Naked (18 page)

“Yeah?”

I nodded and kissed him, breathed against his lips. “Yeah.”

Alex put his arms around me and pulled me close. “What about girlfriend? Is that okay, too?”

“So long as you’re not saying it with two snaps up.” I demonstrated, snapping my fingers over my head.

He gave me an odd look, his mouth parted as though words were about to come out, but I stopped him with another kiss. This one deepened. His hands started roaming.

“Dinner,” I said into the kiss.

“It’s just as good cold,” Alex said.

“So you didn’t tell him?” Sarah spoke from around a mouthful of nails. Perched high on top of the ladder, she wielded both a hammer and a nail gun. I’d stopped worrying about what would happen if she fell.

“No.” I was a little more worried about what might happen if she dropped something, since it would hit me right on the head.

Sarah shot another nail into the strip of wood, tacking up another inch of fabric. I held the ladder steady while she reached, pleating the material and adding another nail. She looked down at me.

“He told you he wouldn’t lie.”

“Everyone says they won’t lie,” I said. “And that’s not really the point, anyway, because I believe him. I just don’t want to know.”

Sarah climbed down the ladder and we moved it over a foot. “But you already know.”

“I know.”

She hammered another few pleats, curiously quiet. I’d expected a much, much bigger discussion about this.

Down the ladder, move it a foot, up again. We worked without much talk for a few minutes. The next time she came down, Sarah leaned on the ladder and didn’t head straight back up.

“You really like him, huh?”

“I do. Want a drink?”

She nodded and we both grabbed colas from the small fridge by my desk. I sipped mine, but Sarah guzzled hers with a lot of drama. She belched, pounding her chest.

“Nice one,” I said.

“Thanks.” She rolled the can in her palms, back and forth. “So…if you already know, why not just ask him? Doesn’t it bother you to know he fucked Patrick?”

I’d had a few days to digest the information, mull it over. Chew on it. I’d had time to crop it or blow it up, and I’d chosen cropping.

I shrugged. “I’m more upset at Patrick for doing it. It’s not like I was a virgin before I got together with Alex, Sarah. I know he had lovers. So did I.”

She snorted lightly. “I don’t think I could deal. Hanging out with someone who’d screwed someone I was screwing? I’m open-minded, but not that open.”

“Look at it this way. I don’t believe it will happen again.”

“You don’t?”

“Patrick wouldn’t be such a bitch about it, otherwise.” I laughed, not entirely lightly.

Sarah’s laugh was more genuine. “That’s the truth.”

We both drank the rest of our sodas and tossed the cans in
the trash. I stopped to look around the room as Sarah climbed the ladder. It was really taking shape.

“Let me get a couple pictures of this. I want to make sure I have it properly documented.” I got my camera.

Sarah struck a pose. “La, la, la.”

I hadn’t yet deleted the photos from the last time I’d used the camera, and when I turned it on, the last shot showed in the view window. Alex and me, kissing, the angle odd and shadows deep, motion blurred. We could have been anyone.

I studied it. “Is it wrong of me to want this to work?”

Sarah got off the ladder and gave me one of her patented hugs. “No, bunny. Of course not.”

“Because…I really do.”

She gave me another squeeze. “Then you should probably tell him you know. It’s going to eat you up inside, otherwise. Worrying.”

I sighed. “Yeah. I know.”

Sarah grinned sympathetically. “If it makes it any easier for you, I think I might be in love with a guy who fucks women for money.”

“What? I didn’t even know you were dating anyone!”

“See?” she said. “Everyone’s got issues.”

Usually I didn’t mind working the late shift at Foto Folks. The mall closed at 9:00 p.m. in the off-holiday season and we stopped taking appointments and walk-ins at eight to make sure we were always finished by then. More people came in the evenings, which meant more clients, which meant more cash in pocket for me.

Tonight, though, I was restless. I hadn’t seen Alex since the night before, when he’d slept downstairs because he had to
get up early for a meeting and didn’t want to wake me. My bed had been empty without him and I hadn’t slept well, anyway.

I’d woken to an early phone call from my mom—the annual birthday call. Sarah had already sent me an iTunes gift certificate. Cards from my brothers and dad had arrived in the mail over the past week, and I figured something would show up from my mom, too.

I wondered what Alex was planning.

Before I could find out, though, I had to get through one last hour of heavy makeup and fingertips to chins. Feather boas. I wondered if death by tiara was possible.

At last I was finished and had made a few nice tips, too. I raced home and followed the smell of garlic up the stairs to my apartment.

