“Do what?”
“I came in here thinking about eggs and now I’m—” He gestured vaguely. “I don’t know. Feeling things about cameras.”
“That’s literally my job.”
“Your job is high school students.”
“My job is helping people hear what they’re already thinking.” She picked up her cup. “You knew the photographymattered. You knew the schedule was temporary. You just needed someone to say it back to you.”
“And you’re that someone?”
“Apparently.” She took a sip. “I charge thirty dollars an hour for students. You’re getting the friends and family discount.”
“Which is?”
“Coffee.”
Tyler laughed. Lindsey watched him laugh and her face opened up the way it did—warm and unguarded and entirely focused on him, like his laugh was something she’d been waiting to hear.
“I’m not good at this,” Tyler said.
“At what?”
“This. Being with someone. I spent sixteen years being a part-time dad and a full-time photographer and I never learned how to just—sit across from someone and let them see me.”
“You’re sitting across from me right now.”
“I know.”
“And I can see you.”
“I know. That’s the terrifying part.”
Lindsey reached across the table and straightened his collar—the flannel, the one he hadn’t thought about, the one that didn’t matter. Her fingers brushed the fabric at his neck and Tyler’s ears went red and he didn’t care. Let them be red. Let her see that too.
“You’re doing fine,” she said.
“Fine and good are different things.”
“That’s Stella’s line.”
“She’s smarter than me.”
“She’s sixteen. Everyone’s smart at sixteen.” Lindsey sat back. “You’re doing good, Tyler. Not fine. Good.”
His phone buzzed. Stella.
Done. Whenever you’re ready.
Tyler looked at the phone. Looked at Lindsey. “I need to get Stella.”
“I know.”
“Same time Thursday?”
“I’ll be here.”
He stood. She stood. She picked up her bag and her lanyard and slung them over her shoulder.
