Page 14 of In Frame
Sam liked to think he wouldn’t’ve taken that picture, if he’d been there. He liked to think he still had some morals. Some sense of decency. The look on Colby’s face—
That same damn moral sense kicked him in the back of the head and said: you think you wouldn’t’ve? With the money you could’ve gotten for that shot? The money that could’ve gone to Carlos’s university tuition, Cynthea’s insulin, Thea and Diana’s school textbooks? You think you wouldn’t’ve clicked that shutter, sold that piece of your soul, for your family?
He knew. If he was being honest with himself, he knew. He’d known as much for years.
He’d been twenty-one years old for all of two weeks when his mother and stepfather had died in that car crash. When he’d fought like hell to get custody of his half-siblings, because someone had to, because there’d been no other family and no money, because there’d never been money, but he wasn’t aboutto let them get split up—
He’d always been good with a camera. Good at composition, angles, images that made people pause to look again. He’d won a few contests, local and statewide, with glimpses of Nevada cities and stones and sky and life, back alleys with tantalizing colorful artwork, a sunrise sprawl of suburban homes from a vantage point up on an old bridge. He’d been paying his way through college—a couple of scholarships, a few more loans, every odd job he could take, scraping and stretching but making it all work, knowing his mom and stepdad were proud, even if a bit worried about the fine arts degree instead of something more practical and less woven into his soul…
He’d dropped out of school. He’d found a job as night security for a rare book dealer’s shop, which had at least been a vaguely interesting place to work. They’d kept the house, but only barely; he’d been paying the mortgage out of what little savings his mom and Jack had had, watching accounts dwindle, getting Carlos ready for college and paying for tests and application fees, panicking over the twins turning thirteen and asking their oldest brother questions about sex and boys, making breakfasts and lunches and dinners and sometimes going over to the old local gym after hours just to punch a bag and scream…
He’d tried. He’d kept trying.
He’d known, three years in and dragging himself back to home and bed as the sky lightened, that they were sinking. He hadn’t known what to do. What else to try. What might be left to give.
He hadn’t been able to sleep. With all the kids out of the house during the day, he normally attempted to; he couldn’t, then.
He’d taken his phone and gone to the store, on autopilot, mechanical, thinking about cereal and Thea’s sugar levels—
In the parking lot he’d spotted motion outside the seedy motel across the street. A flicker of red hair and a woman’s laugh, a recognizable man’s face. Both actors. Both famous.
He’d looked away—their business, not his—and then he’d realized he was holding his phone, and hewasgood with a camera, and people paid money for pictures like that, didn’t they—
They had. A lot. They’d asked whether he could get more.
Seven years after that, sitting in a historic movie theater in a squishy red plush chair, Sam bit a lip. Watched Leo Whyte get drenched by rain on a silver-screen ship, shouting orders to men, grabbing ropes and hauling sails around himself, all hands on deck and unhesitating, a second in command who men wanted to follow—
Leo Whyte came from a perfectly untroubled upper-middle-class English family, sometimes brought both beaming parents to film premieres, and had almost definitely never skipped a meal in that velvet-suit-wearing life. Leo no doubt believed the world was kind, and happy endings were real, and heroic historic lieutenants got rewarded with prize-money and adorable wives and invitations to visit viscounts in Italy.
Sam glanced at Leo’s head again. The whole audience was swept up in the film: alive and alert, rapt with tension. Leo had turned slightly, watching his co-stars watch the movie instead of looking at himself.
He thought, then, that it hadn’t been a fair thought, about Leo.
Leo Whyte might be flippant and ridiculous and privileged, but also knew about loneliness and loyalty and sacrifice. Maybe Leo’s version of the latter consisted of leaping in front of and distracting a paparazzi nuisance, but that did mean something. Not nothing.
And Sam had seen his eyes, his expression, whencomplimented.
Whengenuinelycomplimented. When wanted, not for the humor or the willingness to lose any shreds of dignity or the undeniable skill on camera, but as himself. Someone with the kind of soul that’d sacrifice every last piece of itself to save someone else, laughing and joking all the way, so that nobody suspected a thing.
Leo Whyte, he thought, was more complicated than most people guessed.
And Leo was too good for him, too clean and shining and untouchable; but Sam had gone to Jameson and sworn up and down and sideways to come back with pictures of Colby Kent and Jason Mirelli at their first-ever red carpet as a couple, pictures of Sir Laurence Taylor, pictures of Kate Fisher’s underpants if that was what Jameson wanted, anything, everything, if he could have an expense account and a trip to London and a way to be there for Leo’s premiere.
Jameson had said yes to all of the above. Expectations sat like lead on Sam’s shoulders. Like unclean lead: heavy and malevolent and dull. Leo Whyte wouldn’t approve of all that tarnish. Too ugly.
But that tarnish had let him be here. He’d been able to see Leo. He’d caught Leo looking at him, just once. He’d waved, though he wasn’t sure those wide hazel eyes had noticed; someone’d come along to usher all the actors inside.
He hoped Leo had seen him. He thought that maybe it’d mean something: someone who’d come for Leo, just for him, not for Colby or Jason or Jillian Poe or Sir Laurence. Someone who’d self-evidently never get to kiss or touch or even stand near Leo Whyte again, but who wanted to do all of those things with his whole idiotic heart, which hadn’t got that memo.
He hoped it would matter somehow. Maybe only for a minute, a second, a heartbeat. But something. Some lifting ofthe weight that hid so well concealed behind those mischievous dryad eyes.
He should watch the film. He didwantto watch the film; he wanted to have an opinion about it, scenes to praise, details to mention, in case—
In case of what, he wondered, and nearly laughed aloud. In case Leo Whyte wants to talk to a random tabloid photographer again? In case he remembers you? Someone who stalked his friends on a street? Someone who kissed him once in a back alley in Las Vegas? When he could have anyone he wanted, men, women, both at once, partners from his world and his career, people who fit into his glittering life?
No. Not worth imagining. Daydreams didn’t come true.
But he was here, and the movie was good, and maybe Leo’d seen him and the sight had led to a smile. That was enough; that’d be enough.