“You look good in my kitchen.” I hung my coat and hat on the hook as Alex appeared across the long living room. He wore the naked lady apron, though he wasn’t naked underneath it. Too bad.

“Happy Birthday.”

“Mmm, birthday kisses, the best kind.” We were schmoopy, we were mushy. We were the sort of couple I’d always wanted to be.

“How about birthday spankings?” Alex squeezed my ass.

“For you or for me?”

He laughed. “Your choice. It’s your birthday.”

“I’ll think about it.” I gave him a sly grin and let him rub up on me for a few more minutes.

“You got some packages, by the way. I put them on the chair.”

“Ooh, presents!” I found the boxes, one heavy one from
Amazon.com and one much smaller with my mom’s return address on it.

I tore into the heavy one while Alex watched, and pulled out three hardcovers. It didn’t register at first, but then my eyes focused on the titles and I put the books back in the box and closed it.

“They’re from Patrick,” I said. “
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
and the sequels.”

Alex looked at the box, now at my feet. “Good books.”

“He’s trying to butter me up. Also,” I said unkindly, “I already have those books, but they’re at his house. So he’s essentially just replacing what I already own because he hasn’t returned mine. He’ll send back a gift I gave him, but not something that belongs to me.”

My words dripped so much like acid they should’ve burned through the floor. Alex nudged the box with a toe. I frowned.

“Open the other one,” he said.

The box from my mother held a silver necklace. It was pretty, a Star of David with a heart in the center. I held it up to my throat and thought about if this was something I wanted to wear.

“Can you help me with the clasp?”

“Sure.” Alex went behind me and lifted my hair off my neck, then hooked the necklace in place.

It nestled just right in the hollow of my throat. I touched it. “How’s it look?”

“Pretty.”

I glanced up at him. “So…anything else for me to open?”

“Ah, my little greedy one.”

“That’s me.” No point in denying it. Anyone who says they don’t care about presents is full of crap.

“Dinner first,” he told me. “Presents after.”

I made a face, but dinner smelled too good to resist. He’d made lasagna, salad, garlic bread. He’d set my rickety table with a pretty cloth, flowers, my best china, which wasn’t expensive but nice. He’d even lit candles.

We talked and ate. We fed each other bites from our forks. We split a piece of Godiva Chocolate cheesecake. An hour passed, then half of another, and still we sat and ate and laughed without running out of things to say.

Alex’s eyes gleamed in the candlelight. “You have such a great smile.”

“All teeth.” I ran my tongue across them. “I spent a long time in braces.”

“I bet you looked cute.”

“Pffft. What about you? What were you like as a kid?”

His smile didn’t fade, but his gaze grew veiled. “I was an idiot as a kid.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

He shrugged and got up to clear plates. I didn’t pursue it. A month into a relationship isn’t all that long, no matter how long it felt. He’d avoided talk of his family before.

Together, we loaded the dishwasher and set the pans soaking in the sink. He blew a handful of bubbles at me. I tweaked his ass as I passed. And then, finally, he turned me around as I bent to shove some leftovers in the fridge, and kissed me.

“Ready for your present?”

“That wasn’t it?” I nibbled his chin.

“Nope.”

“You are grinning like a fool, Alex.”

He grinned even wider. “Come sit down.”

He led me by the hand to the couch and settled me on it. “Close your eyes.”

“Oh, this means it’s a good one.” I clapped and closed my eyes. I was grinning, too.

Getting presents is always so much better when they’re given by someone who knows how to do it just right. He teased me a little with the setup. Drew out the anticipation. And then, whispering, “Open your eyes,” Alex pressed something into my hands.

It was wrapped in pretty paper, tied with a ribbon and a bow. “Did you do this?”

“Yep.”

“You wrapped this?” I stroked the knife-sharp creases in the paper and the professionally tied ribbon. “Is there anything you don’t know how to do?”

“Open it.”

I started to ease off the fancy paper, not wanting to tear, but Alex shook his head with a sigh and forced my fingers to rip and shred. In moments it lay on the floor and a plain brown box sat in my lap. I lifted the tape holding the lid with my thumb and the cardboard popped open.

So did my mouth.

“What…? No. Oh…no, you shouldn’t have! You didn’t? You did. Oh, my God!”

He’d bought me the camera I’d shown him in Mr. Cullen’s shop. A five-thousand-dollar camera, the one I’d been lusting after for years. Alex had given me a dream.

