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As she ducked out of the kitchen, someone grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her into the den.
Frankie.
“You owe me a month of cheesesteaks,” Frankie said in a loud whisper.
“What the hell?”
“Wager. Housewarming party. September.”
Rowan blinked, opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again.
“It was your idea, remember?” Frankie pressed, switching her camera off, letting it hang loose against her chest. “T.J. and Harrison Brady are definitelynothingmore than friends. That man is desperately, catastrophically into you. And you like him, too. I have never seen you so misty-eyed and maudlin.” Frankie punctuated her words with pokes to Rowan’s chest. “I win, you buy lunch on Cheesesteak Fridays. We’ll start in May. May has five Fridays.”
“Oh Jesus, Frankie. I might be gone by next month.”
“Then you can get me a gift card. I’m going to get cheesesteaksso big, they’ll feed me through the week.” Frankie pantomimed a cheesesteak the size of a football. “I wonder if I can make a casserole with the leftovers. I think I’ll buy shoes with all the money I’ll save on meals.”
“Fine. I’ll play along. Where’s your evidence?”
“Are you serious? Rowan, I’ve known formonths. I saw the way he looked at you all the way back at the festival in the fall. He has absolutely lost his mind over you.”
“I’m a scientist. That’s called inference. It’s not empirical evidence.”
“There’s a photo.”
“A what?”
Frankie cocked a hip to the side. “You haven’t seen the picture Arden posted on Instagram?”
Rowan swallowed rising dread. “You know I don’t do social media. I barely remember to check email once a week.”
Frankie dug her phone out of her pocket. Her thumbs flew over the screen. She made an absentminded ticking sound with her tongue as she scrolled through Arden’s images, then sidled next to Rowan, shoulder to shoulder.
It was a gallery of sorts, a sequence indicated by little dots underneath the first photo. First, a handheld shot of Arden and Frankie, followed by one of Arden and Colby, all outrageously photogenic. Next, a macro shot of powdered sugar on funnel cake. A minimalist shot of string bulbs against the black autumn sky, and an artistically hazy photo of the bonfire. As each image scrolled past, Rowan’s blood pressure climbed higher in anticipation of what was coming.
Then there it was. A photo of her and Harrison dancing, centered in a blurry sea of other bodies.
Frankie looked smug. “I’m not a scientist, Rosebud. But that’s about as empirical as evidence can be.”
Their posture looked intimate, at ease. Their bodies were so close no light could be seen between them. Everything about the image—down to the positions of their hands—lookedrightsomehow, as if they were accustomed to holding each other, exactly so. Her fingers gripped him so tight, they pulled the fabric of his shirt taut over his bicep. She remembered how soft the flipped-up curls at his nape were as they brushed her knuckles. Harrison looked down at her with an intensity so remarkable, how had she not burst into flame then and there on the dance floor?
Rowan shook her head, darting a look at Frankie, then another back toward the kitchen. “No. Nope.”
“You do realize that this is what I do for a living, yeah? It’s my job to capture emotions in photographs. I am a professional feelings-capturer.” Frankie tapped the screen with her fingernail. “This is a picture of two humans having some serious feelings.”
“I can’t believe Arden posted this online.”
Frankie made a dismissive sound. “She didn’t identify you by name, and anyone can take and post a photo of other people in a public space.” She set a hand on Rowan’s shoulder, and said more gently, “I’m sure she’d take it down if you asked.”
If she asked Arden to take it down, she’d call attention to it. “Shit,” Rowan said.
“Let’s pretend, for a moment, that this photo is a complete fluke.” Frankie lowered the bright screen, shifting tactics. “Did you see his expression when you arrived this morning? Hestood upwhen you came into the room. So sweet, I almost died.”
“It’s what he does. He was just being polite, Frances.”
“You only call me Frances when you know you’re wrong. Most modern men don’t stand when a woman enters the room.”
Temperance peeked around the corner with her tortoiseshell glasses perched on her head.
