“I thought that guy was gonna piss himself!”

Joaquín was laughing so hard he almost couldn’t stand up -- or maybe that was the champagne talking. I kept my arm around his waist as we staggered down the sidewalk from the steakhouse to the ritzy cocktail club we’d haunted for the last week.

The restaurant manager had been pissed at how loud and drunk we were, and nothing the waiters said could break through the haze of alcohol that made everything so goddamn hilarious right now.

I almost couldn’t breathe for laughing. “Fucking good thing this is our last night here! We’d have to find another place to eat tomorrow otherwise.”

Hunter, on Joaquín’s other side, hiccupped and snorted with laughter. “Come on, this way. And look sober.”

We all straightened up and let go of each other, still walking close together down the sidewalk. Once we rounded the corner to the club, we headed straight for the entrance and skipped the line.

I could see the Euro signs lighting up in the door supervisor’s eyes. With fashion week, the city of Milan was full of guys who’d want to get in and dance here now that they were around, and their own booze sales probably added up to a quarter of the bar’s profits in a night.

Most of that was Joaquín -- he fucking loved buying rounds for the bar, and he only drank the three most expensive drinks on the menu in any given place.

It was good advice. In the last month, I had tasted more good drinks than I’d ever thought existed back when I drank shitty, cheap beer.

Joaquín was a riot to be around. He got smashed fast, probably because we were all eating nearly nothing that week. Once he was drunk, he had an attitude the size of Milan itself.

“C’mon!” he yelled excitedly, looping his arm around my neck and sauntering past the cover charge booth along with Hunter. Nobody was going to stop us, after all.

We headed to the bar and ordered a couple rounds of shots to start off with while I relaxed in the upscale environment. Everyone here was dressed well -- really well -- and hot as fuck.

I felt eyes on me. If they were bold, one or two might try to get their hands on me, too, but I always turned them down.

Unlike what Gideon seemed to think, the asshole.

Anyway, I had better shit to do.

I slammed back the second shot, then clapped Joaquín’s shoulder and called over the music, “Dance?”

“I’m fucking wiped,” he groaned.

Standing, walking, and posing took a lot more toll on the muscles and joints than anyone realized. It was one of the things all models loved to bitch about, the public didn’t appreciate how much work we put in.

“Come on,” I coaxed, nudging Joaquín’s side. “For a few minutes.”

“This place is laaaame,” he slurred, but pushed himself to his feet. “Fine, bitch.”

“Bitch,” I snickered and slapped his shoulder, steering him to the floor and grabbing Hunter’s hand to tow him along to the dance floor, too.

The music was thumping, pulsating through us already as we stumbled onto the brightly lit floor to start swaying until we picked up the beat.

I was easily the best dancer, if I did say so myself. Joaquín was all right, with a little natural swish to his hips, and Hunter seemed to only know how to grind or do some weird cha-cha that always cracked us up.

The lights shifted colors and flicked around randomly, the LEDs underfoot shifting rapidly from color to color in time with the beat of the music.

The three of us took up a lot of space on the floor, dancing like nobody else was there. I threw my head back, moved my arms, and stomped without care, my heart and spirits lifting easily. Just moving my body did a world of good for me.

I didn’t know how long it was before Joaquín hauled us off the floor for a couple more shots, then drunkenly slurred a suggestion about going back to his room. Hunter wouldn’t stop giggling at that even when I cuffed the back of his head.

It was hard to tell up from down even when we reached the cooler air outside and stumbled past the line, arm in arm and ignoring the wolf whistles and a couple photo flashes from the line. No doubt from other guys here for the shows who knew us.

It was pretty easy to adjust to being spotted on the streets. I didn’t usually engage with fans unless they weren’t holding cameras and looked genuinely overwhelmed in a sweet kind of way. The kind of fashion bloggers who had camera phones out already recording me as they yelled to me… well, Raymond didn’t want me talking to them, and I was inclined to agree. They were the crazy ones.

I didn’t even remember getting through the hotel lobby to the elevator, we were laughing so much about the three of us heading to one of our rooms. Thank god Joaquín already had a couple of liquor bottles stashed away, so we didn’t have to try to make a run for more at this hour.

The hotel room door slammed behind us as Joaquín let go to go bend over and rummage through his suitcase for the booze.

Hunter slapped his ass on the way to the bed, then crashed on his front. “Oh, fuck. I’m at the bed-spinning stage.”

I laughed and sat on the edge of the bed, glancing around the room. It was already a mess -- a bedsheet discarded, several empty booze bottles lying around, the TV on the floor, clothes strewn across the chair and desk, and empty salad and pizza boxes. Salads for Joaquín, pizzas for… well, his guests. Red wine stains on the carpet and a couple of broken glasses against one wall. Shit, something had happened earlier.

“Puke it back up.” Joaquín shrugged casually, pretending to toss the bottle at Hunter.

Hunter squeaked and rolled over in an ineffective flail to catch it before he realized what Joaquín had done and kicked him. “Fucking dickweed.”

Joaquín snorted with laughter and rubbed his face, looking around until he spotted glasses to pour each of us a couple shots of vodka. Then he shoved the glasses into each of our hands and crawled onto the bed.

“You ever get the fuckin’ maids in here?” I asked, shaking my head in disappointment at the state of the hotel room.

“No. They’ll steal my shit.”

Hunter snorted. “I still think it was that intern you fucked that weekend.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “Oh my god, what? Tell me the story.” Both Hunter and Joaquín had great stories from the last couple of years. It killed me with laughter every time.