“Hey…don’t cry.” He wiped a tear from my cheek but could do no more because I was squeezing the breath from him.

“I love you,” I said.

We both froze, cheek to cheek, the camera box between us. I hadn’t meant to say it, at least not like that. I’d meant I loved him for buying me the camera, the way you love vanilla ice cream, or horror movies. Not love the way you love a person.

“I love you, too,” he said quietly and directly into my ear, so there was no way I could pretend I didn’t hear him.

I pulled away. “Alex…”

“Olivia,” he said with a slow and easy smile.

“Thank you for the camera.”

Kisses lingered and I had to lean back to catch my breath again. “It’s…amazing. It’s too much.”

“It’s not too much.”

“It’s very expensive,” I amended. “I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Duh,” Alex said, surfer-boy style. “That’s totally why I bought it for you.”

I cupped his cheek. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Eager, like a kid, he bent over it to show me the other things in the box. A camera bag, neck strap. Cleaning cloth.

“Alex,” I said quietly so he’d look at me. “I have some things to talk about.”

“I
have to tell you something I never mentioned before.” I set the camera aside and took both his hands.

His brow creased. “Okay.”

I drew in a breath, thinking of the words and how to say them. Then I knew. I got up and went to the drawer in the cabinet along the wall. I pulled out a sheaf of photos and came back to the couch. I faced him, our knees touching. I gave him the pictures.

They weren’t in order, but as he sifted through them Alex set the ones that were alike together. He looked at the ones of the infant on a blanket, then the shot I’d taken just a few weeks before. He glanced up at me.

“She looks like you.”

“Yeah. She does.”

He blinked and gazed back at the photos. “You and Devon?”

I shook my head. “No. I met Pippa’s dad in a bar after I broke up with Patrick. He claimed to be shipping out the next day, and even though I knew that was probably a crock of shit, I wanted to believe him for a few hours. It was…a bad time in my life. I found Devon and his partner through an adoption agency. They wanted a baby, and I wanted to help them.”

“I don’t know what to say.” He put the pictures all together in a pile but didn’t hand them back to me.

My stomach sank and twisted, dinner sitting in it like a stone. “I wanted you to know.”

“She’s beautiful.”

I turned my head to look at the picture on top of the pile, the one of her spinning with her dress out around her. “She is. But she’s not my daughter, Alex. I’m not her mother.”

He shifted on the couch and I dared a look at him. “But you’ve got pictures of her.”

“Devon and Steven wanted Pippa to know me. They want me to know her. But I’m not her parent.” I swallowed against dryness, waiting for judgment.

He nodded. “That’s quite a gift you gave them. I only gave you a camera.”

The laugh startled out of me. “Yeah, well, believe me, that was a better choice for me.”

He smiled and kissed me. “Thanks for telling me.”

“I had to. I didn’t want you to find out later, because you would. She’s not a secret in my life or anything. And if ever…well, I mean, it would come out, eventually. That she was my first.”

Something softened in his gaze, and his mouth. His kiss this time was longer. Different. And when he pulled away, his expression was more open than I’d ever seen it.

“I’m glad you told me.”

I took another deep breath. “My family took it hard. My dad and his wife won’t talk about it. One of my brothers pretends he doesn’t know, but the other one had fertility problems with his wife, so they’re actually pretty cool with it. But my mother…”

He waited for me without pushing.

“She hates what I did. Hates.”

“Because you gave the baby away?”

“You’d think a woman who adopted a kid would be more understanding, huh?” I shook my head, bad memories still tasting bitter.

“So what happened?”

A lot had happened, but it would take longer than a few minutes to share the story, and I didn’t really want to get into all the details. “She disowned me for a while. Now she just refuses to talk about it. But we’re not close. We used to be.”

“I’m sorry, Olivia.”

“It’s not just that. It’s her whole Orthodox thing. Since she became observant, there’s not much room in her life for me.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah. It does.”

“I’m glad you told me.” He paused. “Does it matter to you?”

“What?”

“That I’m not Jewish.”

I laughed, hard and long. “God, no. Why would you think so?”

He touched my necklace with a fingertip. “It suits you. And I thought the candles, the pepperoni…”

“Those are my things.” I thought of my mom, hair covered,
insisting I stand beside her to pray. Throwing away the plastic dish that had been mine since infancy because there was no way to make it kosher, and she had no room in her kitchen or her life for anything that couldn’t be made kosher. “I don’t expect you to go by what I believe. If I believe anything, which I’m not sure I do.”

“I just wondered if it mattered if I was different, that’s all.”

