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“What? Did you spot a flaw?” Robert asked, leaning forward for a better look at the video, rewinding a few seconds.
“No. You’re perfect.”
“Damn straight.” Robert agreed. “I’m immaculate. I should be famous.”
“You should.”
We lapsed into silence for a few minutes. Even though the TV screen was full of sequins and provocative butt shots, my mind wandered. The same thoughts that had dug into me and refused to let go while I was trying to sleep made another circle through my brain.
What does it mean to love one person and have a crush on another?
What does it mean to want to give someone another shot when you also want to see what the world is like without him?
What is loyalty worth when the other person in the equation isn’t loyal to you?
The ironic thing was that the person who’d know the most about the first question was someone I didn’t want to talk to about my situation—because that person was Adam.
I sighed and shifted.
When I’d been with Daniel at the park, I’d barely thought of Adam at all. I’d been way too absorbed in Daniel’s shiny newness, his charming smile, his nice laugh. The way his ass had looked in his shorts. I was only human, and his butt was really sweet.
Speaking of sweet, when he’d said my smile was sweet? Wow.
My insides writhed like giddy snakes dancing the mambo. I drained the rest of my beer. Leaning my head back on the sofa, I closed my eyes. Immediately, I was back in the woods, in the humid twilit space I’d walked with Daniel. I could almost hear the crunch of our feet on the path.
Robert clapped for himself. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know Renée had just executed a prolonged pirouette in dangerously high heels. “Sweetie, I’m so good.”
“You are,” I mumbled.
Pulling my eyes open again, I sat the empty beer bottle on the coaster on the coffee table. The film canisters from that evening in the woods waited for me in my bedroom at home. Photos of Daniel were on one of those rolls, and, almost as exciting, photos of me that Daniel had taken. I itched with curiosity to know how he’d seen me. How did I look to him?
“And then out comes the booty,” Robert said.
I averted my eyes from the screen as Renée popped her ass out over and over. I didn’t like to think of Robert or Renée sexually. He was my boss, my friend, and older than me by almost ten years. Our relationship wasn’t like that.
My mind drifted back to the photos Daniel and I had taken together. Unfortunately, when I’d called my old high school, Kingsley, the morning after running into Daniel, hoping to get some time in their darkroom over the summer, I’d been met with disappointing news. I’d lost the right to the rooms when I’d graduated. If my parents weren’t forking out tons of cash, they weren’t forking out developing chemicals and photo paper to an alumnus. I couldn’t blame them.
Which left me with two options: I could wait to develop all the rolls of film I took over the summer until I had access to the darkrooms at UT in the fall, or I could suck it up, release control on the particulars, and pay to have someone else develop them for me. I was desperate enough to be leaning toward the latter.
Robert smoothed a hand over his tight curls, recently shaped into a short fade that fit under Renée’s wigs. He pointed the remote at the VCR to click it off. In the silence, Robert’s boyfriend’s voice drifted out of the second bedroom they used as an office. Barry’s words were indistinct, but his bass rumbled soothingly.
“Okay, Sweetie.” Robert patted my arm. “It’s time to talk to momma.”
“What? I need to call my mom?”
“No, silly. You need to talk to me. I’m your momma right now.” He snapped his fingers. “You’re gonna sit yourself up, and we’re gonna have a chat.”
“I am? We are?” I straightened, wiping at my sleepy eyes. Was he actually mad at me for snoozing on the job? Robert was usually a pretty laid-back boss. “I mean, sure. About what?”
Robert tutted. “About you. About the fact that you’re not happy.”
I groaned and lolled my head back against the sofa.
Throwing his arm over the back of the couch, Robert turned to face me. His long-lashed, dark eyes glittered in their usual mischievous way. I braced myself for the inquisition. “Are you missing your Naughty Boy?”
“Yeah.” I let my gaze fall to the clean, beige carpet, tracing the lines his vacuum left behind.
“So convincing.”
