Page 71 of Most Likely to Match
I set the phone in its stand and open the camera. I pose, my chin in my hand, and smile, take a few photos, and send all of them to him.
Lover: not that kind of photo
I’ve long lost the impulse to check my photos first. Dean says photography isn’t about capturing a beautiful thing. It’s about finding a real thing. “Real is beautiful,” he says. “That’s a successful photo.”
I double check the ones I sent anyway, in case arealbooger was hanging out of my nose in one of them or something, but they’re all normal. They’re fine. Real.
What kind of photo?
I wish there was a way to inflect suspicion in my text messages, because before he’s even started his response, I’m suspicious of what he’s about to say to me.
I’m not sending you a CLAMGRAM
Lover: I want a clamgram
I laugh as he sends a series oflols across my screen.
Lover: maybe I should take the pic instead, though. Can you meet me somewhere?
I glance at the time on my phone.
Aren’t we meeting for dinner soon?
I type with suspicious intonation. Instead of dignifying me with a response, he sends me an address: 789 Yonge Street. I stare at it for a moment, because the address isn’t immediately recognizable, but I have this persistent sense that I’ve been there before. Finally, I give up and type it into my search bar.
YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO THE TORONTO REFERENCE LIBRARY?
The library is still openwhen I arrive but is supposed to close in thirty minutes. I loiter for a minute or two outside, the pavement already drying from dark to light gray, the heat from the sun burning away any residual cool storm air. Eventually, when he doesn’t join me out here, I go inside to wait in the air-conditioned lobby.
He never said where he’d be, and he’s not answering any clarifying texts, but after a ten-minute wait, I start to wander. It’s part nostalgia, part rationality that takes me up to the fifth floor. That spot in the stacks is the only place that has any significant meaning to either of us, so I might as well check there.
Dean stands at the back of the stacks, leaning against the wall, looking down at his camera when I turn the corner. He smiles at me when I step into the stack with him. “Hey.”
“Whatever you have planned for me here,” I say, crossing my arms in mock authority, “just do it to me when we get home. I don’t think the librarians want their books exposed to whatever depraved activities you have stashed away in your mind.”
He huffs a laugh as he lifts the camera to his face and focuses the lens on me. “I’m not the one with an exhibitionism kink.”
I grin but don’t argue. He’s not right. But he’s not wrong, either. I think we just bring out the best in each other.
He steps closer and closer, snapping photos as he moves. He stops a few feet away and sets the camera on a span of empty shelf. “I thought maybe,” he says, a tremor in his voice, “we could take a photo together?”
“Here?” I ask. I look down at my short-sleeve button-up white blouse and the mid-calf flowy navy blue skirt. My hair is probably a humid, puffy mess, and I didn’t bother putting makeup on for work this morning because it feels like it will melt off my face the moment I step out into the summer heat. “Don’t you want to take advantage of golden hour or whatever?” I ask.
He raises an eyebrow. “What? You want to go do photos in the park again?”
I shrug. “I at least would like a little warning. What are these pics supposed to be for? Headshots?” Because if that’s the case, I definitely need to find some lip gloss and a hairbrush.
Dean shakes his head, tugging the strap of my bag off my shoulder and setting it gently on the floor. “Chloe, they’re couple photos,” he says slowly. “They’re just for us.”
“I thought you were taking me out for dinner, though.” I’m hungry and I was promised falafel and tabouleh.
“Chloe.” He puts his hands on my shoulders and takes a deep breath. I copy him. We watched a video once of a woman who came every time her Dom kissed her on her forehead. I think Dean might have trained me to do the same thing but for calming breaths. “They’re just a few photos. Then we’ll eat. I promise.”
“Sorry,” I say quietly. I tug at the hem of his short-sleeve button-up shirt, left untucked from his blue slacks. We’ve accidentally dressed alike. Though he has a hat— likely with some pithy joke embroidered across it— tucked into the back pocket of his pants.
“I fucked up the last ones,” he says, his voice equally quiet, as he moves my body into the position he wants in front of thecamera. He plays with my hair, putting it over one shoulder, the other, then deciding it was best behind my ears and down my back like I had it.
“You didn’t fuck them up,” I insist. “Fucked me up, maybe.”
