“Yep. Am I allowed to see your back room?”
I lock the door and give him an amused look over my shoulder. Maybe it’s a little sexy. “You can see my back room anytime, Larson.”
His loud laughter makes me grin. Maybe I sashay my hips a bit as I lead him through the waiting room, beyond the studio, and into my office.
“Whoa,” he says and stands in front of my four-monitor setup.
“Are you commenting on the couple or the computer?” I wonder.
He snorts. “I mean, those women are hot as hell. Look at that. There are so few men who can pull off that level of sensuality. And seriously, women’s skin is just… divine. But I’m referring to the massive screens. Why so many?”
“Usually I have three different shoots open, and the fourth is for the resort system where I upload them.”
“Why three?”
“I need a break from looking at the same subjects often, or my brain stops seeing them objectively. Have you ever seen those memes going around where it says ‘read this’ and it’s a couple sentences where every word is scrambled, but with key letters in each word in a strategic position? Magically, your mind knows exactly what it says, even though it’s written in gibberish? Because your mind is programmed to recognize patterns. Following?”
Larson nods, a big grin on his face.
“That’s me with photos. Once I see this couple for too many pictures in a row, I see patterns. So the edits I made on the previous picture—highlights, lighting, contrast, whatever—carry over here in my head, and I’m seeing what I expect to see, even if I haven’t made it happen yet. Because I’ve learned the pattern of this couple.”
“That’s… fascinating.”
“Is it?” I ask, looking at him over my shoulder. “Or are you humoring me?”
He grins. “It is. I see patterns on the ice and sometimes, it helps me anticipate where the puck will be so I can intercept it or be there to make a shot, pass it to a teammate, etc. I get it.”
I smile. “Yeah. Like that.”
“Then why do you only have one shoot up right now?”
“Because I thought you’d be here soon, so I didn’t open any new ones. There are three left in this set, then I’m finished.”
“All right. I’ll sit right here and watch you work.” He takes a seat in the chair that no one usually sits in.
“It might be boring,” I tell him. “But I promise it won’t take long.”
Larson waves me off. “Not in a hurry. I’m happy just to be in your presence.”
Fucking hell. When he says things like that, my heart threatens to simply stop.
None of these needs a lot of work, but it’s not easy to get through them knowing he’s there. Watching me. It’s not that I’m self-conscious about my work or myself, in general, but our time is limited, and he’s watching me edit photos!
It takes a monumental amount of discipline to convince myself to finish these images instead of leaving them for tomorrow. I turn to the monitor with the resort system open and navigate to my appointment list from last week.
“Can I see?” Larson asks.
I nod, and he wheels his chair toward me.
“This is my schedule. That color means I’ve already finished that set, and the appointment is effectively closed. This one is the couple I was just working on.” I click the name, Dianna, and her appointment opens. “This right here is always checked, but I still make sure it’s checked every time. It tells the system that these images are not allowed to be used for marketing. They’re entirely private unless the client asks to see them. The only thing I do is hit this upload box and select everything in the file.”
“Does that say eighty-one items?” Larson asks.
“Yep. I don’t edit all of them. I edit between thirty and forty. I delete the shit ones where I cut something off or hit the capture button without meaning to. But I promise them all the photos. This right here means they’ve been edited.” I show him the file type tag.
“That’s really cool. I keep saying that, but seriously.”
I grin. Once it’s uploaded, I hit the save button and then ‘finish.’ The appointment slot changes color. I shut down all the programs and close them out. A glance at the clock tells me we still have time before I can pick up the photo book.
