Body Language. [Discontinued]

CH. 2

"Make the light a li'l brighter for me, please," Siraj instructed, holding the camera in his hand as he took photos of the model. Whenever Raj wasn't at home, taking care of his son, he was doing what he loved —being a photographer. Raj first picked up a camera when he was ten-years-old, taking photos of himself or anything else he could.

While he was in high school, he was in the yearbook club each year; the teacher that was over the yearbook club was impressed with his work and had asked him each year to be apart of it. Whenever he wasn't taking photos of his classmates outside of school, he found any other people to take pictures for.

The more he got into photography and learning how to edit, the more it became his passion. However, that wasn't the only passion Raj had; while he ran his photography business, he also had a clothing line. Before Xahir died, Raj would turn to his best friend whenever it came to making difficult decisions.

Xahir always provided another insight for Raj whenever he felt stuck or was indecisive about a plan or his next idea. Now that his best friend was gone, he could admit that he did struggle a little, but it only pushed him more to start like Xahir — meaning looking at all different aspects he wouldn't have considered in the first place.

"Good, good — just like that," Raj coached, the flashing of the camera going off every five seconds as the model continued to strike different poses. After snapping a few more photos, Raj finally stopped, walking towards the model, showing her the different photos he took.

"These are really good," Aria, Raj's assistant, complimented, looking over his shoulder at the photos as well.

Raj rented out a building in downtown Daytona that he was able to use to shoot his sessions. Ximena and Aria helped decorate the different rooms on the second floor, giving each their own unique theme. The third floor of the building was used for his clothing line, where a few of his employees helped packaged any orders that came through and needed to be sent out.

"Thank you so much, Siraj. I look good as fuck," The model, Rayven, started to do a little dance, driving Siraj and Aria to start laughing.

"No problem, Aria, gone hit you up wit' the finished results," Siraj told her, giving her a side hug. Rayven waved goodbye to Aria and Siraj as she went to change out of the clothes she was wearing. Raj deeply sighed, sitting his camera down on the wooden barstool.

It was his last session of the day, but that didn't mean his work for the day was utterly done. Once he finished cleaning up downstairs, he would have to go upstairs to help package up the orders that needed to be shipped out tomorrow morning.

"You okay?" Aria questioned him, seeing that he seemed to be in deep thought. For the majority of the day, Soleil had been on his mind heavily. It was bothering him that she was mad at him; she never been upset with him before, so he technically didn't know how to handle the situation. "Siraj?" she called out to him again, once he didn't answer her the first time.

He was pulled out of his thoughts and quickly glanced over at her. "What's up?" he raised an eyebrow, pausing as he was fiddling with the studio lights.

"I said, are you okay? Your energy has been a little off today," Aria said, unplugging the lights.

"Oh — yeah, I'm fine. Just tired, ready to go home and sleep." he lied, not wanting to tell his business. Even though he trusted Aria and had been a family friend for years, he wasn't entirely too comfortable venting about that particular situation about Soleil to anyone, except for maybe his mother or Ximena.

He hadn't spoken to Lei since a few days ago, and he had been contemplating whether it was an appropriate time to text and check on her. However, another side of him was telling him just to give her a little bit more space; if he pushed too much, she would probably shut him out completely.