I took his hand, our fingers linked. I touched them, his, mine, his, mine. “We’ll always be different.”

He kissed our fingers. “That doesn’t matter to me, either.”

We kissed, not passionately, though of course it was all still so new that every time we kissed I thought about fucking him. I rested my head on his shoulder. “I wish…”

“What?”

“That I could be just one thing. One way or another.”

His hand stroked over my hair, toying with the locks. “Nobody’s ever just one thing, Olivia.”

I snorted softly. “Right.”

“I mean it.”

I toyed with the snaps on the front of his shirt. Cowboy chic had never impressed me, so why did Alex’s snap-front Western shirt so enamor me? I pictured him with a cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes, a pair of boots, a swagger. I could picture him as a lot of things. That didn’t make them true any more than picturing myself as Catholic did, or Jewish, or white. Or black.

Alex looked uncomfortable for a moment, took a breath, looked as if he meant to speak, and thought better of it. I gave him the time he’d given me. When he did speak, his voice was low and guarded, but he looked me in the eyes. “I have something to tell you, too.”

I braced myself. I took his hand. Palm to palm, our fingers linked. “Okay.”

“Is the reason Patrick’s so pissed off at you because of me?”

“Part of it.” My thumb stroked the back of his hand.

He let out the breath he must’ve been holding. “So…you know.”

I nodded and went for broke. “I saw you the night of Patrick’s Chrismukkah party. With that guy Evan.”

Alex groaned. His head dropped back against the couch. “Fuck.”

It had been easier than I thought, but then so far, everything with him had been. “And Patrick told me about you.”

Now he looked at me, a brow raised. “He did?”

“He said you…were together,” I said delicately. “Just once. And that Teddy didn’t know.”

Alex frowned. “Did he say we fucked?”

I nodded. He sighed. Ran a hand over his hair.

“We didn’t. He wanted to. I let him blow me, that’s all.”

Unlike Clinton, Patrick didn’t always differentiate. It made sense. It didn’t make it any easier to know, but at least I believed it wasn’t a lie.

“I wish he hadn’t told you,” Alex said.

My fingers tightened in his. “Why? Because you didn’t want me to know?”

“No, because I should’ve been the one to tell you.” He didn’t try to kiss me, maybe afraid I’d pull away. “I should’ve known he’d spill it. He told me to stay away from you.”

“He told me to stay away from you, too.”

“But neither of us listened.” His eye gleamed again. “Must be fate.”

“I have a lot of…issues…about what happened with Patrick.
I didn’t want to get into another relationship with a guy who might create those same issues.”

“Fuck, I’m surprised you ever agreed to be with me in the first place.”

I kissed him then, just as slowly and easily as he always managed to with me. “You aren’t Patrick.”

“No, I sure as hell am not.”

I looked into his eyes. “All I want to know is that you’ll be honest with me. That’s it. Fat ass in jeans, kinky secrets, whatever it is.”

“I won’t lie to you, Olivia. Okay?”

I believed him.

I’d fallen, hard.

I waited to hit the ground, but every day I spent with Alex was just as wonderful as the one before had been. Not that we existed solely in a glitter-covered cloud of rainbows or anything. He annoyed me sometimes with his smart-ass answers, and my perpetual lateness made Alex snap in irritation. But those were normal things. Couple-type things, and I welcomed even the small arguments because they didn’t derail us. We could survive them. What had grown between us wasn’t going to melt away or dissolve. What we had was real.

I took dozens of pictures of him. Hundreds. He was good at posing, comfortable with his body, completely in touch with his sexuality. I’d won the photography basket we’d bid on at Chocolate Fest, and it included admission to one of Scott Church’s workshops, this one held in Philadelphia. I could take one model. Of course I took Alex.

I had a copy of Church’s last book for him to sign, and Alex
flipped through it on the drive from Annville to Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Turnpike is long and straight and mostly smooth, the view along it fields and neighborhoods. Pretty.

“Am I going to have to get naked for this shoot?”

I flicked him a glance. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

He laughed more self-consciously than I was used to hearing from him. “I guess it wouldn’t be the first time I was bare-assed in a crowd. Just not used to having my picture taken that way, that’s all.”

Alex and I talked about everything. Life, the universe and everything, to quote Douglas Adams. We’d covered families and lovers, his list quite a bit longer than mine. I wanted to know about that, him being naked in a crowd, but decided against asking. He would tell me the truth the way I always believed he had, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know it.

