The movement causes her breasts to squeeze together. I look away, then back, then internally slap myself. Get it together, Ross. “What are you editing?” I ask, nodding at her camera.
“Nothing yet. Just backing things up.” She taps the device affectionately. “I learned the hard way not to trust technology on tour. Too many vibrations. Too many chances for memory cards to get stupid.”
She’s got a little portable hard drive hooked up, the cord looping across her thigh. Her fingers move over it with an ease that says this is second nature, this ritual of preserving, organizing, and labeling chaos.
“You always work this hard?” I wonder out loud.
“You always worry this much?” she counters.
I huff. “Not worrying. Observing.”
“Observing is the gateway drug to worrying.” She leans back, stretching her arms over her head. Her stomach is taut, the muscles more defined than I expect, and as my gaze slides down, I realize there’s a rather large gap in the waistband that allows a view I’m not ready for. My brain short-circuits for a second.
“Feels like that’s my line,” I mutter, trying to keep my eyes anywhere but her bare skin.
“You don’t own observation,” she replies. “You just brood with it more.”
I let that slide. Mostly because she’s not wrong. A hotel staff member walks by, adjusting cushions, pretending not to look at us. His gaze slides away fast when I meet it.
Sadie watches the exchange over the top of her sunglasses. “Do you ever get used to that?” Her voice quiet.
“What?”
“The flinch,” she says. “The way people snap their eyes away like they’ve been caught. Like they weren’t just imagining what your hair feels like.”
I smirk. “You imagining what my hair feels like, camera girl?”
“Please.” She scoffs. “Your hair looks like it’s got mites.”
“Possible I suppose.” I chuckle. “Wanna check?”
Her mouth curves like she might. I shift on the chair, more restless than I want to admit. The thing is, she doesn’t flinch. Not like that. She doesn’t look at me like I’m a god or a monster. She looks at me like I’m data. Like I’m just something else to catalog. It’s infuriating. It’s addictive.
“What about you?” I shoot back. “You ever get used to being invisible?”
She turns her head toward me at that, expression flickering. “I’m not invisible,” she insists. “I’m just designed to disappear.”
“Explain,” I prompt.
She wets her lips, thinking. I try not to follow the path of her tongue with my eyes. I fail.
“Photographers aren’t supposed to be the story,” she surmises. “We’re the conduit. We make everyone else look how they want to look, or capture how they actually do. Either way, we don’t belong in the frame.”
There’s something bitter at the edges of that. “And if you want to be?” I probe further, wanting to know.
“In the frame?” She laughs once, short and humorless. “Then I picked the wrong job.”
I watch her for a second. The wind lifts a strand of hair and blows it across her cheek. Without thinking, I reach over and tuck it behind her ear.
Her breath catches. So does mine. Her skin is warm under my fingers. Soft. Adrenaline spikes in my veins like I’m about to walk on stage. Bad idea, Ross. I pull my hand back slow. Her eyes stay on mine the whole time. “You look better on this side of the lens, for the record.” My voice low.
She swallows. “Flattery from you is suspicious.”
“You think I’m lying?”
“I think you’re dangerous.” She tilts her head, eyes narrowing.
I nod my head, considering. “Yeah,” I agree. “You’re not wrong.”
