My Cover Model (A Love Like That #1) - R.L. Kenderson

One

Sydney

I checked my to-do list to see what was next.

As an author, I was my own boss, and I often kept a list of things I needed to get done. Writing was at the top, but there were so many more things I had to do. I had to keep up my social media; I had to work on images and teasers, advertising, doing takeovers in reader groups; and the list went on. I often felt like I had several plates all spinning in the air, and I constantly had to keep them twirling around.

I had a book signing coming up in a month, and I needed to get the word out that I was attending. I had been on the waitlist, so none of my readers knew to look for me there.

But I always scanned the list of other attending authors to tell my readers and to make it more enticing for them to show up. It was basically free advertisement.

A year ago, I had started making enough money to quit my day job, but I was far from rich. I was a long way off from making the New York Times best-seller list.

Those authors, along with USA Today best-sellers, were the ones I always searched for when making a book signing announcement on social media.

Come and meet [fill in the blank] along with me.

Also, I was an avid reader myself—or I had been before I started writing so much—so I was always excited to see if I would get to have a fangirl moment.

As I scanned the list of authors and did a few Google searches on them, I noticed that there was also a male model attending.

“Ooh,” I said out loud to my empty office.

It was great, being my own boss, but I did sometimes miss a few of my old coworkers. I found myself talking to either my cat or just myself a lot.

The model’s name was Travis Zehler, and I did a quick Google search on him, too. If I found some good photos, it would be a great thing to tell my readers. Women liked eye candy just as much as men. However, I would like to think that most of us women were a bit more respectful of the opposite sex.

The first image that came up looked like it was from his Instagram. He had a nice enough face, but I wasn’t awestruck by him. He had dark blond hair and green eyes. I liked men with dark hair and dark eyes. Or at least, blue. I had green eyes, so I kind of thought of them as boring.

I’d been told more than once in my life that I was too picky. I didn’t mean to be, but you couldn’t force attraction.

I was kind of a hypocrite though because I was no supermodel. I was cute, and there were times I got dressed up and thought, Damn, I am sexy. But I had the apple body shape, and I had no illusions about it being the female shape of choice. I had large breasts but no hips or ass. So, while I was attractive, I would never be anyone’s trophy wife. And I would never be a model’s girlfriend.

Especially now that I worked from home where any professional look had been thrown out the door.

I pushed my glasses up on my nose and bounced my messy bun with my hand. Perhaps I should give ole Travis a break about not being the hottest guy I’d ever seen. I couldn’t support myself by posing for photographs. I knew from watching television that it was harder than it looked. Plus, I hated getting my picture taken. I couldn’t imagine doing it for the whole world to see.

I shuddered at the thought.

Next, I found an article on him where a book blog had done an interview. They asked him some hard-hitting questions, but he answered them very well. He talked about wanting to inspire people to better themselves, and even though he worked out, he never mentioned weight or food. Even better, he never talked about weight or food by disguising it as health.

He was an Army veteran, which I really admired. And there were a couple of other photos in interviews, mostly close-ups, but I paid the most attention to his answers.

He sounded like a really nice guy. The only downside I saw was that he was younger than my thirty-four years.

I laughed loudly at my absurdity. Yeah, because he’s just waiting to hook up with