Page 31 of Before Now

Eyes I haven’t even seen.

With about fifteen minutes left in my free period, I check to ensure no one’s around before slipping in my earbuds. It kills the illusion of not being on a table in the high school’s outdoor commons. At least I escaped for a little while.

I lower the phone from my face to answer and then flip the camera so I can show Foster mine while he shows me his. The dimming sky and trees in Prague obviously superior to everything in Ohio.

“Wait.” Foster’s camera dips from pretty leaves to his shadow on a worn walkway. “I want the first view back. The school uniform does it for me.”

I roll my eyes. “I want the first view back too. Shouldn’t it be the skirt you want to see, anyway? Not the white button-up?”

“Show me the skirt, then, Remi,” he rasps into my ears.

The way his voice lowers on my name hits in far too many places. I take a deep breath, the October wind fully responsible for my nipples hardening. My next sentence sounds like the October wind is messing with it too.

“What did we say about the flirting, Foster?”

He shows me the sky again, growing pinker with sunset soon. “You asked if we could make it through a single interaction without it. I immediately told you no.”

I sigh. “I liked you better when you followed other women’s skirts and didn’t talk to me.”

“You’re a beautiful liar, Remi.” He’s quiet for a second and then, “I haven’t thought about you at all today,” he says. “Now we can be liars together.”

Warm tingles and all fluttery.

Foster’s camera slowly descends from the trees to the park he’s in and finally settles on worn-in dark jeans. He’s sitting on a bench, a sneak of brown boots below. Then he waits, not saying a word but so loud.

He’s kept his word about no faces since Paris. I’ve seen his shin so he could prove he ran into a bike rack because I distracted him. He caught his fingers a few times other than at the café, dragging them through wet paint at an interactive exhibit, thumbing through a guestbook spanning fifty years. The faceless reflection of him that shows up any time he calls.

My lashes flutter closed. I breathe. Without giving myself time to overthink, I sit up. The view I give him cascades down from the branches above to the rest of the commons until it lands on the green plaid of my skirt.

“Now…” He raises his phone, revealing more of his leg, more bench, more boot.

“You saw the skirt,” I tell him.

“Not enough. I want to see you.”

I am so screwed when it comes to him. I can’t even fight it right now.

I lift my phone higher, exposing from the top of my skirt where my white shirt tucks in all the way to the few inches of skin below the hem before the rest of my legs disappear over the table’s edge.

Foster’s silent long enough, I almost move the camera from feeling self-conscious over two inches of me. But then he audibly sighs. “Fuck, this was a bad idea,” he whispers.

“Agreed. It’s never happening again.” I leave the phone in place, though.

“I never want it to, Remi.” Foster not only meets my lie; he adds another one. “I have no desire to see every goddamn inch of you.”

* * *

Only my maroon-paintedtoes breach the surface of the pink rose-scented water. I wait until the rest stills around me in the tub, the surface glassy smooth and iridescent. After a final check that nothing else shows, I send the picture and then instantly close my eyes to hide from the guy more than an ocean away. Even after my phone vibrates, it takes me a moment to look at Foster’s message.

I might have a newly discovered fetish for toes. Unrelated to your text obviously.

I smile and sink deeper into the water, about to put my phone on the ledge when he sends another.

Touching, licking, sucking. In case you wondered about my urges.

…biting.

I regret everything. Stop talking.

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