“Okay.” I swallow hard.
He takes my phone and holds it out while we put our heads together.
“Wait!” I say and pull Archie, who has been licking the wrapper of my lobster roll, up to my chest. “Okay. We’re all together now.”
Ryder stares at me, his features carefully fixed, but then he turns back to the phone.
Each time he clicks, I pose differently.
He doesn’t.
I push him in the ribs. “Get more animated. If these will be our only photos together, I want to make them good.”These could be our first and last photos together.I determinedly push away any sad feelings at my statement and smile at the camera.
“Give us your best rock-star look now,” I taunt. He tilts his chin up, narrows his eyes, and tenses his jaw.Damn.
“You have to smize,” I order.
“What the hell is a smize?”
“You’ve been to a gazillion photo shoots. Don’t tell me you don’t know how to smize. It means smile with your eyes.”
I demonstrate. “See? Even Archie does it.” We both look at the dog. He’s definitely smizing. His big, floppy tongue sticks out as he pants happily.
Ryder points the phone camera at me. I’m still holding Archie near my face when the dog gives me a big lick. I scrunch my nose and laugh.
He clicks and then looks at the image, gazing at the phone for a long time. “I want this one. I want them all.”
There’s something in the way he says it that makes me feel shy. I take the phone back from him and flip through the images.
And just like I thought earlier when I caught sight of us in the store window, I can’t help but notice that we look good together.
We look real.
And happy.
But there’s one photo. One I know that I’ll treasure forever. I have a dorky grin, and Ryder is watching me with a look that’s tender but amused all at once.
It’s his look. The one for me. The one that makes me breathless.
We’re on our first date, and so far, nothing Ryder’s doing is turning me off or making me any less obsessed.
I’m playing a dangerous game.
I know that.
But that knowledge won’t make me stop playing.
Not at all.
“Send them to me now. Please.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and do as requested. My phone notification dings multiple alerts as I’m attaching the photos and sending them in a message.
“Someone’s impatient,” Ryder remarks.
“It’s probably Olivia. She’s been in deadline mode with her latest book, and I told her to let me know when she finally types ‘The End.’”
I open my messages, and my eyes widen to see I have ten messages in a row from Taylor. One is a link. And the rest are full of exclamation points.
