Page 56 of Little Devil

“But I want you to be.”

“I don’t care what you want.”

“What do you want?”

She blinks at that, frowning at me like I’m the only person who’s ever bothered to ask her. “What?”

“You heard me,” I tease, closing the small distance between us to crowd her space. “What do you want, Jordyn James?”

“I..” she trails off. “I don’t..”

“Is it Washington?” I guess, somehow knowing she’s not ready to say it herself. “You wanna go to Washington to study photography?”

She hesitates but nods once, chewing the inside of her cheek like she’s fighting tears.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t go, Xan,” she whispers, and the sadness in her voice breaks my fucking heart in two. “My mom won’t pay for Washington and they won’t give me a student loan because she earns too much money. I can’t get a bank loan because I don’t have the credit or a full time job to pay it back. I’m going to Princeton.”

The finality of her statement makes me feel sick and I take her face in my hands, gently swiping my thumb over her cheek to catch the single tear there.

“Xan..”

“Will you show me?” I ask softly, pulling her in to rest my forehead against hers. “Please?”

She stares at me and I’m almost sure she’s about to tell me to fuck off, but then she steps back and tilts her head for me to follow her. I do and she looks around to make sure no one’s watching us, discreetly heading for the back corner where it’s less busy. As soon as we’re out of sight, she takes my hand and leads me to the science fiction section, pulling me down to sit on the floor beside her. I lean back against the bookshelf behind us and she takes the notebook out of her bag, pointing a single finger at my face with a fake glare.

“If you laugh at me, I’ll never fuck you again.”

“I’m not gonna laugh at you,” I assure her, wrapping my arm around her neck to kiss her temple. “Unless you suck really bad. Then I’ll probably laugh at you.”

She jabs her elbow into my ribs and I grin, taking the book she passes me to rest it on my lap. I flip it open and look at the first page, carefully running my finger over the picture of the stars in the night sky. The moon looks huge, almost like she zoomed on it as much as she possibly could, but somehow the picture still looks clear and bright and really fucking beautiful.

“How did you do that?”

“My camera was really expensive,” she jokes, leaning into me to rest her head on my shoulder. “Keep going.”

I do as I’m told and turn to the next one, finding page after page of cities and sunrises and people – several different people I’ve never seen before of all shapes and sizes, ages and races, most of them standing on the beach with the sun and sea behind them. I get to a page about a quarter of the way through and find two pictures side by side, one of a black woman posing in a dark green swimsuit with her hands on her wide hips and an awkward look on her face, then one of the same woman laughing her ass off with her head tipped back between her shoulders.

“What happened there?”

“I told her she’s got a nice ass.”

I laugh at that, rubbing my hand up and down over her arm while I turn to the next one. I don’t know much about photography and editing and all that stuff, but I’m pretty sure these aren’t photoshopped. She’s embraced their imperfections, kept every curve and blemish and stretch mark and made these people look proud of themselves and the bodies they live in.

It’s amazing.

She’s amazing.

“Baby, these are incredible.”

“Really?” she asks, sounding genuinely surprised by that.

“Yeah. Really,” I stress, pointing to the one of the young couple rolling around on the sand together in their swimsuits. “What’s their story?”

“I met the girl in Miami on spring break,” she explains, grinning at the memory. “I was shooting her solo for a while and she kept looking at the guy behind me. I knew she thought he was cute so I called him over and told her to wrap his arms around her from behind. He did it and she looked like she wanted to die, but I kept going and they got really into it. It was awesome.”

“They’re strangers?” I ask, pulling my brows in while I look through their series of pictures. “They look like they’re in love.”

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