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“It’s not that simple; we’ve come a long way.”
“If you tell me you won’t do it because you don’t want to ruin your friendship or whatever, I swear I’ll scream.”
I furrow my brow. “But I don’t want to ruin it,” I tell her. “What’s wrong with that?”
She groans. “It’s the worst plot to a story—neither party wanting to admit feelings because of the friendship.”
“Is that what’s happening?” It feels more one-sided to me, like I’m the one risking the relationship. If I do say something, there’s also the possibility of rejection, hurt, disappointment, and maybe some lifelong embarrassment that I may or may not ever recover from. My guess is may not.
She grabs her phone and clicks on a few things. “I wasn’t going to show you this because Graham asked me not to.”
I pull my brows together, confused. “What is it?”
“The photography challenge,” she says.
“That one that you totally gave to him? My picture was so much better,” I say, irritation in my voice. I’m still annoyed about that.
“Did he show you the picture?” she asks.
“Yes, and mine was the clear winner. Mine had a hawk, and Graham’s was just a sunset. I swear you’re biased.”
“I’m not, Lucy,” she says, holding her phone in her hand. “That doesn’t sound like the picture he sent me.”
“What?” I ask, not following.
She turns her phone around, and I stare at what she’s showing me, not fully believing it.
The picture is of me gazing at the sunset; I’m bathed in a pink hue from the setting sun. My cheeks are rosy, as is the tip of my nose, and I’m smiling happily.
I take the phone out of her hands so I can study it closer. “This is the picture he sent you?”
I look to Morgan to see her nodding her head.
“Now you see why he won,” she says.
“I mean, it is a really good picture of me,” I say, still staring at Morgan’s phone screen.
“It is,” she agrees.
“He was taking pictures of me?” I say, feeling something swirl around inside my stomach. A blossoming sort of feeling.
“You can’t tell him I showed you,” Morgan says.
I shake my head. “I won’t,” I promise. She reaches for her phone, but I pull it away from her, not ready to give it back. I want to keep looking at it. Maybe when this challenge is over, Morgan can send it to me.
“What do you think this means?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. It could mean something, or maybe it means nothing. But you won’t know for sure unless you talk to Graham.”
Graham
“IT’S GOOD TO SEE YOU son,” my dad says, sitting across the booth from me at Brew Haven, a little coffee shop near downtown Aspen Lake. He looks like an older and more tired version of me with salt-and-pepper hair and bags under his eyes, the same shade of blue as mine.
For the thing I’ve been putting off, I called my dad—a stilted phone conversation that somehow turned into an even more stilted in-person conversation.
Do I return the sentiment? Tell him it’s good to see him, even though it’s not how I feel? I did just see him a month ago, when we had Christmas brunch as a family. Of course, we bickered the whole time, my mom playing defense, trying to keep things from escalating.
“Thanks for the invite,” I say, looking around the space. It’s a quaint little spot that I haven’t visited in a while.
