Chapter XV #2
I laugh. “I always felt like a braver version of myself behind my camera, when I was young. I kind of used it as armor. Like it could offer me access to people I would never be bold enough to approach on my own. But I wonder if as I’ve gotten older .
. .” Something clicks for me. “I wonder if I’ve been using it more like a shield so people can’t access me.
” Clarity builds inside me, like all the fragments of my anxiety have fused together to create a single, fortified force of will.
I know that if I don’t say yes to this job, that if I were to see another photographer’s credit on this project, I would forever be haunted by what I chose not to do.
I look up at Reid. “Three months away still feels like too much.” But as I say the words, the pieces begin to snap into place. “Maybe I can float doing the portraits here and following one band on tour for a month.”
“If they want you enough, they’ll make concessions. If not, at least you’ll know you tried.”
“Between James and my parents, I can figure out a situation that Emme’s OK with.”
“If Emme is anything like my daughter—and I’ve started to get the sense she is—she’ll be more than OK with that.” One corner of his mouth tugs up into a smile.
I groan, pressing a hand to my forehead, starting to process that I am actually going to say yes to this.
“It’ll be great, Lili. If we don’t do things like this now, when will we?”
“You’re talking about this gig, right? Nothing else?” I bite back a smile.
“Of course. What else could I possibly be talking about?”
We share a charged look, and his eyes go sharper, clearer—set with determination. Anticipation. I watch his chest expand and fall beneath his shirt, and I’m overcome with a need to press my palms against it, to count the heartbeats beneath it.
When the tension pulls uncomfortably taut, I force myself to try to loosen it. To keep us talking for as long as I can stand. I wave my hand toward the window, gesturing at the city pulsing beyond it. “So what does Gracie think of all this?”
Reid sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “She loves it. She asked if we can stay an extra couple of days.”
A bubble of hope. “Can you?”
“We can’t, unfortunately. I’m in preproduction for a movie. Table reads start on Tuesday afternoon, so I have to head straight to the rehearsal space after we land.”
“Can I get the elevator pitch?” I ask, and I’m rewarded with that look again, the one that sets his eyes on fire.
“Four estranged siblings reunite to stage an intervention for their youngest sister, a tech billionaire struggling with an opioid addiction, but their secret motivation is to secure their places in her will,” he says.
“The schedule’s nuts, but one of the perks of the award”—he rolls his eyes exaggeratedly—“is that I get to work with people who are the best at what they do. And the studios trust that we won’t entirely screw things up.
The lead’s the oldest brother, and they cast Jack Felgate.
He’s very British, has that effortless, approachable charm. It’ll make him a good villain.”
“You’re filming in the UK?”
“Georgia, for the tax breaks.”
“Ever think about writing something set in New York?”
He cocks his head at me. “Do you want me to write something that shoots in New York?”
“I’d like for you to get to the city more often.” I let myself express it without coyness or hedging.
“I’d like that too.” He hides his smile in his drink. Then he turns and looks out the window. “The dream of living here . . . never really left me.” His gaze meets mine again, his eyes raking slowly down my body. “You know, if I hadn’t gotten that letter from Jake, I would’ve stayed.”
Suddenly, I am nineteen again, watching the morning sun dance across Reid’s bare skin, wanting so badly to wrap my arms around him but telling him to go, instead.
All at once, an alternate timeline plays out in my head: Reid never gets on a plane, we move in together, we are enormously happy, I never suffer the indignities of a low-paying job in a field that I hate, Reid finds a job he loves .
. . and that’s where the tape falters and rewinds.
“But if you didn’t go back to LA, you might not have had the career you have now,” I say. I know I’m right, but the words are sour on my tongue.
“But I might’ve had you.”
My breath catches, but I force my next thought out. “But we wouldn’t have our girls.”
“I know.” His voice is hoarse. “Therein lies the rub.”
This is exactly where my own rewrite of history dead-ends every single time.
If we’d both made different choices in the past, then the greatest miracles of our lives would never have come to fruition.
And maybe we would’ve been happy in the alternate timeline, but we also might have crashed and burned, spectacularly—or worse, come to resent each other, slowly and then all at once.
I shake my head at us, at this fool’s errand of editing the past like we’re in our own personal version of Sliding Doors.
I am here. Now, I tell myself. Better instead to make choices today that I won’t come to regret. I want to get over my fear of all the things that could go wrong, of everything I could lose. And I don’t want to talk about the complications of our lives anymore. I just want him.
I shift slightly in my seat so that I’m facing him head-on. I recross my legs. I’m in a black sweater dress that’s ever-so-slightly too short, with a slit that rides up when I’m seated. Reid’s gaze snags on that slice of bared skin on my thigh.
“It’s been a really long time since someone touched me like you used to.”
Reid gives me his upside-down smile—my comfort smile—and runs a hand down his face. “Fuck,” he says, under his breath. When he looks up at me again, his voice is steadier, more controlled, but it has a hint of grit to it. “I still remember everything you like.”
As if through his volition, my hand drops onto my knee and moves slowly up, a planchette on a Ouija board, coming to rest on my inner thigh. My skin is hot to the touch. I watch Reid’s fingers flex and release on the armrest.
Any shyness I might have felt is shoved to the side by the force of my need and the warmth of the whiskey. I want him urgently.
“I kept imagining your hands on me, after you left last night,” I say, “but I couldn’t make myself feel the way you did.”
I made myself come twice last night, and that did little to stifle the heat that’s been building inside me since seeing him on that sidewalk two days ago.
Because this isn’t ambient lust. This is specific, personal.
It’s the rare alchemy of the past colliding with the present.
I need to capture it while I can grasp it.
“Will you show me?” Reid asks. When I hesitate, he gestures at my hand with his glass. “Show me how you did it.”
I drop my knees wider but shake my head. “I want you to finish what you started.”
Reid is already lunging for me, his drink abandoned on the coffee table.
He scoops me up with one arm and pulls me into his lap, and I collapse on top of him, our mouths opening hungrily against each other.
It’s less a kiss than a claiming, our tongues sliding against each other without finesse or technique, his hands scrambling up the back of my dress, both of us moved only by a desire to taste and touch as much as we can, while we still have the time.