Candid (True Images Series) (15 page)

When her song died away, we all stood silent. No applause or words would have done justice to the way we felt. Nervously awaiting our reaction, Olivia said, “I call that one
Blown Away.
It’s also going to be the title of my album.”

“Well, then I know the picture we need to take. That is, if you’ll trust me.”

“Completely,” she said simply.

I turned to Lee. “Would you mind helping?”

“Sure,” he said. “Do you need to me to hold that soft box thing again?”

“No, I need you to go put your arms around Olivia.”

His mouth fell open. “What? Why?”

“Because, this is a love song and that’s what’s missing in these pictures – love. Olivia, are you dating anybody? I wouldn’t want some jealous boyfriend coming after me or anything.”

She said she wasn’t and glanced up at Lee’s dumbfounded face through her long eyelashes. “If Lee doesn’t mind, that would be pretty awesome for the cover.”

“Of course it would,” I said, taking Lee’s hand and pulling him over to her.

“Why me?” he asked in desperate whisper.

I whispered back, “Because you’re the hottest guy here and that’s what she needs for this picture.”

“You’re going to owe me,” he warned in my ear as I began to pose them.

I turned them so that the breeze pulled at Olivia’s soft curls and sculpted Lee’s t-shirt to his chest. I had them put their arms around each other, and I tweaked their positions slightly.

Stepping back to look at them, I said, “Olivia, put your cheek against his chest. Yes, just like that. Now Lee, turn your head down and rest your chin on top of her head. Olivia, you’ll need to stand on your tip-toes to make this work right. You’re too short for him to reach you. No, it’s not working…hold on.”

I thought for a minute and then called to Parker and Will. “Hey, can you guys bring one of those rocks over here for Olivia to stand on? I need one that’s about six inches high.”

After a minute, they found one and carried it over for me. I had Olivia step up on it and put them back in their pose. This time, Olivia fit into his embrace exactly the way I wanted her to. I took a few shots to check my settings. I wanted the exposure to be perfect.

 “Now, Olivia, I need you to just barely smile and look over my left shoulder – not at the camera. Get comfortable and don’t move. I’m going to wait for the wind to be just right. Hold it… there.
Got it.”
I looked at the picture on my viewfinder. Excitement bubbled through me. “Oh,
my gosh
, you guys! It’s so beautiful.”

“I’m glad you get such a kick out of seeing me hold another girl,” Lee said. His sarcasm made me laugh.

“Ok, you were a good sport. Now we can have a little fun. Hey everybody, we’re going to take some shots of you as couples. If you don’t mind posing for me, I can sell these through online stock photo companies. Couple pictures are great sellers because people use them for romance covers and picture frames and stuff.”

“Uh, why would I want to be on the cover of a romance novel?” Parker asked.

“Oh, come on. I’ll make sure your face doesn’t
show,
if that’s what you want.”

“Whatever,” Parker said, giving in.

“I thought you said we were going to have fun now?” Lee asked.

I walked over to him, wrapped my arms around his waist, and said, “You mean you wouldn’t enjoy posing with me like this?”

A smile spread slowly across his face. “You mean
,
you’ll be in the pictures, and not just taking them?”

“Exactly.
I’ll set up the shot and put the timer on. We might have to hold our poses for a long time.”

He chuckled. “I’m in.”

“Good. Let’s get going.”

I took several shots of Will and Marisol, then of Parker and Alyssa. I moved everybody over by the rocks and took more couple shots and some individuals. Pretty soon, the others were getting a little bored and decided to climb the bluff to see the view from the top.

“Go ahead,” I urged. “I can use the timer now and get in some shots with Lee.”

When they were gone, I turned to Lee and asked, “Ready?” When he smiled and nodded, I got started. I would set up the shot, start the timer, and race over to get in the pose. During one pose that was similar to the one with Olivia, he said, “You know, this is kind of torture
–  the
kind you enjoy but it drives you crazy,”

“
Shhhh
,” I said.
“The timer’s about to go off.”

