From Rags by Suzanne Wright

muttered.
    “So what did he do that prompted you to threaten his livelihood?”
    “He asked to buy me a drink.”
    “And that was a problem, was it?”
    “He didn’t ask me , he asked my breasts then drooled on them – literally. That was just the last straw for me; he’d been horrible to Anna when she tried talking to him. Trust me when I say it had been in his very best interests to get out of my sight.”
    Though Jaxxon had never been one to develop close friendships, she spent a lot of time with one of Richie’s models, Anna. The slender copped-haired girl was just eighteen but looked more like fifteen and was not even the slightest bit streetwise. She may as well have had a piece of paper attached to her back that said, ‘Bully me, it’s fine’. This wasn’t a good thing for a party animal, so Jaxxon often joined Anna when she went to clubbing to keep an eye on her. The girl was just so delicate and trusting that it was actually frightening.
    “Very protective of Anna, aren’t you?”
    She shot Ollie a pointed look. “Don’t pretend to be surprised by that. I knew what you and Richie were up to when you introduced me to her. The pair of you knew how much that girl liked going out to the clubs and bars, shaking her bloody shimmy, and you figured that she was a great way to get me out and about and under the watchful eye of the media.”
    Ollie smiled in surprise; she was just too astute for her own good. “We’ve told you it’s important that the magazines and papers get glimpses of you. They’ll just make stuff up anyway if they don’t.”
    “Is all that talk about you and that footballer true?” asked Louisa.
    “Footballer?” Jaxx frowned.
    “Yeah, Matt Watson.”
    “What was said?” Jaxxon never read anything about herself, though Ollie and Richie tried to show her articles. It was just too weird seeing herself in magazines or papers. Surreal. She still hadn’t overcome getting a jolt of shock through her each time a picture of herself stared back at her. The biggest shock had been seeing herself on a billboard, especially since she hadn’t even noticed until a young bloke called out, ‘Oi, luv, is that you?’
    A billboard. Her . Jaxxon from the dodgy part of London with her dodgy past. It hadn’t taken long for the tabloids to drench up said dodgy past but she wasn’t ashamed of it. She thought it was wrong that people would stand and sneer at those who had been brought up in the system but you didn’t see them getting together to come up with a better bloody system. She was just relieved the tabloids hadn’t been able to dig up all of it. There were some particular events that were better left buried.
    Louisa’s words took Jaxxon from her thoughts. “It said in one of the papers that you two met in a bar one Friday night then left together and went straight to his apartment, and that you never resurfaced until Monday morning.” 
    Jaxxon groaned. “Who comes up with this crap? Matt approached me in a bar and we talked a bit, but I was mostly trying to stop a very plastered Anna from dancing on the table. I think I intimidated him because when he asked me if I’d be interested in going out with him one night his words came out in like a jumbled stuttering mess.”
    Ollie smirked. “ You intimidating? I can’t imagine anyone thinking that.”
    “Aren’t you the funny one.”
    “It’s those eyes of yours, they knock people off balance.”
    “For God’s sake, they’re just eyes. Everyone’s got a pair.”
    “We’ve all got a pair of legs too, but I don’t make money off mine the way Anna does hers.” Ollie looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Speaking of body parts, how’ve you been getting on with your fitness regime?”
    “I haven’t.”
    “What about the diet?”
    “I’ve already told you; I don’t do gyms and I don’t do diets.” Exercising had a way of boring the life out of her, and dieting just made her so miserable that she ended up craving comfort