Chapter Three
Layla
WEDNESDAY MORNING Iwas supposed to be photographing the horseback archery demonstration, and I was doing a fine job of it if you didn’t count the fact that six of my last ten frames were centered on the same man and none of the guests.
The Hill Country was doing its best work. The sun was already fierce, the air above the arena wavering with heat, and the light had that sharp June quality that made everything look clean-edged and bright. Jake had set up hay-bale targets at the far end of the arena and the morning’s guests were taking turns on horseback with recurve bows, most of them missing by margins that were heroic in their optimism. I shot the wide frames Lucinda would want for the website — riders against sky, the sweep of wildflower meadow behind the fence line, a woman in a red hat nailing a target edge and throwing both fists up in genuine triumph. Good content. Solid morning.
Then Wade walked into my viewfinder and my compositional discipline went straight to hell.
He was leaning on the arena fence in a white t-shirt and his cream cowboy hat, his boot propped on the lowest rail, watchingthe archery with that easy grin. I took four consecutive photos of his profile because my thumb had apparently seceded from my brain. He shifted and I took a fifth. His thighs in those worn jeans were thick and solid against the fence rail and I was framing the shot tighter and tighter without making any conscious decision to do so.
I lowered the camera, took a breath of hot sage-scented air, and scrolled back through the last dozen frames. Wade laughing. Wade watching the riders. Wade in profile, every angle worth keeping. One beautiful wide shot of the arena that I’d apparently taken by accident. My camera had decided to document the problem in high resolution.
I forced myself to shoot the rest of the demonstration with professional discipline. The guests, the horses, the targets, the wide vistas. I got beautiful frames of Jake demonstrating the draw, a teenager whooping after his first hit, and an older couple sharing a horse that looked resigned to its fate. I did not take any more photos of Wade Bishop’s forearms or the way his hat sat on his head or the line of his back when he leaned forward on the fence. I accomplished this by pointing my camera in the opposite direction and keeping it there.
Milo talked his way into a turn with the bow. He missed the hay bale entirely and hit a fence post. I caught Wade’s full-body laugh mid-frame, chin lifted, hat sliding, grin wide and crooked, because that was legitimate content for the website and I was simply doing my job.
By two o’clock I was sitting on my stool in the Saloon with my guitar in my lap and my pulse doing something medically interesting.
The Saloon in the afternoon was all warm wood and quiet. No stage lights, no crowd, just the two stools Wade had set facing each other and the faint smell of polished oak and yesterday’s beer. My camera bag sat at my feet next to my guitarcase. Wade was already on his stool tuning up, hat pushed back, dust motes drifting between us in the quiet. He’d been here when I walked in, same as yesterday, and the easy nod he’d given me when I came through the door had sent a flush up the back of my neck that I was choosing to blame on the weather.
“Let’s run ‘Blue on Blue’ from the top,” he said. “Then I want to try the new arrangement for the second set.”
We played. The harmonies caught faster today, my voice finding his within the first bar, and the sound filled the empty room and pressed into my breastbone. I could feel it — the low vibration of his voice moving through the air between us and into my chest, warm and resonant. Every time he dropped into the lower register my breath went shallow. We were sitting close enough that I could smell him. Soap and clean cotton and a warmth underneath that was just skin and sun. When he leaned forward to adjust my chord chart his knee brushed my thigh and I hit a wrong note so hard it echoed.
“Sorry,” I said. “Sorry, I just—”
“You’re fine. Take it from the bridge.”
I took it from the bridge. His thigh stayed where it was, inches from mine, and I sang the rest of the song with my eyes fixed on the chord chart because looking at his face while his voice was vibrating through my body seemed inadvisable for my continued ability to form words.
We ran through the full setlist. By the fourth song my shoulders had dropped and my voice was doing things I’d almost forgotten it could do, rising into harmonies that locked against his with a sweetness that surprised me every time, filling the Saloon with a sound that was bigger than either of us alone. I forgot to be afraid. I forgot to be careful. I just sang, and he sang, and the music carried us both.
Then he stopped playing and said, “Tonight.”
The word hit the floor of my stomach. Tonight. The Saloon full of guests, the stage lights on, real people watching. My throat closed.
“I can hear you thinking,” Wade said. He set his guitar down. “You just sang for an hour without a single problem. But the second I say ‘tonight,' your whole body locks up.”
He was not wrong. My fingers had gone rigid on the fretboard and I was gripping the neck of my guitar hard enough to leave prints in the finish.
“It’s different with people watching,” I said. My voice came out smaller than I wanted.
He studied me for a long moment. Then he said, “I have an idea. You’re going to think it’s strange, but just hear me out.”
I waited.
“Give me your camera.”
I looked at him. “What?”
“Your camera.” He held out his hand. “Hand it over.”
The request made no sense, which was probably why I unhooked the strap from around my neck and put the camera in his palm. He held it with the careful grip of someone handling an instrument that belongs to someone else, and tested the weight.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “Your problem isn’t your voice. Your problem is being looked at. You spend your whole life on the other side of this thing.” He raised the camera. “You’re the one framing everybody else. Nobody frames you. So the stage feels wrong because suddenly you’re in the shot.”
My pulse thudded in my ears. He was uncomfortably correct.
