Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Dara
My favorite donut shop in all of Savannah sits like the legend it is in front of us. Wade climbs out of the car, a heavy splash of suspicion on his face, and meets me on the sidewalk.
“Judy’s?” he asks, giving a nod to the bubble-gum pink lettering spelling out the name.
“Are you judging the establishment based on the sign?”
“No. I’m judging it off the pink door.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll have you know that this is the best-kept secret in the whole city.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.”
Wade looks down the street toward the hotels and more popular restaurants like Paddy’s. The juxtaposition of the polished, dapper man who looks like he should be having a fancy brunch somewhere standing in front of a window with pink-and-white checkered curtains is fun.
I run back to my car and snag my camera from the back seat. Luckily, Wade isn’t concerned with my doings. His attention is still pegged elsewhere.
Then as if the heavens open and shine down, he slips one hand into his pocket.
My inner photographer springs into action. I lift the camera and shoot.
Close-up. Farther away.
He takes his hand out and lifts his chin.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
Wade gives me a solid minute of unbridled action. But then that action halts.
He looks at me, his brows raising, and holds out a hand. “What the hell are you doing?”
“This is a camera,” I say, holding it out to him. “It takes things called photographs.”
“Don’t be dense, Dara.”
My shoulders slump. “Come on. Let’s at least look at them.”
“I have no interest.”
“Wade.”
He stares at me as if the intensity will make me relent. I hold his gaze just as sharply. Our standoff lasts until a man on a scooter barrels down the sidewalk and forces Wade to move.
I try another angle.
“Why did you want to be an architect?” I ask.
He glances at the camera and then to me with a curious, if not suspicious, expression.
“I designed a log cabin in the fourth grade for a history project,” he says. “Holt helped me build it out of sticks and hot glue.”
“Your mother let you use hot glue in the fourth grade?”
“Well, there are five of us boys. Holt was a little older, and I think we did it when she wasn’t home.” His suspicion melts into amusement. “Coy ended up gluing his finger to Boone’s, so your concern is well placed.”
I laugh. “I can’t imagine living in a house with that many brothers.”
“It will make you or break you in many ways.”
I step onto the sidewalk but keep a few paces away from him, lest he decide to grab my camera and delete the photos I just took.
“What did it do to you? Make you or break you?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer for a long second. “Probably both. Now, about those pictures …”
“Okay, but let’s circle back to the architect thing. I was going somewhere.”
He shakes his head.
“Architecture is your art, right?”
“I suppose.”
“How do you feel when you design something?” I grin. “I mean, if your cold heart feels anything.”
He makes a face.
“I’m serious. How do you feel when you show someone a design you’ve created?”
“We’re here to eat donuts, not to discuss feelings.”
I hold up two fingers. “This will take two minutes.”
He squares his body to mine. “Two minutes we don’t have.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“Well, I say this—I have the keys to the car, and I’m not taking you back to the office until you answer me.”
He almost grins. “I’ll call an Uber.”
I sigh dramatically. “Just answer the question, Wade.”
He rolls his neck, his eyes glued to mine. I’m not sure what his reaction is going to be but, dammit, I think I might win this round.
We step to the side to let a woman out of Judy’s. She’s carrying a box. She nods politely at me but stutter steps when she sees Wade.
“Oh!” she says, her face breaking out into a full smile. “Excuse me.”
I roll my eyes at Wade’s total obliviousness to her attempted come-on.
When the woman is down the sidewalk, Wade turns to me.
I have to catch my breath.
His face is lit up. The lines around his mouth are invisible. His brow isn’t furrowed in agitation. He almost looks like a different man—still gorgeous and striking. Just … different.
“When I show someone a design I’ve created for them, I’m energized,” he says, his voice low. “It’s a hit of dopamine. I … I feel a connection to them.” He shifts his weight. “I’ve hopefully transferred their dreams and wishes into a tangible item, and that’s … there’s nothing better than that.”
A softness settles in his words. It washes over my heart. I don’t move, don’t speak as he nibbles on his bottom lip.
I’m not sure that he’s ever verbalized this to someone. I’m not positive that he’s ever thought it through to himself. But as the realization hits him that he’s just said this out loud, to me, he clears his throat, and—poof!—the vulnerability is gone.
I spring into action before the moment is lost.
