“In front of the wall,” Shiloh said.
He did what she told him to.
“Smile,” she said. “This isn’t the Civil War.”
Cary smiled. “We have to take one together,” he said. “We’ll send it to Mikey.”
“Yeah!” Shiloh looked around the room. “I guess... We can try it in the mirror.” She stood partly in front of Cary, so they’d both fit into the long mirror on her door. She looked through the viewfinder. “I’m blocking you.”
“It’s okay.” He laid his hand on her shoulder. “It’s good.”
“I hope Mikey doesn’t hate my hair.” Shiloh moved the camera off her face and snapped the picture. “I’m not sure that will turn out. Maybe Darla can take one of us later.”
Cary watched her reflection. “And you’ll send me copies?”
“Yeah.”
She turned to him, slipping the camera into her pocket, and looked up at his head. “I’m used to your hair now. It took a minute.”
She was an inch or two shorter than him in her stocking feet. He looked down into her eyes.
“I’m not used to seeing so much of your face,” she said. “Did you cry when they cut it?”
“No. Some of the female recruits cry.”
“They make the girls shave their heads?”
“They cut it to their collars. Like yours.”
Shiloh touched the back of her hair, self-consciously. Then she reached up past Cary’s cheek.
He didn’t flinch. “Sorry there’s nothing left for you to pull...”
She touched the bristly hair over his ear—freshly cropped just before graduation—and ran her fingers along his scalp.
She shivered.
Then she moved her hand to the top of his head. “Aren’t you going to tell me to stop?”
He shook his head, just barely. “No.”
Shiloh stroked his hair against the grain and shivered again, like she couldn’t help it. He’d seen her do this before with velvet. With milkweed floss. One time, with the broken edge of a bowl.
She brought her other hand up and rubbed both of his temples. “You’re lucky you have such a nice head.”
Cary hummed a short syllable. He was just going to breathe through this.
“I do miss your hair though,” she whispered. “It’s a totally different color now. It’s darker—hardly blond at all. That’s weird, huh?”
He nodded.
She shivered from her head through her shoulders.
He put his hands on her waist to steady her. “Are you torturing yourself?”
“No,” she said, defensively. “I like it.”
She stroked with all ten fingertips from his forehead to the back of his neck. Cary cast his eyes down between them—he wasn’t sure which game this was.
