurt to see if you guys could exchange services. Offer her a free boudoir shoot. I can do her hair and makeup. All together that’s worth about a sixth of her fee.” Lennox laughs in short huffs. “Sixteen grand for one job? Damn, your friend is a baller.”

That she is.

I would’ve never expected Avery to be a boss lady. She’s so down to earth and humble. It’s refreshing. There’s nothing that screams six figures about her raggedy T-shirts and faded pajama bottoms. I like that. I like her witty sass. I like how chill she is. I like—

Oh, hell.

I think I really like her.

Fuck.