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Nina looked at him. “I guess you’re pretty proud ofyourself.”
“For attempting to save a woman’s life? For saving another woman’s seat while she attends to personal business? Why yes, yes I am,” Liamsaid.
It was impossible to hold back a smile with Liam sitting next to her, looking dashing and roguish and playing the straightman.
“What are you doing here?” Ninaasked.
“Just having a beer,” he said, his voice back to normal. “Trying to avoid becoming a shut-in. You know how itis.”
Nina smiled. “Takeout and amovie?”
“Every introvert’s preferred Friday night activity.” He took a drink of the beer andgrimaced.
Nina raised her glass. “Here,here.”
She hadn’t believed him when he’d told her he was an introvert during one of their many long conversations when they’d first started dating. He’d seemed so at ease in his own skin, so completely himself. He’d said the camera was his buffer, a medium for allowing him to participate in the world while keeping him one step removed from it. Now sheunderstood.
“Moni says you’ve been taking pictures,” hesaid.
“Here and there. It’s just ahobby.”
“The Leica is a worthy hobby,” hesaid.
She laughed. “You should have seen my first attempts. I must have wasted twenty rolls offilm.”
“Not wasted if they helped you learn. How are youdeveloping?”
“I’m embarrassed to tell you.” Liam had an expansive apartment in Williamsburg with a bedroom, an office, and an entire room devoted to developingfilm.
“Now I’mintrigued.”
“Well, you know how small my apartment is.” He nodded. “I bought a garment rack for my coats and emptied my hall closet. It’s a tight fit, and the chemical smell is awful. My neighbors probably think I have a tub full of acid to dispose of all the people I’mkilling.”
He sighed and shook his head. “It’sofficial.”
“What’sofficial?”
“You’re hooked,” hesaid.
“I think you might beright.”
“Happens to the best of us,” he said. “I’d love to see your worksometime.”
“Fatchance.”
“Why not? I bet they’reamazing.”
“And I bet you say that to all the girls.” She was feeling a little lightheaded from the martini. Was it the martini? Or was it him, the fact that he was close enough totouch?
He leaned in just enough that his forearm brushed against hers. His scent hit her like a freight train, tunneling through her body until it erupted like a lust bomb in her stomach. “I can promise you that I most definitely do not say that to all the girls. Only to you,Nina.”
She looked away and finished her drink. He’d always said her name with a kind of reverence. She still heard it in her dreams, carried on the wind off the rivers that surrounded thecity.
“So… uh… what are you up to now that you’re back?” Where the fuck was Karen? “Are you planning anothertrip?”
“Why don’t you let me tell you about it over dinner?” There was no humor in his voice thistime.
Her brain was telling her to say no, to keep herdistance.
No, not her brain, something more primitive, the place inside her that was all survival instinct, that didn’t want happiness or euphoria if it came at the price ofpain.
You’re out in all kinds of weather taking pictures of little kids because you admire their joie de vivre but you’re afraid to take a chanceyourself…
She had a flash of Lucy’s face in the photographs she’d been developing in her makeshift darkroom, the little girl’s beaming smile and rosy cheeks speaking to the kind of unadulterated happiness Nina hadn’t felt in a long, longtime.
She looked at Liam. “All right.Dinner.”