“He lost some shit last time he was in Milan. A couple shirts--”

“Designer shirts, Hunter. Designer.” Joaquín groaned and knocked back his drink. “From some… great designers.”

“Blamed the maids, but he took home this hunky little skanky thing… jeans so tight even I could see he was uncut…”

I whooped with laughter at Joaquín’s expression as he flicked the last few drops of vodka out of his glass at Hunter’s face and tried to tackle him. “Fuck off,” he grumbled.

“I bet you anything he stole the shit.”

“Police ever find anything?” I laughed again once I could breathe.

“Nope.” Joaquín frowned. “That’s why I lock the bastards out now.”

“Yeah, you’ve done a great job locking them out,” I giggled, scooping up a receipt from the top of a pizza box. “Did you like the… triple pepperoni pizza?”

“I have parties, unlike you, loser,” he rebuked loudly and tried to flick the empty glass at me now.

I snickered. “Parties where everyone has their dicks out?”

Hunter gasped dramatically, then couldn’t stop laughing. I smirked at him.

Joaquín pretended to look offended. “So, sometimes I blow a couple guys and they give me real good shit in return. I’m a consenting adult.”

I laughed, then collapsed on my back once I downed my glass. “The fuck time is it?”

“One-thirty.”

“Fucking Christ.” I pushed myself up to slowly sit up. “Well, if neither of you’s gonna give me any joy, I may as well sleep in my own damn bed.”

“For all, what, three hours?”

I cringed and rolled off the bed, slowly standing up and steadying myself on the dresser. “Hey, three hours is better than nothing. Big day tomorrow.”

Hunter fluttered his fingers and blew me a kiss. “Tomorrow, bitch.”

“Tomorrow, darling.” I winked and sashayed out to my own room. It took me a minute to get the card to work with the reader on the door so I could stumble in, strip off my clothes, and hit the bed. The alarm clock was already set -- I’d made sure of that before I left.

Hanging out with Hunter and Joaquín was the most fun I could have legally. Well, sometimes not even that, but it was fun nonetheless.

This was the life.

As it turned out, the morning was hell.

I was getting really damn good at functioning while still drunk, then hungover. By the time I hit the runway, I was just tired, but makeup hid that sin as well as any other.

It didn’t matter how much shit I’d done before I faced the public -- they still loved me. I could be hungover as fuck, puking an hour before, but they looked at me like I was made of diamonds and angel tears.

The way Hayden ought to have looked at me. The way… once or twice… I’d caught Gideon looking at me.

That wasn’t a comparison I was willing to draw.

Midmorning, during downtime between tech and the doors opening, none other than Alex Joyce walked up to my open dressing room doorway. It wasn’t like Alex was as big and famous as me, but he’d been around longer. Of course I knew who he was.

Still, I made him introduce himself.

“Yes?”

“Leonel? Alex,” the scrawny blond introduced himself, holding out a limp-wristed hand for a brief shake as we assessed each other. He was actually hotter in person than in photos. There was something entrancing about the way his eyes fixed on me.

But one fact was seared into my brain, affecting the way I saw him.

This person was Gideon’s ex.

Everyone knew about their very messy, public breakup last year… and about Alex being a fucking thief. Briefly, I wondered if he had been Joaquín’s clothing thief.

“You have a minute to talk?” he asked. He seemed a hell of a lot more grounded than all the anonymous internet comments had made him seem.

“Of course.” I slid my hands into my pockets, shifting my weight onto one foot. “What is it?”

“I have an offer for you. You don’t have to respond yet -- or ever -- but I want you to think about it. I’m sure you’ve heard of my new modeling agency… your friends Zane and CJ have signed with us now.”

I inclined my head. It was hard to miss the poaching going on under everyone’s noses.

“I’d like to take you on and let you fly, instead of using you to build other guys’ reputations. You have to know Prestige only wants to boost their other models’ profiles by having you on their staff, instead of letting you take the jobs that are best for you.”

I shifted to my other foot, a frown crossing my face.

It was kind of true. I got the big, important gigs -- cologne, which was huge and well-paid, and the runway events I’d just worked, for example. But I never had much of a say in choosing them. And often, alongside me, Prestige would send a couple of other models -- new guys, or older ones like Joaquín who were trying to cling to their fading fame while it lasted.

“I’d like to build up a company of guys who’ve scraped bottom, run by guys like us. Not guys who’ve never known bottom in their lives and sit on some high horse,” Alex scoffed.

The desire to defend Gideon burned in my chest, but that last lecture, and the fucking you’ll only have yourself to blame just to cap it off?

Ugh. Gideon didn’t know what it was like to be me.

Yeah, he was hot and he’d given me my big break, but I didn’t owe him my life. It was my talent he was exploiting right now to justify the cost of hiring Prestige guys.

“I’ll think about it,” I promised, keeping my expression neutral for now.

Alex nodded, then reached out to shake hands again. “Good man. Talk to you sometime, I’m sure. Break a leg.” He winked, then disappeared out of the dressing room again.

I sat heavily in the chair, gazing at myself in the makeup mirror.

I wasn’t sure I trusted Alex, but neither was I sure Gideon was completely self-sacrificing as he helped build up my career.

Unemployable.

It still sounded like a threat, even rattling around my brain a day later. It made the animal inside me, quieted by big paychecks and all-expenses-paid travel, start to gnaw at my chest with that ever present fear.

I couldn’t go back to life before this.