Blue Plaid

Crushed

The head photographer nodded, making a note on the pad in front of him and smiling softly. "Of course. Whatever you like. We were thinking, since you're already here, maybe we could do the photoshoot now and then the interview portion at a later time at your convenience."

"You're ready to do it now?" I raised an eyebrow in surprise. On one hand, the fact that they were so prepared caught me off guard, but also, I knew that doing the photoshoot now meant having to spend more time with Steven and I wasn't in the mood to make a fool of myself. "I need to put Cooper down for his nap."

That was a lame ass excuse and everyone knew it.

"Of course," the head photographer nodded sympathetically. "He can nap while you do the photoshoot. We'll take good care of him, I promise."

It seemed I was out of reasons not to stay, so I smiled weakly. "Okay."

As the meeting wrapped up, I racked my brain for a solution to my problem. I was a mature, responsible adult; surely I could handle spending the next couple hours with this man who, for reasons I had yet to figure out, had my head spinning in circles. This was my job. It was time to be a professional.

"Steven will take you to the studio," the head photographer, Bradley, nodded towards his assistant. "You can start getting ready and I'll meet you soon."

Smiling gratefully, I pulled Cooper close to my chest as I stepped into the hallway with Steven close behind. I gulped as we walked, hoping he wouldn't want to make conversation so that I could save myself the embarrassment of having to speak, but of course that wasn't the case, because he wasn't at all aware of the effect he was having on me.

"Isn't he a handsome guy," Steven grinned at Cooper, reaching out to pinch the cheek of the almost two-year-old. "So are you all settled into being a mother?"

My eyebrows lifted in surprise. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing bad!" he promised, shrugging his shoulders and stuffing his fingers into the pockets of his jeans. "I just meant that I know the way you ended up with a kid wasn't exactly how you planned. So is it easier now?"

"I don't know that it'll ever be easy," I admitted, glancing at Cooper fondly. "But it's definitely worth it. And so much better now that Tyson and I actually get along."

I winced as I realized how awful that sounded and lifted my gaze to see him looking extremely confused. "You guys weren't a couple when you got Cooper?"

That part of the story wasn't very well known. In fact, Tyson was kind of a mystery to the general public. People knew he existed and that we were dating, but other than that, they knew very little about him and the origins of our relationship. Considering the circumstances under which we'd become Cooper's parents, we weren't in a hurry to tell the world anything and once Tyson and I got together, we hadn't felt the need to publicize it either, so people just kind of assumed that we were a couple who had decided to adopt a child.

And that was what we planned on letting people think up until just now, when I'd completely lost my brain to mouth filter. Blinking rapidly, I distracted myself by making faces at Cooper. "Right. Are we almost there?"

"Mhmm," he nodded, looking at me with a worried brow. "Are you alright? You're kinda...tense."

Thankfully, we arrived at the studio before I had to explain why I was so jumpy, and the change of scenery combined with the fact that I had a job to do was a way to refocus myself. After handing Cooper off Cooper to one of the stylist's assistants so that he could peacefully nap in the dressing room to the side, I put all my energy into the photoshoot. I posed and changed clothes and posed and changed clothes and soon enough, I was in the zone, thinking only about the task at hand and completely avoided making any sort of eye contact with Steven.