Moving without a sound, I closed in on the table, my hand automatically rooting through a few pictures. She had a love of black and white, but her color photographs were just as stellar. She had a knack, no, a gift for capturing people at their best, just at the perfect moments, which meant sometimes the pictures were not perfect at all.
I caressed a picture of the three of us.
Mia sat between us, and ridiculous party hats were on all three heads. Mia was in the middle of trying to rip hers off so she could throw it on the floor.
Another of Mia and I in the olive groves. I held her in my arms, and both of our profiles were sharp against the rolling hills in the distance. We were looking toward one of the trees. I was pointing at an olive.
“Iv,” she had said, trying to mimic the word. Her voice echoed inside of my head, coming from the memory stored in my heart.
I glanced at Scarlett, and my eyes caught hers and held. She blinked and then smiled at me. My heart started to beat faster.
“Hello,” she whispered, her voice warm. “Where did you come from, handsome?”
“Where do you think?” My voice matched hers, but it was rougher, more ragged.
“Heaven?”
She laughed, real quiet, and I grinned at her fucking corny line.
I took a spot behind her, putting my hands on her shoulders, squeezing. I leaned down and kissed her head before I started massaging the base of her neck. She moaned, melting into my touch.
“That feels nice,” she barely got out.
“What’s all this?” I chucked my chin in the direction of the table.
“Oh.” She sounded surprised, like she had forgotten what she was doing. Lifting the letter for the briefest of seconds, she put it down just as quickly, writing side down. She waved a hand around the table. “Matisent these over for me.”
I expected more information to come flowing forward. Instead, she pushed them to the side, bending her head back, looking up at me with puckered lips. Our lips met; an electrical snap seemed to crack between us for the briefest of moments.
She inhaled. “Mmm. You smell good.”
“You taste even better,” I said, running my tongue over my lips.
She smiled. “Hungry?”
“I’ll do for now.”
Neither of us budged for a second or two. Budged meaning “gave in.”
Finally, she kissed me once more before straightening up. Rubbing a hand along her neck, she sighed. “It’s not a big deal, Brando. It’s just letters.”
“Letters,” I repeated.
“Maja hadMatikeep them from me.”
Before I could read the first letter she had set down, she put a firm hand on my arm, stopping me from getting the paper close enough to my face to read.
“Don’t make a big deal about this.”
I narrowed my eyes at her before I started to read. I read the writing three times before I looked at her again.
“It’s a poem.”
“Yes.” She added nothing else.
“Tell me, Scarlett.”
“All right.” She stretched her arms, pulling her long-sleeved shirt to her knuckles, tucking her thumbs in. Then she crossed her arms. “It seems that when I was younger, I had a few…fans. Some of them were boys. Maja didn’t want me having the letters. She toldMatithat for me to succeed, I had to keep the fame out of it. And.” She glanced at the box at her feet. “That’s it.”