Because I was taller than Olivia, I didn’t need a rock to stand on to be able to lay my head against his shoulder. My forehead was just inches away from his neck and my hand was spread against his chest. He seemed to be breathing a little heavy, and when the picture had been taken, we were both reluctant to let go.”

“One more?”
I asked.

He nodded, but said nothing. It was hard to read his expression, but I could sense emotions radiating from him.

 I leaned back against a tall boulder and told Lee to brace his arms on either side of me against the rock. Then I said, “Ok, now lean in close like you’re going to kiss me, and stop just before you do.”

He didn’t argue. He was so close that his features began to blur and I unconsciously closed my eyes.

 “Are you sure you want me to stop?” he whispered.

His breath danced over my lips, making me long for his kiss, but I said, “Yes.
For the pose.”

I went a few steps away to where my camera was waiting patiently on its tripod, checked my settings and set the timer. “Ready?”

When he nodded, I pushed the shutter button and ran over to him. I pulled him back into our pose and listened to the steady beeping of the timer. In the last few seconds, it began to beep faster, warning that it was about to take the picture. My heart rate sped up with it, because I was getting a message from Lee’s eyes. I had no doubt that he was going to kiss me as soon as the picture had been taken.

I heard the last frantic beeps and the clicking sound of my camera taking the picture right before I was swept away in a tidal wave of emotion and sensation. Could that brief brush of his lips a few nights ago be called a kiss? This one seriously put that kiss to shame. It was so glorious to feel his lips on mine, that I couldn’t help feeling guilty.

“Lee! We can’t,” I said when I could bring myself to pull away.

“We are,” he said briefly before finding my lips again.

“I know, but I shouldn’t.”

He sighed and stood away from me, his arms dropping. If ever someone had looked frustrated, he did. He had every reason to, and I felt terrible because it was my fault.

I sat down on a rock and buried my face in my hands so he wouldn’t see the hot tears that were running down my face. I held my breath trying to control the emotions raging inside me, but soon my lungs demanded oxygen. I drew a deep, ragged breath that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

Then Lee knelt in front of me and firmly pulled my hands away from my face. “Don’t,” he said, roughly drying my cheeks with the palms of his hands.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice thick. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. I just wanted to have an excuse to be close to you. I never meant for it to go this far.”

Lee laughed - a brief, almost harsh sound - before he said, “Sienna, you make it sound like a kiss is a terrible thing.”

“It wasn’t at all. It was perfect - except that my mom would be furious if she knew. It just all crashed down on me how I was betraying my mom’s trust.”

“Sienna, don’t you think that I’m as much to blame as you are? I knew where the line was, and I purposely crossed it. And to prove how depraved I am, I enjoyed every second of it.”

There was a hint of laughter in his voice that surprised a watery chuckle out of me. “You aren’t
depraved
,” I told him. “But you do tempt me more than I can stand.”

 I stood up and paced back and forth. Lee stood too, but watched me with a grave expression. “What’s bothering you, really, Sienna? We can’t undo that kiss, and neither of us really wants to. But we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

This made me stop. “That’s just it. I want to be able to kiss you. I want you to hold my hand and hold me and know that I’m yours. It’s not fair to you either. I’m the one with the crazy mom, but you have to deal with it too.”

“If I want to be in your life, yes.
She’s just trying to protect you, Sienna. I don’t agree with how she’s doing it, but I understand why.”

“You don’t deserve to have your senior year ruined this way.” Before I continued, I tried to be brave. But this was hard. “If you want to go out with other girls, girls you can date and kiss whenever you want, I’ll understand.”

“No you wouldn’t. Not really. If I were to date someone else, it would hurt you. You know why?
Because these feelings between us are real.
And I would never do that. I am not interested in you because I want to kiss someone. I want to kiss you because I have feelings for you.”

“I have feelings for you, too.”

“Well, I would hope so after that.”

He was teasing me, and I smiled a little to reward his effort, but there was a knot of unhappiness in my chest. “What are we going to do?”

“The way I see it, we can do one of two things. Either we say, to heck with your mom’s rules, sneak around behind her back, and risk hurting her and getting you in some serious trouble…”

I shook my head violently at this option, even though a part of me was hugely tempted by it. Hurting my mom and ruining her trust in me was out of the question though.

