Page 62 of Save the Game

“Mm?”

“I’m going to embarrass myself and ruin your bedspread if we don’t wrap this up.”

“You’re lying on a towel,” he reminds me. I lift my head up to look at him over my shoulder and he laughs at whatever he sees in my face. Abandoning my legs, he steps off the bed and comes back to sit beside me, eyeing my ribs. “We can’t do anything tonight, Luke, it’ll hurt.”

Pushing myself up so that I’m propped up on my elbows, I give him an incredulous look. “Half of my bloodstream is ibuprofen right now, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” he says with trepidation. I push myself back until I can pull the towel off the bed and toss it to the floor. Moving back until I’m in a seated position with my back against the headboard, I face Max. His eyes track over my torso and down over my legs, heat crawling across the tops of his cheekbones. He rubs a hand over the bed, looking down and breaking eye contact with me.

“I’m fine,” I tell him, “but we can just hang out, that’s all right. Would you pass me my phone? And come sit up here by me, I want to show you something.”

He gets up and retrieves my jeans from the floor, pulling my phone from the pocket and handing it to me before he settles next to me, leg pressed against mine. Reaching over and grasping his chin, I pull his face toward me for a thank-you-for-the-massage kiss, before unlocking my phone and scrolling through my albums.

“What are you looking for?”

“I finished working on the beach pictures from our first date. I wanted to show you,” I tell him, before finding the correct album and handing it to him.

He holds the phone close to his face, tucking his chin as he swipes through the photos. He’s giving it his undivided attention, so I take the opportunity to give him my own—performing a visual check of the parts of him I can see. He’s filled out in these past few weeks, the byproduct of eating in his weight category for the first time in over a year. His skin looks fuller, too, the blueish tinge gone from under his eyes, and the sallow complexion covered by a healthy flush. I hope it means he’s happier and not feeling quite as adrift as he’d been before.

“Oh,” he gasps, and I lean over to see which picture he’s stopped on, even though I’m pretty sure I know. Sure enough, it’s the one I took of him as he was walking toward me across the sand, hands full and hair feathered out around the sides of his ball cap. His feet are bare and there is color high in his face: embarrassment at being photographed was what I had originally thought, but after getting to know him I realize it had nothing to do with the camera and everything to do with being the center of attention. He would have been just as embarrassed if I’d simply stood there and watched him.

“I didn’t think you would keep this one,” he says, and I scoff.

“I’m a photographer, Max, I appreciate beautiful things. I’m not going to delete a picture of you.” Shaking my head, I nudge him with my shoulder. “It’s a good picture, right?”

“Yeah,” he says, handing the phone back. “Those are really good, Luke.”

I shrug, accepting the phone but setting it off to the side on his nightstand. “Not hard to take good pictures of a beach sunrise, or handsome men.”

“Just accept the compliment.”

“You’re right,” I laugh, settling in closer to him and pressing our sides together, “thank you.”

“I have a picture of you, too,” he says, and immediately flushes a deep crimson. I sit up, turning toward him and grinning.

“Maxy.”

“I took it while you were sleeping,” he admits, looking properly embarrassed. I tip my head back and laugh.

“Let me see it, you creep.” I wait for him to grab his phone, peeking over as he unlocks the screen. “Is it set as your background photo?”

“No, shut up.” Shaking his head, he hands me his phone. It is indeed a photograph of me sleeping. Sleeping in this bed, in fact—arm tucked under the pillow and curled toward where Max was obviously sleeping next to me. My arm is stretched awkwardly forward, hand flat on the bed, as though it had been wrapped over another body. I look up at Max, who’s watching me carefully as though worried I might be pissed that he took a picture of me without my knowing. I hand the phone back.

“Why were you awake?”

He looks surprised at the question, and it takes him a second to answer as he decides whether to demure or tell the truth. He tries to shrug it off, smiling in a self-depreciating sort of way. “I had a nightmare.”

“You did? You should have woken me up.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t want to bother you. Besides, look how cute you are when you sleep.”

“I wish you’d wake me up if you need me. I hadn’t realized you were still having trouble sleeping,” I tell him, frowning. I was, in fact, just ten minutes ago thinking about how well-rested he’d been looking.

“I did need you, and you were there. I just…laid back down and went to sleep. So, you did help.”

“Mm. You can wake me up, though, okay? It’s not a bother, and you should know that by now,” I gently chide him. “Even if you do take creepy stalker photos of me.”

“Well, we can’t all be professional photographers,” he says, looking at the picture and smiling to himself. “You know what, maybe I will put this as my background.”

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