Page 2 of Camera Chemistry
“Of course you can. I’ll be back in town next Wednesday. Want to grab dinner with Lacey and give me an answer?”
“Sure. If I say yes to the shoot, what day do you have planned?”
“A week from Saturday. Are you free?”
“On actual Valentine’s Day? Oh my god, Jer. That’s so cliché.”
“After the shoot, I’ll buy you dinner. We can get drunk and laugh about what a good time you had.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bribe at all.”
“Would it help if I told you I’ve vetted the guy and he seems like a catch?”
“I’ll take that into consideration, but don’t get too excited.”
“Love you, Mags.”
As soon as I hang up, my phone buzzes with a message from him. I open the link and am directed to a website featuring the type of photos he must be envisioning. I scroll through the page, mesmerized.
Damn him.
Jeremiah was right.
A story is unfolding on my screen, and it looksfun. The couple in the shoot is positioned away from each other in the first images, wearing pinched smiles and exhibiting awkward body language. They’re tense, the distance between them—literally and figuratively—is unmistakable. The deeper down the page I go, a shift happens. It’s noticeable, an obvious change in the dynamic. The snapshots show a natural progression, like the metamorphosis of an actual couple and the stages of their relationship.
Soon, they’re laughing, rigidity relaxing into familiarity. His gaze lingers on the corner of her mouth in a black and white portrait. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip as she watches him talk with his hands. The tension, palpable even through a digital image, ishot.
Another scroll down, and the scene changes again. There’s less clothing. The woman, a curvy girl wearing a navy blue bra and underwear set, is positioned on the man’s lap. A bulge is visible through the unzipped jeans that sit low on his hips. Curls of hair peek out from the waistband of his boxer briefs. He presses a kiss to the column of her throat, staring at her like she hung the moon. Her head tilts back, hands gripping his shoulders like her life depends on it.
Heat inundates my face. The session is hardly the most raunchy thing I’ve seen. I watch porn. I read filthy romance books with every kink known to man. Still, it’s as if I’m interrupting a private, sensual moment between arealcouple intimately acquainted with the other’s body, mind, and soul, no part undiscovered.
I click my phone closed and fan myself, the warmth yet to subside.
When was the last time anyone looked at me that way? Stars in their eyes, hands frantically clawing for me, not a care in the damn world about what’s happening around them? A tornado could come by and they wouldn’t realize it, too enamored with the sight in front of them.
Years, probably.
Maybe a decade or more.
Maybe never, if we’re being honest, and that’s really fuckingsad.
A thousand thoughts sweep through the turntables of my mind. Jeremiah is an established and well-liked photographer. He has over a million social media followers, and his posts garner thousands of likes and comments. He’s collaborated with some of the most prolific figures in the modeling industry and is damn good at his job, possessing a true talent for finding beauty in the small moments, the mundane ones others often overlook.
Not Jeremiah, though.
He captures those milliseconds before they become a distant memory, immortalized through the lenses of his expensive Canon and the vintage Polaroid he purchased back in high school; the still-functioning camera is the first he ever bought. A shoot like this is unfamiliar territory for him, but I know he’d knock it out of the park in the way he does everything else: with purpose and intent, resulting in stunning works of art. It’s a high honor he wants me to help, to be an integral part of this project he’s excited about.
Shit.
I know myself. I’m going to say yes to the photo shoot. Maybe this will be good for me. It’ll break up the monotony of my personal life, which lacks any substance. I go to work, I come home, and I repeat the boring cycle.
After a nasty divorce three years ago, I’ve sworn off relationships and dating, vehemently avoiding men at all costs. The celibacy is self-imposed, preferring the use of my vibrator over the mess another heartbreak would bring. The photo shoot isn’t a date by any means. It’s a moral obligation to help a friend. Besides, it’s not like the guy and I would hit it off and fall in love.
That kind of fairy tale only happens in romance novels. If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that my life mirrors a tragedy rather than a comedy, not a single happily ever after in sight.
TWO
AIDEN
