69. willow
CHAPTER 69
WILLOW
CAMERA SHY
I woke up alone…and not on the couch.
The football trophies on the dresser clued me in to my whereabouts and caught my curiosity. King’s room. My boyfriend’s room. By myself. Which meant it was time to snoop.
Brushing my teeth, I conducted a full investigation, but there wasn’t much to investigate. Football memorabilia, pictures of his mom and sister, some Marrs banners, that was it. It felt more like an IKEA catalogue page for a college student’s room, not something lived in.
A laugh echoed from down the hallway.
King’s laugh.
I found a picturesque scene in the kitchen. Jasmine was up on the counter, cracking eggs into a bowl, her little eyebrows narrowed in concentration, and King had his head bent to avoid hitting the slope above the sink, his back shaking with laughter.
"There’s shells in the bowl!" she scowled.
"You have to pick them out."
"What if we eat them?"
"If you want to eat the shell omelets, I won’t stop you."
"You eat them!"
"I’m not eating them, you eat them."
Boxer staggered up from his dog bed, breaking out of his nap to come see me. He knocked into me, and the only thing keeping me from falling back was grabbing the archway. It was his way of wishing me good morning. I giggled and scratched him behind the ears.
"Willow!" Jasmine belted out and hurried off the counter.
King glanced over his shoulder and the smile on his face practically knocked me off my feet too. Oh, that smile. I loved that smile. "Good morning. How do you like your omelets?"
"I’m not picky. Surprise me," I murmured.
Seeing him as the caring older brother, getting breakfast ready…oh, my ovaries. It was hard to remember I couldn’t kiss him in front of his family yet. Regardless, I was melting.
"Willow, you have to see photos. " Jasmine bypassed me entirely on her path to the living room and struggled to pull out thick photo albums from the bookshelf. She couldn’t hope to carry them. I scooped them up for her before she led me to the couch.
The albums weren’t finished and plenty of photos and half-written pieces of paper tumbled out from the pages. I had to keep them together while Jasmine pointed out different pictures.
"That’s me—that’s me—that’s me?—"
"Aw, the pigtails." I stopped and gazed down at a chubby baby with thick, dark hair, sitting alone in a green chair. With the biggest, toothiest grin on his face. "Is that…?"
"That’s King!"
"Jazz, let’s put away the albums," King called from the kitchen. "Stuff falls out, I don’t want anything getting mixed up."
"I’m showing Willow!" Jasmine replied, ignoring everything he said.
"Nothing’s falling out on my watch," I assured him.
Jasmine picked up the next one. School photos caught my eye, and I stopped her from turning the page.
That was King. In high school.
Gone was the chubby baby with the big smile.
King stared at the camera, arms crossed over his chest, standing beside half a dozen guys in polo shirts and whistles. His mouth was pressed in a hard line. No smile, no softness …no scars. It was so weird seeing him without them. My finger trailed along the side of the photo, along his dark hair, longer than I’d ever seen it.
"You had long hair?"
"Oh, man." King sighed from the sizzling pans. "You’re on those photos?"
"It was greasy," Jasmine whispered.
"You were a baby, how would you remember?" I giggled.
She shuddered. "It looks sweaty."
"What are you two talking about?"
"How sweaty your hair was!" Jasmine shouted and whipped the next page.
"Don’t touch the crystals, King," his mom said from the kitchen.
"I’m not touching the crystals."
Lorelei appeared in the door frame, looking so much better than last night. Still frail but well-rested, wrapped up in a big hoodie and fuzzy pajama pants. "Oh, the scrapbooks."
"We’re looking at King’s sweaty hair," Jasmine told her, flipping another page. She pushed them off her lap and ran back to the bookshelf while I browsed. The ones with King were becoming harder and harder to find. Only newspaper clippings now, printouts from online, nothing personable.
The teenager with a hard light in his eyes, sitting alone, his shoulders stiff, hunched into himself.
One of the loose pictures caught my eye, poking out from the others. "Long hair and…cowboy hats?"
"That’s not King," his mom said, her voice gentle.
My eyes slid from her to the photo.
It was King, in a pair of jeans, his hair at his shoulders, cowboy hat cocked up, with beads around his neck, at a New Year’s Eve party—but that wasn’t King at all. I drew in a slow breath, struggling to see the differences, like a messed-up coloring page activity.
"Oh," I whispered.
There were differences but I had to search for them. King’s father wasn’t as bulky or as muscular. But with the thick jacket, it was hard to distinguish. If she hadn’t told me, I never would’ve figured it out.
I swallowed. "Please don’t tell him."
"I won’t," she promised, and folded it into the back of the photo album, where there were only a few photos left of King. He must’ve shaved his head, but I couldn’t see his face anymore. The photographers were lucky if they caught anything but him, turning away.
The rest of them were Jasmine and Lorelei. No King.
I had no doubt he was the one taking the pictures.
"He’s camera shy," she remarked.
I hesitated. "I have some good ones."
"Of…King?"
"Mm-hmm." I slipped out my phone and scrolled back to Austin. It was easy to find the aquarium pictures. There were Lawson’s boys, standing together, grinning ear to ear.
His mom drew in a startled breath. "They don’t have jerseys on."
"Mm-hmm."
"I never see them outside of team pictures. Can I have this?"
I nodded and Jasmine climbed into my lap to see what we were talking about.
There were so many other photos since then. There were the ones of the girls and I at practice together, Piper squeezing me in for a hug. There was some of me in King’s jersey while he had his arm around me. I had a few of me holding his helmet at lunch while he laughed in the background. The one I snapped of the boys backstage before their interviews, messing around together. One of King, helping Adam practice his lines for court. A snapshot of King relaxing in the hotel lobby with my mom’s book propped up on his stomach.
The next picture was when he caught me taking it. A big grin lifted his lips.
Lorelei leaned forward. "Oh my goodness."
"Omelets are almost ready!" King called from the kitchen.
The next photo was from yesterday. We went to the private study room together at the library, for a rare thirty minute break where we grabbed lunch and worked on homework. I made him take a selfie with me. He was supposed to look at the camera, but his eyes lingered on me, with that smile on his face.
"Omelets are ready!"
Jasmine wiggled with excitement, leaping to the ground. "I want FOOD! I want OMELETS! "
King’s mom caught my eye while I put the photo albums back. "I don’t mean to…" Lorelei cleared his throat. "How do people not know?"
"Not know…?"
She raised her eyebrows.
The blush was hot. "Um…King’s King. I think that’s a big part of it." I put up the last album. "We’re going to tell them soon. We can’t keep this quiet for long."
She didn’t say anything else and when I stepped into the kitchen, King had my omelet ready for me. I needed to do something first. Because I couldn’t stop thinking of those photos.
I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him into a hug. "Good morning, my favorite."
He kissed my braids. His chuckle was deep. "Good morning."