After a couple of days, Shay gets a call from Gavin telling her the film has been processed. Shay decides this time to meet him somewhere public. Though she really doesn't think he's a psycho...how would you really know until he's trying to cut you up or something? She suggests the rave bar on Melrose, it's just across from Retail Slut, where she works. He shows her the proof sheet & he's right, she thinks, she looks like crap. Except he doesn't say that, he's all into the photos he took while she was talking & he wants to use them. Shay certainly has no use for them, so she signs his release form. But now she has no headshots & no real plan to get her designs out there: she's back to square one. She doesn't say anything, but Gavin has this way of knowing what people are thinking, it seems, because he tells her her plan probably wouldn't have worked anyway. "Even if you won, Shay, the editor of WhooNoo isn't going to look at anything a mere model hands her..."

He tells her about a Beverly Hills party he snuck into the other night, to freak out the Hollywood types. "I saw that editor you wanted to meet there," he says, "If you really want to get your designs to her, you should come out with me some time, I'll get you in anywhere you want to go. Of course, I got kicked out of the party pretty quick, so you'd have to get away from me & get your business done pretty fast once I got you in," he says with a laugh. Shay's not sure which part of his story shocks her more, that he snuck into a big Industry party & saw the very person she wants to meet, that he goes to these parties just to freak people out, or that he's offering to sneak her into a similar party. Shay knows she'd never have the guts to do something like that on her own, so while she's still a bit suspicious of his motives, she thanks him & says she would love to crash a party with him sometime.

Gavin asks her to dance, and Shay accepts readily enough: she loves dancing. And while Gavin is kind of weird, he's also very good looking & his smile could melt anyone's heart, she thinks.

After dancing a few songs, they get another drink. Shay finds talking to Gavin very easy, he listens very attentively & always has the right things to say it seems. She tells him how she'd ultimately like to design costumes for the movie industry.

Their business is long done with, but Shay isn't in any hurry to leave Gavin's company. He's got the prettiest eyes she's ever seen on a man, or on a woman for that matter. Now that she's had a couple of beers, she's got the nerve to start saying these things out loud: she tells him how lovely his eyes are, she's never seen anything quite like them, they're almost Asian looking. "I am Asian," he answers, "well, half, anyway: my mother is Japanese, my father is Scottish." And they talk for hours about the mixing of cultures, about her own mixed heritage, being part Cherokee, and of his growing up Buddhist in a largely Christian world, with a devoutly atheist father. When the bartender calls the last call, Shay is saddened to be going home alone, but very happy Gavin has promised to find her a party they can sneak into.

NEXT