“So.” He’s still not touched that e-mail. “What kind of novel are you writing?”
I hesitate, wondering if I should even really be describing what I’ve written as a novel at this point. Over the past week, I’ve managed to inch my way through a sum total of fourteen pages. A few thousand words. But as for being able to call it a novel quite yet... well, that feels like a bit of a leap.
My shyness notches up a touch. “Oh, just girl-meets-boy stuff. Fairly standard.”
“Since when was girl-meets-boy ever standard?” Caleb says, and then my eyes meet his, and for a moment we are just looking at each other, and it feels weirdly lovely and comfortable in a way I can’t quite define.
I clear my throat. “So, how long have you been a photographer?”
“Um, over a decade now. Eleven years.”
“Nice.”
“Dropped out of art college,” he says quickly—I’m not sure why at first. Maybe he thinks the numbers have made him sound older than he is.
I smile. By my calculation, we must be nearly the same age, give or take a couple of years. “Rarely meet fellow dropouts.”
“You too?”
I nod. “English literature.”
“What’d you do instead?”
I swallow, skirt the full truth. “Went traveling.”
“Really?” He leans forward. “Where did you go?”
“Oh, just the usual gap-year kind of places. Europe, Morocco, Australia.” I keep talking, before he can ask me more. “How about you—why did you drop out of college?”
He laughs. “Impatience.”
“What kind of photography do you do?” I get to my feet and wander over to the back wall, where there’s a tiny, stiff-looking sofa and a large black folder on top of a small coffee table. “May I?”
Caleb nods, so I lift the cover and peek inside.
“That all needs updating,” he says, as I start to turn the pages. “But... lifestyle and portrait, mainly. A lot of corporate work. Weddings, occasionally. Whatever comes my way, really.”
The photos are incredible: some striking images of a red-hairedgirl sipping coffee in a café, dogs whirling on a beach, a couple walking beneath an umbrella on a gray, wet day that Caleb’s managed to make look spectacular, the rain like glitter in the air. “These are amazing.”
“Thanks,” he says, sounding as self-conscious as I did when he asked about my writing. “I’ve been meaning to frame a few. Jazz this place up a bit.”
I look up. “You’ve not been here long?”
“Well, long enough. Six months.”
“Where were you before?”
“London. I moved back here when I separated from my wife. I grew up in Shoreley, so...”
Separated, I think.That’s not quite divorced, is it?
I feel him watching me. “That was my clumsy way of telling you I’ve been married.”
I shut the folder carefully. “Happens all the time.”
He lets loose a breath. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Go