“That is how I feel when I look at someone through my camera,” I say. “I crave that hit of dopamine. To think that someone trusts me enough to capture their emotions—to see them without any distractions …” I suck in a breath. “I get to peek into someone’s soul and that’s such a beautiful thing.”
I don’t move, don’t breathe, don’t even dare to blink while Wade contemplates what I said.
His body stills and then, ever-so-slowly, his shoulders relax.
“Will you at least look at them?” I ask, extending my camera toward him. “Just see you like I just saw you?”
He starts to speak but stops.
“Fine,” I say, resolved. “If you really want me to delete them—”
“I’ll make a deal with you.”
Really? “Okay.”
He shifts his weight again. “I’ll let you keep the pictures if you let me take a photograph of you.”
What?
He reaches for the camera. I’m not certain what’s going on, but I hand it to him.
“Do you want me to pose?” I joke, trying to lighten him up. “Like this?” I lay my palm up on my forehead like a dramatic pin-up girl.
He tries so hard not to be entertained.
“Stand in the middle of the sidewalk,” he says. “With your back to Paddy’s.”
I walk around him in order to stand where indicated. As I do, his hand brushes my side.
My body registers the contact before my brain has time to prepare. I exhale an inaudible moan at the circus that takes up shop in my stomach.
I ignore the chaos rippling along my skin and get into position.
One foot slightly in front of the other. Stand tall. Create distance between my body and my arm.
I lean slightly forward and look toward the street.
“Look at me,” Wade says.
“Oh, you’re going for a portrait?”
His face stays blank.
“Fine, fine.” I adjust my position and look into the camera.
A car blasts its horn on the street. The scents of food from Paddy’s grows, swirling through the air like a kite. A group of people laughs as they walk down the other side of the street, but all of that fades away.
I haven’t been on this side of the camera much. Being the subject when Wade Mason is the photographer is different than the handful of times I’ve allowed someone this much access to me.
Because that’s how it feels—like he has access to me.
I can feel him watching me. The heat of his gaze blazes across my body. My chest rises and falls at a quick, anxious pace, and I know he can see it if he looks.
Not knowing what he’s looking at, what he’s thinking, what he’s capturing amplifies my anxiety, and I’m the one who breaks.
I stick my tongue out at him and walk his way.
He lowers the camera and smiles. I wish I would’ve captured that on film.
“Get what you were after?” I ask, taking the camera back from him.
“Did you?”
His question feels loaded but I’m not in a place to start trying to piece through it. So, I ignore it. Wade is too … complicated. Insightful. And he’s seen enough—taken enough—from me today.
Time to move things along, Dara.
“Are you ready for the best donut that you’ve ever eaten?” I ask instead.
“It won’t be hard to accomplish that, considering I’ve eaten maybe five in my life.”
I gasp. “You’re joking?”
“You act like that’s a crime of some sort.”
“Basically, it is.” I narrow my eyes playfully. “It’s definitely a red flag.”
He shakes his head and leads me to the door.
Judy’s is empty except for the smell of cinnamon and yeast. I take a deep breath and sigh.
“That’s the best smell ever,” I say.
“It reminds me of my mother’s house during the holidays.”
My heart squeezes because it does the same for me.
“Hello, there.” Judy, a round little woman with silver hair, comes to the front of the store. She wipes her hands on a white apron. “May I help you?”
“We’re here for donuts,” I say.
She laughs. “Of course, you are. I haven’t seen you around here for a while, Dara. How are you, sweetie?”
Judy pulls me into a quick, warm hug. It feels good to have physical contact with someone.
“I’ve been good,” I tell her. “How about you?”
“Well, I’m still kickin’, so I’ll take it.” She laughs and turns her attention to Wade. “I’ve seen you before. You’re a Mason, aren’t you?”
Wade nods and tosses her a restrained grin. “Wade Mason, ma’am. You’re Hollis’s grandmother.”
Her laughter gets louder. “I love that boy. Yes, I’m his honorary grandmother. I’m glad you remembered me. I was at your mother’s house for Blaire’s bridal shower. Larissa brought me.”
He nods. “I hope you enjoyed your time with them.”
“I did. Very much. Your mother is a lovely woman. All of the women in your family, actually.” She glances at me and grins. “And those men—whoo we! But you obviously know that, having snagged one yourself.”
I laugh, but my face heats to a nuclear level. “Ah, no. That’s not … what this is.”
