Eve shoved her hands into her pockets as she followed her at a polite distance. “Do you want the answer I give when I’m interviewed, or the real one?”
Aspen lowered the camera with a thoughtful frown. “What’s your canned answer?”
“The human experience has become so focused on careers and income and wealth that the natural beauty of the world around us has gotten lost. And that’s a shame, because there is so much beauty to be found if you just slow down and really look around you,” Eve recited with a wan smile. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth, either.
“That’s a lovely answer, but what’s the real one?”
Eve shrugged. “Photography was the only thing I had one-hundred-percent control over. My parents didn’t care about it, so they left me alone. It was the first time in my life I was free to create and express myself, and, I mean, what’s not to love about that?”
“Oh, Eve” Aspen held out a hand and murmured, “Come here.”
“It’s not as awful as it sounds,” Eve said as Aspen’s hand slid delicately over her jaw to urge her closer.
“It kind of is,” Aspen pointed out, the brutal honesty of her assessment tempered by the kiss that she dropped to Eve’s lips.“I’m so proud of you for sticking with the thing that makes you happy.”
Eve lifted her hand and wrapped it around Aspen’s wrist, letting her eyes flutter shut as she leaned into the warmth of her touch. “Me too.” She smiled when Aspen kissed her again softly. “I like that.”
“Me too,” Aspen whispered. She brushed a smile of a kiss over the corner of Eve’s mouth. “Are you trying to distract me with your kisses so I don’t keep bugging you to teach me how to take pictures?”
Eve laughed. “You’re the one kissing me.”
“Well, I mean, it’d be rude not to when your lips are, like, right there,” Aspen joked, kissing her again to prove her point.
“Do you want to make out or take pictures?”
Aspen hummed. “Can we take pictures of us making out?” When Eve laughed, she pointed out, “Look, it’s not any stranger than you asking me to get naked.”
Eve slapped Aspen’s shoulder. “I didn’t ask you to get naked.”
Aspen’s eyes danced with amusement, clearly delighted at having shifted the tone of their conversation. “Um, excuse you. You totally did? Have you seriously already forgotten soliciting me to model for you?”
“Soliciting?” Eve sniggered. “First, I was joking. Two, calling it that makes it sound so dirty.”
Aspen giggled. “It wouldn’t be?”
“It’d be art,” Eve replied with an air of playful haughtiness.
“Ah, right. Got it.”
Eve rolled her eyes. “Are you gonna take more pictures, or what?”
“Depends. What would you do if I chose ‘or what’?”
“Take the camera back and go take some pictures myself.”
“Oh, well, in that case”—Aspen grinned—“yeah, I wanna take more pictures.”
“Of course you do,” Eve muttered.
Aspen smirked and danced away from her, holding the camera up like it was a prize. “Hey, don’t be mad that you don’t get your toy back. I’d’ve given it to you if we were doing your whole highbrow ‘art’ thing.”
Eve laughed. “Aspen…”
Aspen stopped and batted her lashes prettily. “Yes?”
Eve bit her lip as she drank in the playful joy that lit Aspen’s entire being.I seriously think I might be falling for you, she thought, even as she said, “You’re ridiculous.”
Aspen’s smile was sweet and warm as she closed the distance between them to kiss her softly. “I really like you, too, beautiful girl.”
