Page 38 of Hot and Bothered

I relaxed my tight grip on the clothing and nodded. I could do this. I just had to change into a dress.

I just had to get naked in a room full of strangers with a single thin sheet protecting me from their view.

Sure. No problem.

“What about hair and makeup?” I asked. “I put on some mascara and tinted lipgloss this morning, but I haven’t done much else.”

“You don’t need all that,” she said. “We’re not doing full face shots for this one, just from the nose down. All you have to do is sit on a park bench and twirl around on the grass. Easy as that.”

Lizzy shooed me behind the sheet to get changed. Luckily the dress was simple to slip on, with only a single zipper up the side. It would have been beyond embarrassing to get stuck with the dress halfway over my head or something.

“You ready?” Lizzy asked when I stepped out from behind the sheet. “We’re just about to start.”

My heart rate spiked up sharply. Could I really do this? Lizzy said it was easy, but…

“Hey!” I heard Evan stage-whisper loudly and turned to find him next to Grant, who was setting up the camera for the shot. “You’re going to rock this,” he continued, giving me a thumbs up. “It’s just like when you were fighting off that dragon with the broom.”

A slow, silly grin spread across my face. It was sort of like that, wasn’t it? I just had to pose and let the artist — in this case, Grant — do the work.

“I’ll guide you,” Lizzy said as she stood off to the side. “Ignore the camera and just follow me. You ready?”

I took a deep breath.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m ready.”

Lizzy acted out various poses for me from behind the camera, and I imitated her. I perched in various positions on the hard bench, the cool metal biting into the backs of my bare thighs. I lounged around on the fake grass, the astroturf prickly against my skin. I twirled and twirled and twirled some more, my dress fanning out behind me until I got so dizzy I thought I might be sick.

“That’s a wrap,” I heard Grant call out finally.

I halted in the middle of a twirl and flopped onto the bench.

“Great job, Alice!” Lizzy said.

I put a hand on my stomach to quell the nausea.

“Ugh…” I moaned.

Evan came up and took a seat on the bench next to me.

“You feeling okay?” he asked. “You look a little green.”

“I did a lot of twirling,” I explained feebly.

He handed me a water bottle. I took it gratefully and chugged a few mouthfuls, forgetting to take small ladylike sips.

“You were great on camera,” Evan told me. “Grant was saying what a natural you were.”

I sat up straight, pleased with myself.

“And I was right,” he continued.

“About what?” I asked.

He brought his lips to my ear. “You’re adorable in that dress.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled before taking a flustered gulp of water.

Evan toyed with the ribbon tied around my waist.