Page 34 of A Photo Finish
She pushes her chair out and stands. “Switch seats.”
I want to say it’s fine, but the truth is I’m utterly relieved by the prospect. Now she’s standing beside me, looking down and waving her hand like she’s shooing me out of my seat. So I go and don’t ask questions. I just let myself accept the way I’m feeling rather than beating myself up about it. Trixie would approve.
“Better?” she asks as we both settle into our new chairs.
I look away like it’s no big deal. It is. Not a single person in my life has ever picked up on anything like this before. On my nervousness around adjusting to civilian life. On how I avoid pieces of garbage on the ground, just in case. My refusal to let anyone else drive. I liked to think I didn’t have post-traumatic stress disorder. Instead, I would say the military trained me to be ultra-cautious—Trixie didn’t agree.
“Yep.” I look away, feeling a little . . . I don’t know. Vulnerable maybe?
“My brother is a veteran, you know.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
She winks playfully, but her tone isn’t a match. “You never asked.”
That blow lands. She’s right. I asked almost nothing about her personal life in the year we spent corresponding. It started out that I didn’t care to know. And then it turned into me knowing that if I asked, I would care. But I cared anyway. I kept telling myself that people don’t fall in love on the internet. They don’t developrealfeelings. But looking at her now, I feel sure that what I’m feeling is pretty damn real. And it’s also a pretty damn terrible idea.
“Do you know Billie calls you G.I. Joe?” she blurts out, obviously trying to fill the space.
I can’t help but laugh at that. A low, deep rumble that feels warm and unfamiliar in my chest. Billie is a funny duck, and her ranting has come to seem endearing to me. “I can totally envision her calling me that.”
Violet laughs, her eyes all wide and shocked looking.
“What?”
“You . . . you just laughed. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh.”
My head quirks as I lean in a bit. “I laugh.”
Violet crosses her arms and leans closer across the small table. “Did it hurt?”
My lips twitch. But I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of making me laugh again. Mostly, I want to thank her for ditching the veteran talk. For not looking at me with pity. For just throwing me a fucking bone without starting the Spanish Inquisition into my past.
But I don’t. I shake my head instead.
“Get a drink.” Her eyes are twinkling now.
“Beer is fattening.”
Violet busts out the most unladylike snort. I had no idea someone so small and dainty could honk like this. And then her face is flaming as she slaps both palms over her mouth and dissolves into a fit of giggles.
I stare back at her, trying to look unimpressed, even though her amusement is contagious. Even though she’s so fucking beautiful that it hurts.
“I think your abs will survive to see another day,” she gasps out from behind her hands. And then she clamps them down harder over her mouth, and her eyes bulge out of her head, like she can’t quite believe she just blurted that out. She looksmortified.
And I can’t help it. I laugh. A genuine laugh. It erupts from me like an animal that’s been caged up for too long. Like a racehorse shooting out of the gate.
I watch her face transform from embarrassment to pure glee. The look on her face? It heats me from my core. Like a spark on dry grass that sends flames dancing across arid land. Fast and out of control. After all, wildfires are dangerous.
The waitress finally makes her way back over. You’d swear this place was packed, and she had to collect my water out of Ruby Creek itself. She slides Violet her dark frothy beer just as Violet quirks one eyebrow at me.
“I’ll . . .” Ugh. Am I about to get roped into this? “I’ll have one of what she’s having.”
I’ll work out twice tomorrow.
I barely feel the waitress’s hand land on my shoulder. Unsolicited touching is something that would normally annoy me, but right now, looking at the woman across from me, I hardly even notice. I vaguely hear her say, “No problem, hun.”
Violet presses her lips together so hard it must hurt, except she doesn’t look in pain. She looks like she’s going to break right open and beam at me and is trying not to. She looks like she did that day after she won the Denman Derby.Happy. And for once, I don’t want to ruin it. For once, I don’t want to lie down and bask in my own shit.
