“Morning,” I mumbled absent-mindedly.
“How was breakfast? Did you bring me back that great coffee they have?”
I stopped in the middle of the lobby. “Dammit. I ordered your coffee and that cheese danish you like but completely forgot to pick it up from the counter before I left.”
I ran my hand across my forehead, wondering how I could’ve forgotten Hallease’s meal. Typically, I had a great memory.
“No worries. I’m sure they realized the gaffe by now. I can call and stop by for lunch to pick it up.”
“I’m sorry, Hallease.”
“Don’t worry about it. What’s got you so flustered this morning?” She eyed me. “Did something bad happen with Marjorie?”
Her facial expression changed into one of alarm.
“No. Well, yes, but nothing bad. She and Kelvin are engaged.”
Hallease’s face brightened, and I couldn’t tell whose smile was wider that morning, hers or Marjorie’s.
“See? Not all ballers are players. I listened to that recording of him talking about her at least ten times. It’s so sweet.” She released a sigh as if she were Cinderella sitting in her windowsill awaiting her Prince Charming.
I used to scoff at Hallease’s whimsical thinking when it came to relationships, but that morning, a piece of me wished to be her. To be at that place where I wasn’t so distrusting of love.
That morning Don told me he loved me, he’d practically yelled it from the rooftop. I’d wanted to fall into his embrace and say the words back, but I’d held back. How was I to trust it? How could he be so confident that what he felt for me was love? What if he just missed Corey so much that, in some weird, twisted way, being with me made him feel like his best friend was back?
What if I’m not enough?
“I’m going to my office,” I said, my words barely audible to my ears.
Hallease was only a few steps behind me, however. “I forgot to tell you that I downloaded the images from your camera to the files that you needed.”
I only half paid attention. I plopped down into my chair at the same time she moved behind my desk and wiggled my mouse, bringing up the home screen on my computer.
“But these pictures got accidentally added to Marjorie’s file. They look like they’re from the night of the gala.”
She scrolled through the pictures, bringing up a few of Don and me. She lingered on the first one.
“You looked so beautiful, Jocelyn,” she gushed.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture either. I’d never considered myself ugly by any means, but the pictures…
“Did Don take these?” Hallease asked, clicking to the next photo. It one was of me mid-laugh.
“Yeah.” My voice came out in a whisper.
“Aww. There’s just something about a picture taken by a man who loves you.”
I gasped. “Wha-what did you say?”
“I said, there’s something about a picture taken by a man who loves you.”
“You think Don is in love with me?”
Hallease looked at me as if the answer should be obvious. “Of course.”
I turned back to the pictures. That same draw that had kept me from looking away from Marjorie’s images only thirty minutes earlier was now staring me in the face from my photographs.
“How do you know that? It’s just a picture.”
