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I flipped over and scowled at him. Secretly, I was glad he was being playful and cute in the morning.
“I was asking if you could help out with the center,” Chess said.
“Oh, sure. Yeah, of course. Anything you need.” I was thrilled that Chess asked me for help. I wanted to be a part of the project and going once a week never felt enough.
“You’re a photographer, right?”
I stiffened and Connor’s hand that had been lightly circling my sex stilled. “Well, I was a long time ago.”
“Great. Would you be able to take some photos of the place before the opening? Maybe come by this week and meet me. We can take photos of the animals and—”
I interjected, “I don’t take photos anymore.”
“Oh.” She paused then, “If it’s a camera you need—”
I didn’t hear the rest because Connor took the phone from me. “We’ll call you back.” Then he hung up and tossed the phone to the foot of the bed.
“Connor, you can’t do that.” I wasn’t even sure if Chess knew Connor was staying here with me. She could be freaking out.
“I just did.”
Sitting up, I tried to go for the phone, but he grabbed my waist and threw me back to lie on my back while he hovered over me.
“Connor! I have to call her back.”
“We need to talk about this.”
“About what?”
“I hate that you don’t take photos anymore and don’t bullshit me about why you don’t want to. I was there. I remember.”
“It’s not so simple,” I murmured.
“Simple isn’t something we’ve ever done, baby.”
“Damn it, you wouldn’t have been tortured and drugged if he hadn’t found the photos.”
His brows dropped dangerously low and his mouth tightened. “We don’t know that. But if that were true, then I’d be living a life without you, never knowing the truth. Still hating how you left me.” He sighed. “Being with you now is worth everything.”
Tears fell and he gently wiped them away with his thumb.
It made me sick to my stomach thinking about holding a camera again and my stomach was already in rough shape. The passion for photography had died and finding that story within the lens didn’t exist in me anymore.
“Will any kids be there?” he asked.
“At the Center?”
“Yeah.”
“No. They don’t move there until after the opening. Danny will be with Chess. I’m sure she’ll want photos of him with Bacon.”
His brows lifted. “Bacon? Tell me that’s not a pig.”
I smiled. “Yeah. Danny named him. A potbellied pig.”
“Then we do this together.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll go with you.”
My breath locked and my eyes snapped to his. “You will?”
“I don’t like it. But I want to be there for you.” He cupped my chin, his thumb caressing back and forth over my lower lip. “Alina, you’ve never given up on me. I gave you every reason to and you’re still here. So, yeah, I’ll go.”
Then he kissed me and it was another hour before I got around to calling Chess back and telling her I’d do it.Question 12: What type of bird would you want to be?“BABE, LOOK AT me.”
We stood beside his bike at the Center and I had the helmet clutched between my hands, staring at the top of it. Connor pried it out of my grip, set it on the seat of the bike and took my hands in his.
“Today, you make new stories,” he said. “Today, we make new memories.” He put his finger under my chin and guided my head up so our eyes met. “It wasn’t your fault. I’ve never blamed you. And I’ve never regretted us meeting. Not once.” He leaned in and kissed me. “And I’m freaking out, too.” My brows lifted because he didn’t look like he was freaking out. Actually, there was no tension in his face at all. “The girl, Chess… I hit her, Alina. In France, after I’d brought London into Vault.”
Oh, I hadn’t known that. “That wasn’t you.”
“Still, the triggers are unpredictable as you know from the holes in your walls, shutterbug.. Meeting her again. Being around a kid. Fuck, anything can set me off, but I have you and, babe, you calm me. It’s like you’re my reminder of what’s real and I have to hold onto that.”
Connor stayed—mostly. He took off on his bike a few times, punched the wall several times, and he refused to sleep with me through the night. I’d also woken in the early morning hours to him pacing downstairs, or hearing the shower in the downstairs bathroom going.
But his bike now sat in my driveway, his clothes were in my closet and he’d checked out of the hotel. He also drove me to work and picked me up, but he was never happy about it. He’d made it clear numerous times how much he hated me working at the bar.
And he’d bought me a camera. I was a little surprised because we’d never talked about money, but he obviously had some because it was a really expensive camera. And it sat in the box on my kitchen table for two days. There was a flash of giddiness when I first saw it like a kid with a brand new toy, eager to rip open the box and play with it.