Wade’s stare from beside me doesn’t help.
“So, do you have any cinnamon sugar cake donuts left?” I ask, pleading with her silently to move the conversation along.
She nods. “Get your butts in a seat, and I’ll bring them over.”
Wade and I walk to a corner booth beneath a flamingo picture and sit.
Neither one of us speaks. I don’t even look at him.
If I would’ve known that he knew Judy, I wouldn’t have brought him here.
Judy has no filter and is a major flirt at seventy-five years old.
I could’ve predicted this type of situation unfolding.
“Small world,” Wade says just loud enough for me to hear.
I place my camera next to me and then inhale deeply before looking up at him. “That it is.”
He sits back in his seat. “Do you make friends everywhere you go?”
“Why?”
He shrugs.
“Well, I don’t know about friends, but, yeah, I usually walk out of a place and know someone’s name … or life history.” I laugh. “It’s a much nicer way to live than the alternative.”
“Which is?”
I lean forward. “Stuck in your head. Alone. Not living your best life.”
“What does that mean to you?” He quirks a brow. “What does living your best life mean to you?”
I shrug. “Happiness, I guess. Having people around me to share experiences with. Feeling fulfilled and that my life has a purpose.”
Judy sets two oversized donuts and two cups of coffee down but is pulled away to another customer before she has the chance to potentially embarrass me again—thank God.
“What does it mean to you?” I ask.
He picks up his coffee and holds it in his hands. “I’m not sure.”
My eyes go wide.
“What?” he asks.
“I’m surprised you gave me an honest answer.”
“Do you think I lie to you?”
I pinch a piece of donut off the one closest to me. “No, but you don’t really share a lot with me either.”
“I have nothing to share.”
“Okay,” I say, calling him out without saying it outright.
He exhales. “What would you like me to share?”
“Simple. What makes you happy?” I pop a piece of the donut in my mouth. “What does living your best life mean?” I grin. “Why do you shy away from intimacy in relationships?”
“Not that again,” he gruffs.
“I’m using it to prove a point. I doubt you ever share anything meaningful.” At least not with me.
“We talk about house designs. You’re my client. What’s meaningful to our relationship is me knowing where you like to sleep at night.”
My hand stills in the air with a piece of donut in it.
He sets his coffee down slowly, his gaze piercing mine.
“Do you really want to know that?” I ask.
The air between us is heavy. The tension is thick. Wade presses his lips together as his eyelids hood.
I’m afraid to press any further because I’m not sure if he’s going to tell me he does want to know via the innuendo that I don’t think he meant to imply or if he’s going to get up and walk out and take an Uber as he threatened earlier.
“I shy away from intimacy in relationships …” He blows out a breath. The action seems to change his line of thinking because he relaxes, and a smirk graces his lips. “Because people start asking nosy questions about things they don’t really want to know the answers to.”
He takes a napkin from the container on the table, picks up his donut, and grabs his coffee. “Now let’s go, or I’m going to be late for my next meeting.”
“Are you eating that in my car?” I ask, finding my equilibrium again.
He gives me a look. “I’ll use the pizza box as a table. Get your stuff. I’ll go pay.”
I watch him walk with authority toward the cash register. Judy is all too happy to meet him there. I grab my camera and start to get up but pause.
After a quick glance to make sure Wade’s busy, I swipe through the pictures I took of him.
They’re as good as I expected, and the contrast between him and the playful backdrop is perfection.
But as I sort through them, there’s one picture—the second from the last—that catches my attention. It’s just before he catches me snapping away.
He’s mid-turn and appears to be just about to say something. There’s a free, easy, happy look on his face.
I’d give anything to know what he was thinking in that photo.
“Thanks for coming in,” Judy says, pulling me back to the present. “Come see me again, Dara.”
I look up to see Wade waiting for me by the door.
“I will,” I say, getting to my feet. “Thanks, Judy.”
The nerves that I expect to feel as I walk toward Wade aren’t there. Instead, there’s a peace, a contentment that settles through my body.
Despite what I insinuated, there might be more openness in Wade Mason than I expected.
But does it matter if I’m a client? Does it matter at all?
“Are you ready?” he asks as he opens the door.
I stop and look at him. He’s so mercurial. And delicious. I smile.
And, for some reason unbeknownst to me, he smiles back.