Lee continued “… or we remain friends, keep our hands off each other, and hope that she’ll change her mind when she knows she can trust us.”

“I don’t think that will happen. You see, my dad was a preacher’s son and the town’s poster boy for Christian morals. Then, one weekend, he and mom got in over their heads and before they knew what was happening, they’d gone too far. They didn’t tell anyone, but when mom found out she was pregnant with me, she expected him to own up to it. He didn’t. He put the word around that she cheated on him and that the baby wasn’t his.”

“What a loser.”

“I know. It was humiliating for her, and ever since then, she’s had real hang ups about it.”

“I can see why. I wish there was some way to convince her that I’m not like that.”

“But she says that no matter how good a person is
,
if the temptation is there, you never know how you’ll react to it.”

“Well, the way I was taught, you just make up your mind you aren’t going to give in to it, and stay out of situations where you might. It’s worked for me so far.”

“You mean, you’ve never…?”

Lee’s eyes met mine, honest and unembarrassed. “No, and I won’t until I’m married. For one thing, my mom would kill me and my dad would hide the body. For another thing, I’m not going to take a chance like that. I don’t want to hurt anyone, or screw up their future – and I don’t want anyone to do that to me either. And there’s a lot more that can go wrong besides getting someone pregnant.”

“My mom would love you if she’d give you a chance. She’s said the same things so many times, I’ve lost track. She just doesn’t think that anybody thinks that way anymore.”

“I was raised that way. Our parents would get along great. Hey… maybe that’s what we should do. Maybe if your mom got to know my parents, she’d have an easier time trusting me.”

“That would be awesome, but how?”

“I’ll think about it. Until then, let’s just relax. I mean, if worse comes to worse, we’ll be graduating in seven months and we can do whatever we want.”

“That’s forever away.”

“I know, but it’ll go by fast. You’ll see.”

“Do you really think we can go that long without holding hands, or kissing, or anything?”

“Well, if we can’t, then maybe we don’t have enough self-control after all and your mom is right not to trust us.”

“This sucks!”

“Yes, it does, but maybe she’ll change her mind. Hey look, everyone’s coming back. Are you doing ok now?”

I nodded and took a deep breath to clear away the last of my depression. “Do I look like I’ve been crying?”

Lee nodded and I scrambled for Marisol’s makeup bag. A few touchups and a generous amount of powder covered up the worst of the damage. I thought I looked fine, but when the others got back, Marisol was looking at me oddly. She’d try to make me talk later, I knew, but I was grateful that she didn’t say anything right then.

“So, Sienna, didn’t you promise a picnic or something?” Parker asked.

“I didn’t promise. I just suggested it and nobody said anything.”

“Well, I’m starving,” he said, as if he expected me to do something about it.

I shrugged and was about to apologize when Lee said, “How about if we stop and get some donuts on the way back?
My treat.”

Less than an hour later, everyone but me was scarfing down donuts in my mom’s living room. I was uploading the pictures we’d just taken and running them through Photoshop. I had shot in RAW so that I would have lots of control over the final product, but it took time and concentration to process them. After a little while, I was able to show most of the pictures to everyone. Marisol, Alyssa, and especially Olivia were thrilled with how great they turned out. The boys tried to hide it, but I could tell they were impressed too.

I hadn’t worked on the photos of Lee and
I
yet, and when my mom finally emerged from her room for the day, I was glad I hadn’t. I was able to show her all of our pictures and not worry about her seeing any that would get me grounded until the end of time.

“Wow, those are really great, honey,” she said. “That one of Olivia and Lee is really spectacular.”

“Yeah,” I told her, “Olivia is releasing an indie album, and this is going to be her cover.”

“Well, it looks like there’s a lot of chemistry between you two,” she told Lee and Olivia. Was it just me, or did she sound really hopeful?

I hadn’t said anything to Olivia about the weird relationship Lee and I had - I mean, it wasn’t an easy thing to explain, even to a friend. She seemed to have grasped the basics on her own though and she immediately said, “Actually, it’s just the photo. I didn’t think there was any chemistry at all.
Right Lee?”