SOUNDTRACK: "Santeria" - Sublime

GOSSIP BOARD

HURRICANE POSTED: It looks like Kate is in New York City. She posted a picture of the skyline on her Instagram. I wonder if that means Jared's with her?

WWJLD456 POSTED: I don't think so. It looks like he's climbing in Yosemite with Alex. So maybe it's a little solo trip for Kate. She's sixteen so it's not odd. I wonder if she will spend time with Terry.

HURRICANE POSTED: I'm still not sure how I feel about that. Given Terry's history, I don't know about Kate spending time with him by herself.

WWJLD456 POSTED: Somehow I doubt Terry would try anything with the daughter of a close friend. He seems to have changed a little since meeting Skinny and getting serious about her.

~~~

Kate looked out of the taxi's window as they inched through traffic toward Terry's studio. Emma was sitting next to her, texting on her phone. She had to come into New York City for work, so Jared asked her to bring Kate along and drop her off at Terry's place.

"I forgot how big this place is," Kate remarked.

Emma smiled. "Any idea of what you're doing while you're here?"

"Definitely not exercising," Kate replied with a laugh.

Her practices with Santa Clarita had been much more grueling than she had imagined they would be. For three hours every day, the team would run laps and do drills across the field. She was glad practice was in the evenings because it was far too hot to be doing all of that in the daytime. Four nights a week, Shannon would pick Kate up and they'd head up to Santa Clarita. Because she was only training with the team, she didn't have to attend games with them. But Coach Geraldo was very impressed with her skill and had mentioned once or twice bringing her onto the team on a temporary, per-game contract.

"I don't know. I know Terry wants me to help out with the twins a little since I'm staying with him, but I don't have any other plans beyond that," she continued.

"You should check out the museums here," Emma supplied. "They're really nice. Nicer than most of the stuff we have in L.A."

The cab dropped them off in front of Terry's building and Emma rang the buzzer. The door buzzed open and they walked inside, taking the elevator right to Terry's studio door. Emma rang the doorbell and a second later, Alex opened the door holding a baby.

"Hey! You made it!" she exclaimed.

Emma embraced her. "Yeah. Oh my God, he grew so much!" she exclaimed looking at the baby.

"Kate," Alex said, smiling and opening her arms. "Good to see you."

Kate hugged Alex. "Who is this?" she asked.

"Rex," Alex said. "Come on upstairs. Terry just finished getting the guest room ready. You'll have to share it with us during the day since it's our office, but hopefully it works for you."

Kate shrugged as Alex led them up a flight of stairs to their apartment. "I only need a bed to sleep on," she supplied.

"Clearly you didn't inherit your father's high maintenance streak," Alex joked, making Kate laugh. 

Terry appeared around the corner of the kitchen holding Roman. "Emma! Kate! Come here!"

Kate embraced the photographer. Since Jared had outed their situation, an occasional comment had been left on her social media pages about Jared being friends with Terry, especially after a photo shoot the two had done. The comments had mentioned sexual assault and rape charges against Terry, and Kate wasn't exactly sure what she should think. She had asked Jared about them, but all he told her was that the case had been settled out of court. But if there was one thing she had learned about Hollywood since moving in with Jared, it was that people would pay a LOT of money to keep control of their image. She knew that settling out of court didn't meant guilt or innocence - just that they wanted the case to go away as quickly as possible. And while she was also aware of the risque nature of Terry's work, she didn't feel threatened or anything when she was with him. To her, all she saw was the quirky, weird man with big aviator glasses, graying hair, and a porn star mustache and an affinity for rescue dogs from animal shelters. If he ever acted inappropriately, it wasn't when she was around.

"So Jared shipped you out here for the week, huh?" Terry asked, putting the baby into a swing in the dining area of the large loft-style space. "Couldn't have come at a better time. The boys have just started to sleep less. So goody for us, an extra pair of hands."

Kate sighed and rolled her eyes. "Yay."

"Let me show you to your room," he said, taking one of her bags.

Kate followed him through the apartment to a small room at the end of a narrow hallway. It was smaller than her closet back home in L.A. and half of it was taken up by a desk and file cabinets. A twin bed was shoved into the corner underneath a narrow window with pull-down blinds across the top. 

"I'd put you on the sofa because it's probably more comfortable, but we're still doing multiple night feedings so we'd probably just keep you awake all night," Terry explained, putting her bag on the bed. "If anything's in your way, just move it." One of the twins started crying and he sighed. "That's my cue." He looked at Emma. "Stay for dinner?"

She shook her head. "I've got to go to my hotel and check in. Then I've got a late drinks meeting at nine."

"Busy bee," he remarked. "Well, if you have time before you go back L.A., we'd love to have you over." He disappeared down the hallway.

Emma smiled. "We'll see." She looked at Kate. "Well, if you don't need anything else, I'm going to go ahead and take off."

Kate nodded. "Yeah. Thanks for bringing me."

Emma hugged the teen and turned for the door. "Jared didn't give me much choice," she smiled. "You should text him to let him know you reached okay."

Kate nodded. "I will."

