"What?"
Click. The shutter sounds before I can react.
"Erin!" I say, shocked but also curious as to why she’s taking my photo.
She lowers the camera and checks the screen. "Hmm."
"What do you mean, hmm?"
She grins. "I was right."
"About what?"
"You've got a lovely smile."
I feel my cheeks heat. "I wasn't smiling."
She laughs once again. "You were."
"I definitely wasn't."
She turns the camera around and shows me, I stare at the photograph; I am smiling.
"When was that?" I ask, wondering when she took that photo.
"About three seconds ago."
I gape at her. "I don't smile like that."
"You do," Erin says. "You just don't realise you do."
I hand the camera back to her. "I don't like having my picture taken."
Her expression softens. "I know."
"You do?"
She nods. "I've noticed." She falls into step beside me as we continue walking through the gardens. "I don't take photographs because people look perfect," she says after a moment. "I take them because one day they'll matter."
I glance at the camera resting against her hip. "You really do take pictures of everything, don't you?"
She laughs. "Pretty much."
"Why?"
She looks out across the gardens before answering. "I grew up in foster care." I stay quiet at her words, I never knew that about her. "Different houses and different families." She shrugs like it doesn't matter, but I get the feeling it matters more than she'll ever admit. "There aren't many photographs of me growing up."
My heart squeezes.
"So now," she says, lifting the camera, "I make sure there are plenty."
I smile. "I think that's lovely."
"It also means Marco hides whenever he sees me coming."
I laugh. "And Lorenzo?"
"Oh, he's impossible." She rolls her eyes dramatically. "I've managed one picture of him smiling."
