She glanced down at the first one, an old candid shot of her sitting on his lap at a family barbecue. He’d been twenty-six. She’d been twenty-one, and about to tackle the world of corporate hospitality. In the shot, Benji’s eyes were solidly fixed on her, but Sierra’s were grinning at the camera. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said, her tone momentarily brightening. ‘Do you remember this?’
‘Yeah. Of course.’
‘My mom found out we were sneaking around,’ she said quietly, her fingers tracing over both their faces.
‘And she told me we may as well go public given that everybody already knew,’ Benji said.
‘Did she say that to you?’ Sierra asked.
Benji hefted the box down, onto the carpet in front of her, and sat next to her again. ‘Yeah. She was really sweet about it.’
Sierra laughed – loudly. The sound, one he hadn’t heard in a really long time, zipped over his skin. ‘She wasnotsweet to me,’ she informed him.
Benji frowned. ‘She didn’t want you seeing me?’ It worried him that Ava, who had been more of a mother to him than his own, might not have wanted him for Sierra.
‘Oh, she did,’ Sierra informed him. ‘But she was mad at me for keeping you a secret. She said I should be proud to be loved by such a good man, and that it was an insult to all of you that I’d want to keep you a secret.’
Benji’s heart squeezed tightly in his chest. ‘She said that?’
‘Oh yeah. Mom never let me get away with shit.’ She was quiet for a long moment as she fought to compose herself.
If Benji closed his eyes, he could still recall Ava vividly. ‘God, I miss her.’
‘Me too.’ Sierra flipped to the next photo, one of them with Ava and James between them. ‘I sometimes think it would have been so much easier if my mom had been there. After.’
‘She would have known what to do,’ he agreed. Instead, Sierra had had only him and Mav, neither of who knew what the fuck they could do to help her keep her head above the water.
‘Yeah.’ She held up the next photo, this one of the three of them – Mav, Sierra, and him – covered in mud. ‘How old were we in this?’
‘Mav and I were twelve,’ he said, remembering the summer well. ‘Which would have made you what, seven?’
‘There abouts.’ She moved on to the next photo, but her smile never died. ‘God, we used to have so much fun.’
‘Mav and I were wild,’ he affirmed. ‘And you were always following us into trouble.’
‘I used to get so mad when you guys would leave me out.’
Benji remembered that. It was odd to think that a lifetime ago she’d been this annoying little kid who wouldn’t leave them alone. And now she was this sad woman with a siren song that called out to him even through his own sea of grief. But because she was smiling, he didn’t say that. He said, ‘You were such a brat!’
Sierra gasped in mock insult. ‘I was not!’ She slapped a hand playfully on his thigh, and even as she moved away again and added, ‘I was a treasure,’ Benji couldn’t think past that whiplash touch.
‘You were a pain in the ass.’ He tipped his head, mocking only himself when he added, ‘Until you weren’t.’
Sierra reached into the box and pulled out the next pile of photographs. ‘Do you remember the first time you really saw me?’
Benji didn’t tease her. And he didn’t pretend that he didn’t know what she was asking. ‘Yeah. You?’
‘Yeah. It was the summer I turned fifteen.’
His breath caught as he listened, almost as if he were terrified that something as fragile as a loud breath would snap her out of the memory.
‘I was watching you run barrels on my dad’s horse, and I remember getting all hot and fidgety, and thinking: Damn. Not him.’ She laughed lightly. ‘You had been my sworn nemesis until then. My big brother’s obnoxious friend. I still have no idea what changed …’ She scrunched her nose. ‘Actually, that’s not true. You were really hot at twenty. Fifteen-year-old Sierra never stood a chance of avoiding that crush.’
Benji couldn’t remember the day she referenced, but he could remember his own lighting strike as if it were yesterday. ‘We were at Mav’s birthday party,’ he said softly, thinking back. ‘I was three sheets to the wind by the time you and Jade showed up. And I’m sitting there, roasting in the sun, a cold beer in my hand, surrounded by our friends that were home from school for the summer.’
‘I remember,’ she cut in. ‘You threw me into the pond!’
Benji grinned wickedly. ‘No, Itriedto throw you into the pond. You wrapped your legs around me and forced us both in. And could you blame me?’ he demanded. ‘My best friend’s little sister showed up, seventeen years old and dressed in a pathetic excuse for denim shorts, cowgirl boots, and a tiny little top. Every guy there wanted you.’
