She held her hand over my cheek as I pinned myself inside her, still trembling from the never-ending emotion and the ecstasy we’d climbed. I laid my hand over hers and kissed the inside of her palm before moving her hand over my heart. “Calm me down, love.”
Laying my head over her chest, Mia ran her fingers through my sweaty hair, and my eyes closed again as she pulled me back to solid ground.
“You cannot throw this far, mate.”
“Fuck you,” Jake squealed through a chuckle as I took another step forward. “No, back ten more steps.” He gestured with his hand.
I walked backward five, Jake tossed the football, and it landed ten feet in front of me.
“You have to go to the ball,” he threw his arms in the air, “It’s not going to come to you.” Jake had been looking forward to Mia’s Christmas football tradition since it had been disrupted last year.
Shaking my head, I swiped the ball from the lawn and glanced back at Mia, who sat with legs crossed off to the side, dilly-dallying with the camera I had surprised her with. She wore ripped blue jeans, sex-hair pulled up messily over her head, and my oversized hoodie that read,“Poetic,”enveloping her tiny figure. The hoodie had been the first article I’d approved in my store Travis managed while I was gone.
Mia had no idea.
I picked up into a light jog toward her. “What are you doing, love?” I crouched down, and my eyes roamed over her scrunched up face as she toyed with some buttons on the camera. “That thing kicking your arse, yeah?”
Her brown eyes shot up at me, and she pushed me over into the grass. The camera flashed, and her laugh knocked me down again. “Perfect,” she exhaled as the film emerged.
I rolled to my side and kicked a knee up, admiring the collection of photos lying across the grass. “What are these?”
“Nothing,” Mia fanned the picture in the cold air, “Just messing around.”
I picked up one of the photos, seeing a side of myself I’d never noticed. I’d just caught the ball in mid-laugh. Only the side of my face was visible as I stood hunched over. Another photo of a partial Jake throwing the ball, and one of Zeke’s curls blowing over his smile from a different day. “What are you talking about? These are really good.”
“You think so?” her tone lifted.
Nodding, I scanned over each picture. “Wait, is this my arse?” I snatched it, taking a closer look. “You took a picture of my arse?” The room in the photo was dark, but sure enough, that was my white crack peeking from the top of the sheet lying in my bed facing the wall.
I dropped my elbow into the grass and looked up at her, surely grinning like a fucking kid.
Mia snatched the photo out of my hand. “It’s beautiful,” she admired her picture and tilted her head, “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
My brows pinched together. “My arse?”
Mia chuckled. “Well, yes, that too,” her laughter calmed but the smile remained as a permanent fixture on the photo, “I see this, and I feel everything I felt when I took it,” her cheeks turned pink and she dropped her head for a moment, “We didn’t even have sex. We only laid in bed naked all night playing This or That, remember? I asked you for either breakfast for the rest of your life or all meals except breakfast. You chose breakfast all day every day, saying, and I quote,‘Our dates will consist of flipping pancakes at three a.m., sipping caffeine in our knickers and—
“Dancing toThe Beatles,” I finished with a matching smile.
“In case we never make it out of here together, I wanted to always remember that vision you gave me. This picture does that for me.”
Her hand fit perfectly in mine. “We’re almost there.” A cold wind blew wildly between us, sending Mia’s defying strands against her face as she continued to look over her work with stars in her eyes.
“You feel it, don’t you?”
She looked up from the photos. “Feel what?”
No doubt in my mind, this right here was her calling. “I see it in your eyes. The way you talk about photography. You’re lighting up, Mia. You’re really into it?”
“Yeah,” she blew out through her lips, and her smile reemerged. “You knew. How?”
I lifted my shoulder.
Mia blushed. I gripped her thigh. Then a shadow hovered over us.
A whistle blew out of Jake’s lips as he crouched down behind Mia. “Fuck me,” he breathed. Mia dropped her head back, and I snatched the photo from her hand.
“Get out of here, mate. You’ve seen my arse before. This isn’t new.” It was true. Before Mia, I’d walked around numerous times in the bathroom and during midnight parties in my dorm wearing absolutely nothing. Since Mia came along, I’d shown respect for her by remembering to put pants on.
