Page 61 of The Wild Card
Leaning back into him, I check the camera settings to keep me from acknowledging the sudden rush of feelings brought on by his touch. It’s dark, but the moon casts a soft glow, and I canmake out both of our faces well enough. I settle back into Collin a little more and he tightens his hand a little on my waist.
“Actually, can you hold the phone? You’ve got longer arms.”
“Is it already recording?” he asks, lifting his hand from the fence to take the phone. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll edit everything later. Just hold it like that so you can see both of us. There.”
“What am I supposed to say?” Collin asks. “What are we doing?”
“Your nervousness is cute.” I tilt my head back into his chest, looking up until he meets my gaze. “But you don’t need to be nervous with me.”
“I’m not nervous with you. I don’t ever do social media or these kinds of videos. I just don’t want to mess this up.”
“Hey—relax.” I lift my hand and touch his facial hair. It’s softer than I would have thought. “Tell me about this because I’ve been wondering. The first two times I met you, you didn’t have a beard.”
In the dark, it’s hard to read the expression in Collin’s eyes. “It’s a recent thing. I thought maybe I wanted a change. Do you like it?”
I do, but I think I prefer him without. It would be hard to find any look that didn’t suit Collin Graham.
“That’s not really my decision to make.”
One corner of his mouth lifts in the tiniest of smiles. “I think as my girlfriend, it’s exactly your decision to make.”
I like the way he says girlfriend. Notfake. Even if the word is implied, hanging like a curtain between us.
“I like you both ways,” I tell him, which is true.
But he reads me like the truth is printed on my face in eight-hundred-point font. “You prefer me clean-shaven,” he says. “Noted.”
“Stop trying to read my mind.”
“Stop making me have to by not telling me the truth,” he teases. His fingertips flutter at my waist, tickling, and I giggle, grabbing at his hand to stop him.
Only then do we both seem to realize that he’s still holding up the phone, filming. I glance at the screen, surprised to see that we’re mostly still in the frame.
“Look at you,” I say, “making an excellent cameraman with a steady hand. Well done.”
“Thanks?”
I pluck the phone from his hand, pulling it closer and making sure our faces are still in view as I turn, pressing a quick kiss to his jaw. Then I stop recording and turn off the phone.
“I think I got what I need,” I tell Collin. I should step away now, and he should let go of my waist. But neither of us move.
“You sure?” he asks, and I don’t miss the way his night-dark gaze slides to my mouth.
No.Not sure at all.
CHAPTER 13
Molly
After filmingour fake hard launch—which had the kind ofrealtension so thick it would have taken a machete to cut through it—Collin and I ended the night with a slightly awkward goodbye and a perfunctory exchanging of phone numbers. He waited until I got inside the stairwell leading up to the loft where I’ve been staying with Chase and Harper—a perfect gentleman.
They were both asleep, and I stayed up late editing the video and thinking about Collin. Kind of hard not to when I’m watching and reliving the night.
I ended up with videos, plural. One for public consumption and one just for me. The one for social media is trimmed down so it ends up only being about nine seconds. The one for me is several minutes long, and the only thing I do is trim the beginning and end and boost the volume so I can better hear what we’re saying to each other.
I mute the version for social media, forgo any filters, and add a popular love song by an up-and-coming new female artist Ilike. I keep the caption simple, only two words: new beginnings. The hashtags take a little more thought, and I land on using only hard launch and Collin’s full name.
