Changing Teams by Jennifer Allis Provost Page A

as she wound her limbs around me. Made me wonder if the girl had bones.
    “Hush. You like octopuses. Octopi?” She thought for a minute. “No, I think it’s octopuses.”
    I did like it, her wound around me that is, and I kissed the top of her head to prove it. After a few moments of silence, Britt asked, “Whatever this is between us, it’s weird, isn’t it?”
    I kissed her hair again. “It surely is. Can something weird be something good too?”
    She leaned up and kissed me on the lips, and didn’t protest when I deepened the kiss. God, I just wanted all of her. “I think this can be very good,” she murmured when we parted, then she laid her cheek against my chest. As for me, I gathered Britt against me and smiled. Without a doubt, weird could be good.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Eleven
     
     
    Britt
     
    After our early morning nap, Sam and I shared a cab so I could get home, and he could get to his job. When the cab pulled up in front of my building, Sam had grabbed my hand and said, “You need me today, you call. I mean it, darlin’. Otherwise, I’ll pick you up at eight.”
    “Eight it is,” I’d said, then I kissed him goodbye and climbed the three flights to my apartment. Once I was inside I took my phone out of my pocket, and had a good look at what I’d been hiding from Sam all morning: Ben had called and texted me over a dozen times. So yeah, I was officially freaked out.
    All these months—five, to be exact—that I’d been modeling for the art classes I’d known that Ben had a thing for me, even though I hadn’t admitted it out loud before Sam called me on it. Part of why I was in denial was that Ben had never been anything other than professional with me—well, not until he saw me with Sam. It made me wonder if Ben hadn’t made up some sort of fantasy about me sitting for the classes just to see him.
    Oy. Boys and their ideas.
    I thought back to when I met Ben; it had been at that same museum, though instead of modeling I’d taken a class in watercolor painting. Ben had been the instructor, and during one of the lessons I’d told him that I did some modeling on the side. He asked me if I’d like to sit for the life drawing class, and just like that I became his go to model. He never had me fill out any paperwork, or sign any forms. No, Ben had just showed me to a room to change in and handed me an envelope full of cash after I sat around naked for three quarters of an hour.
    “Crap,” I muttered, having come to a rather scandalous conclusion. I powered up my laptop in the hopes of disproving it. Once I found the museum’s contact information, I gave the art department a call. After I navigated through the automated menu, I connected with a real live secretary.
    “May I help you?” asked a female voice.
    “Yeah, do you have life drawing classes?”
    “We do. Would you like to sign up?”
    “Actually, I was wondering how much you paid the models.”
    “Oh, we don’t pay them in cash. They are given either a free museum membership, or are allowed to attend a class of their choice for free. Are you interested in modeling for us?”
    “No, thank you,” I mumbled as I hung up.
    God. I really am an idiot.
    After I stared at the museum’s webpage for a few minutes, I considered my options. I suppose I could have called the cops, but what case did I really have against him? Ben had never laid a finger on me, and he had paid me for each sitting. Really, this was just a case of a poor girl not asking too many questions so she could keep getting paid. Ben’s actions were certainly unethical, but I guessed that they weren’t criminal.
    It wasn’t like I could report him to the museum, either. Since Ben had always paid me in cash—his own cash, it seemed—there wasn’t a paper trail and therefore no way to prove I’d ever really modeled there. Mind you, the fact that I’d never signed any forms like a standard issue W-9 really should have been a red flag, or at