“I’ve taken your picture lots of times,” I pointed out instead.

“Totally different.”

“You think so?” I shot him another look as I eased into the right lane, getting ready to exit. “Why?”

“I don’t care if I get a hard-on when you’re taking my picture. And I usually do. What if I’m programmed for that?” He sounded serious, but his smile gave him away. “What if I’m like one of those dogs with the bell, but instead of drooling, my cock gets hard when the flash goes off?”

I laughed. “Oh, Alex.”

“Olivia. I’m serious. What if I’m the only dude there with a flagpole between his legs?”

“There will be lots of naked chicks there. I’ve no doubt you won’t be the only dude with a chubby.”

“Fuck, I’m doomed.”

With my eyes on the road to make sure I didn’t take a wrong turn, I couldn’t see his expression. I didn’t need to. I could read his voice. This realization put a smile on my face.

“You’re mocking me, Olivia. Why mock?” He sounded sad, but I could hear his smile, too. “That’s not nice.”

“Baby, if I thought you were really worried about showing off your cock to the world, I’d never have asked you to come with me today. But,” I said as I took a side street, then pulled into the lot of an old warehouse, “I happen to know you have nothing to be ashamed of. Or embarrassed about. An erection to these people will be just another day’s work. I promise.”

He ran his fingers down the length of his striped scarf, worn for fashion and not warmth, since March had gone out like a lamb this year. “It wouldn’t bother you? Really?”

“If you get hard because you get off on being naked in front of other people, or because there are hot naked chicks with flat bellies, no stretch marks and big tits there?”

“Either. All.”

I took his hand. Stroked each finger. Held it to my lips and kissed each fingertip. “Should I?”

“I don’t think you should. No.”

We hadn’t talked about monogamy. I had no time for another lover, but I guessed it was possible that during my long hours of work Alex had found someone else to fuck. It didn’t feel that way, but I wasn’t stupid enough to assume I’d be able to tell.

“Fool me twice,” I murmured.

“Huh?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

His mouth thinned. “I’m not Patrick, Olivia.”

“I love that you’re so scary smart you get me even when I’m being vague.”

His mouth twisted, not quite a smile but no longer a frown. “Maybe I want to know you’d be a little jealous, that’s all.”

I studied him, our fingers linked. More cars pulled into the lot. Women, some of them barely dressed, got out. I squeezed his hand. “You just said—”

He squeezed, too. “I know what I said. And you have nothing to be jealous about. But it would be nice to know…you might be.”

I sat back in my seat to parse this. Work it through. “You want me to be angry about you doing something I asked you to do?”

“No. Yes. Fuck,” he said. “Not angry.”

This conversation had taken some strange twists I wasn’t sure I could follow. “I asked you to be my model because you’re good at it, and because you’re so fucking sexy, Alex Kennedy, I wanted to show you off a little.”

“Share me?”

I was getting so much better at reading his eyes. “You don’t want me to share you?”

“I want you,” Alex said in a low, hoarse voice, “not to want to share me.”

Everything with us was still so new, explosive, supernova, that even this could turn us on. This, our first real discomfort. I leaned across the gearshift and took his face in my hands.

“I don’t want to share you, ever. I want you all for myself. I am greedy and selfish for you, Alex. I want you to be all mine.”

His smile teased my lips. His tongue stroked mine and our kiss softened. He pulled away.

“Okay,” he said.

“Is that jealous enough for you?” I stroked a thumb over his eyebrows.

“Yes. Will you kick a bitch’s ass over me?”

I laughed then. “Oh, seriously.”

His smile widened. “Good.”

I raised a brow. “Do you not want to be my model today? For real? We can leave.”

“Nah.” He looked out the window, toward the warehouse. “It’s okay. I want you to take this class. It’s all you’ve been talking about for the past couple weeks.”

“Not all I’ve been talking about. We talked about
Star Trek
the other day.”

He kissed me again. “But you want to do this.”

I held him close when he would’ve pulled away. “But you don’t have to. I can take this class without a model.”

“But that means you’ll be taking pictures of someone else.”

“Yes,” I said slowly, thinking of the last workshop I’d taken. Naked women, naked men, all posed in a puppy pile of bare flesh, tangled limbs, faces obscured. It had been sensual, but not erotic. I’d learned a lot that day I could use in my own work, which aside from the pictures I’d taken of Alex was rarely sexual. “But that doesn’t mean—”

“It means,” Alex said firmly. “Because, Olivia, didn’t it ever occur to you, I might be a little jealous, too?”