Page 10 of Dirty Like Dylan

Not at all what I was expecting.

I was expecting attitude for miles.

I was expecting someone like Ashley Player, with hair too black or too blond. Piercings, too many tattoos, the usual cliches. But Dylan Cope was naked down to his white Underlayer briefs, and there wasn’t a tattoo or piercing or blemish of any kind on all that perfect skin. His complexion was unusually golden for a redhead. And his entire body was so chiseled… he looked like a statue of a god, for real.

Well holy shit.

This was either gonna be super easy or crazy hard. Like if I couldn’t manage to make that look good, I was the shittiest photographer who’d ever picked up a camera. I’d have to lay my equipment down and just walk away. Find some other profession where I didn’t suck so much ass.

As more lights came on, lighting up the drum kit as if onstage at a rock concert, I shifted into the shadows, out of the way of the light stands and crew, and got to work doing my thing.

I quickly got lost behind the lens, shooting Dylan Cope as he chatted with the execs and Liv. He wasn’t exactly a difficult subject. As it turned out, my camera fucking loved him. I checked a few images along the way, and thank God I seemed to be doing him justice. The photos were so good, I got that excited rush, that almost-high feeling; giddy, almost shaking with adrenaline. I was in The Zone, and I knew when I was making beautiful photographs.

I was making them right now.

I kept shooting as Dylan moved to stand behind the drums, casually spinning a pair of drumsticks in his hands. Music started playing, and I recognized the song that rocked through the room; it had been popular in a lot of the hostel bars on the travel circuit about five years back. So popular that I got totally sick of hearing it, even though I could admit I liked the song. It was a song by Dylan’s band, Dirty: “Get Made.”

Liv was giving him directions, showing him where the cameras would be as he played, while other people flocked around him, getting him ready. A makeup girl was checking his face—for what, I couldn’t imagine; the man was perfect—and another girl started rubbing him down with oil. There seemed to be a debate about how much oil he should have on his arms, and some was wiped off in fear that the drumsticks would slip out of his hands if the oil ran down.

“You know I’m gonna sweat all this shit off,” I heard him tell my sister.

“I’m counting on it,” she said.

I watched how he smiled and laughed easily with her, like old friends, which I knew they kind of were. I got a couple of great shots of the two of them that I was pretty sure Liv was going to like, even if she was in them.

Then, as Dylan glanced around, he suddenly noticed me. He looked right down my lens and into my eyes.

His eyes were green in the light, a gorgeous green-gold, and I actually stopped shooting. I stopped breathing. My finger just kind of froze over the button as the unexpected jolt of eye contact hit me—like a lightning bolt, straight to the gut.

Actually, I could’ve sworn I felt my uterus contract.

Then Liv directed his attention elsewhere, and his gaze shifted away.

Holy. Shit.

I let out the breath I’d been holding and kept shooting. Kept doing my job, just trying to shake off that feeling. I definitely couldn’t remember mere eye contact with a man ever making my uterus spasm before. But all I had to do was remind myself that it didn’t matter if Dylan Cope looked at me or not. I was being paid to see him, and not the other way around.

With the camera to my face, it’s not like he could really see me anyway.

Of course, even if he did see me and thought I was cute, it wouldn’t matter. Even if he thought I was super cute. Even if he thought I was the girl of his dreams and it was love at first sight.

Wouldn’t mean a thing.

Because I knew how moments like this played out.

It was pretty much a universal law: the men I was most attracted to never liked me back. Or at least, not for long.

It was kind of a curse.

The bane of my love life.

Somehow, it never stopped me from trying… and failing. From falling for the wrong men. Including the rock star who’d wined and dined me until I fell for him, then cheated on me. Repeatedly.

It was inevitable.

I, Amber Paige Malone, sucked at love.

Good thing I wasn’t here to fall in love, then. Nope. I was here to do a job and nothing more. To see things as they were—through my camera. I definitely wasn’t here to let my uterus get carried away with any notions of getting closer to Dylan Cope.

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