~~~

"He needs a change, Kate," Alex said. "I'll take him. Terry's waiting for you downstairs."

Kate nodded and made a face at Roman as she got up from playing with him on the floor. Alex took the baby over to a changing station set up in the living area and set about changing his diaper.

"He's down in his office," Alex added.

Kate went down the stairs to Terry's main studio space. It was roughly broken up into several sections, with a couple desks and computers in one area, racks of cameras and supplies in another, and an open space with a large, white backdrop surrounded by studio lights. At the very end of the cavernous space, a door was open and she could see Terry sitting at a desk, looking at his computer.

"I'll be out in a minute," he called, seeing her over the screen. "Go get a tripod set up. Use the Nikon."

She obeyed him and set up his camera equipment. In the past two days since she had arrived, she had become very familiar with Terry's equipment. The first night, he had shown her each and every piece of it, detailing what he would use it for and having her try it out. Her photography knowledge had nearly quadrupled in only forty-eight hours.

"We're going to do something fun today," he said, emerging from his office. She raised an eyebrow. "I'll shoot you like I shoot my clients. Then you can shoot me and we can compare the two to see what needs work."

"Like we did last time I was here?" she asked.

"Kind of. Only this time, I'm not going to help you. You'll be on your own," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "Get started."

Kate nodded and took the camera from the tripod. "Go stand on the X," she instructed.

After half an hour of being blinded by his own flashes and staying silent while Kate worked, Terry leapt into action when she put the camera down. He positioned her in front of his famous white backdrop, adjusting lights and reflectors accordingly. Before she knew it, it was her turn to be blinded. Immediately, she noticed that he was much more vocal than she had been.

"Look up and to the left," he said from behind the camera. "Now straight at me."

She obeyed and Terry let out a happy noise and continued to shoot. After a while, he made her move around a little. Eventually, he stopped and pulled her over to a monitor, like he had the last time they did a photo shoot like this one.

"Alright," he said, pulling up a stool and sitting her down on it. "Tell me the differences."

He pulled up two nearly-identical shots and left them side-by-side on the monitor. Kate looked closely, chewing on her bottom lip.

"Mine isn't balanced properly," she saw instantly.

"And?"

"And you aren't lit properly," she continued.

He nodded. "What did you need to do instead?"

"Light your left side better," she said, touching the screen.

"If you couldn't move the light?"

"Have you cheat out thirty - no, forty - degrees?" she asked.

Terry nodded. "You're getting it," he smiled. "Studio shoots are one thing. It's an entirely different animal to shoot candids in uncontrolled enviornments." He stood and took the camera from the table, unplugging it and putting the lens cap back on. "Tomorrow afternoon, we'll go to Central Park. You can shoot some candids there and practice."

~~~

TERRYRICHARDSON
INSTAGRAM COMMENTS

USERNAME1: Who is this model? She's really pretty.

USERNAME2: I'm completely in love with her eyes.

USERNAME3: That looks like Kate Wexler. She's Jared Leto's daughter with the artist Rachel Wexler. Jared's very good friends with Terry.

USERNAME1: Is she a model? If not, I think she should get into it. She really is beautiful.

USERNAME2: Like father, like daughter. They're both annoyingly genetically blessed.

USERNAME1: Alessandro Michele at Gucci also put a photo of her up earlier this year wearing one of his necklaces from the new line. I hope she does go into modeling.

~~~

GOSSIP BOARD

LETOPRINCESS POSTED: Kate is still with Terry. They were out in Central Park taking photos yesterday. And he posted a picture of her on his account. People are loving her.

HURRICANE POSTED: I saw that post. He didn't caption it or identify her. But I wonder how Jared will react. He hasn't even posted a picture of her on his own accounts.

LETOPRINCESS POSTED: I think that's why Terry didn't say who she was. It's just been Jared's fans telling people. But it is insane how gorgeous she is. I've been meaning to find a picture of her mother, but I've been too busy.

HURRICANE POSTED: I found a bunch. She was pretty well-known in the San Diego and modern art scenes. She's really pretty. I can tell why Jared was attracted to her. I just wish I knew how they met. We only have the custody paperwork, so we don't know much about anything else.

LETOPRINCESS POSTED: Do you think she could go into modeling? She's so pretty. And Jared could get her a job in a second if she wanted one.

HURRICANE POSTED: I don't think so. Jared seems to have a love/hate relationship with Hollywood. I don't think he'd want to expose her to more of it than he needs to. Besides, he knows all about how models are treated and he's been around the industry long enough to know the dark secrets of it. If he's so protective of her and doesn't even put a picture of her up, I have a hard time seeing him voluntarily putting her into modeling. Plus, the only reason he made a public statement was because fans had worked out the truth and he would have been found out eventually anyway.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Do you have a Jared Leto or Mars fan fiction that you'd like to share with others? If so, check out the Jared Leto/Mars Fan Fiction Contest! You can find more information in the book on my account.

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S.