Page 104 of Safe With You
“Come here.”
I stayed where I was.
“Why?”
“Because I want to show you something.”
“That sentence has gotten me in trouble before.”
“With a photographer?”
“No.”
“Then statistically, you’re probably safe.”
I laughed and walked over.
Ellis held the camera between us, and I leaned closer to see the screen. Our shoulders brushed. He didn’t move away.
Neither did I.
“You gonna show me the picture or just make me stand here?”
“I’m getting there.”
“You’re taking your time.”
His mouth curved. “You complaining?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
He looked at me then, just long enough that I became a little too aware of how close we were.
Then he looked back at the camera and pulled up one of the photographs.
For a second, I didn’t realize what I was looking at.
Me.
I was standing near the romance shelves with the book still open in my hands. My head was slightly turned, curls falling over one shoulder, and I was smiling at something outside the frame.
At him, probably.
But that wasn’t what made me quiet.
I looked...
Like me.
Not the version of myself I knew how to produce when somebody told me to smile.
Not the one that automatically straightened her back and sucked in her stomach the second a phone came out.
Just me.
“Keep that one.”
Ellis glanced at me.
