called the ‘urgent search party’ to find us. With the assumption that, naturally, I was the one who’d led poor Greyson into a near-death experience. I almost want to out and tell her that the only near-death experience we had was one without clothes, but I couldn’t do that to Greyson. Or myself.
I still haven’t figured out whether our affair getting out would be really bad for my career, or really, really bad for my career. Would directors and producers really scoff at working with a cinematographer who liked to have fun? Although that would not be the case at all. I didn’t mean for things to get out of hand with Greyson, just, every time I was around him, they did.
Anyway.
“You were getting a good shot,” Samantha says skeptically, glaring at me, then looking to Greyson, her glare softening immediately.
Clearly, she’s just jealous, and as much as I’d like to tell her to go shove it, we still have a long-ass time stuck out here together.
Manuel and Jorge are avoiding looking at us, clearly realizing that something’s going on too.
“Exactly,” I tell Samantha, showing her the camera screen and the little alligator footage. It’s a stellar shot—a clear, close-up view of his little scaly head—and by how her scowl deepens, she knows it too.
“Whatever,” she says, turning to Greyson. “How long did Russel say he needs again?”
“A while, but it’s probably not a good idea letting him wander too far,” Greyson says, heading for the trees. “I’ll go find him now. Wait here until I get back.”
Although he doesn’t look at me, I can tell his words are directed at me. It’s a bit cute, how he worries. Though he’s probably right. I do need to be more careful.
I accept a granola bar from Jorge, then retreat to my tent. Inside, chomping away at the peanut butter-chocolatey goodness (Han and I always used to call granola bars ‘glorified chocolate bars’), I check my phone. Hannah’s sent me a video that cracks me up immediately: it’s of the Most Handsome Man Alive fast asleep, snoring with his mouth open. At the end, the video pans over to her quietly chortling face. I find myself watching the video several times before finally tearing my gaze away.
Obviously, it’s funny, it’s just… there’s something else. Something in Hannah’s eyes that isn’t just sheer amusement. Love.
I’ve seen that look before. Seen where it’s led to.
Something twists in me. Mom and Dad, in the photograph they used to have hanging over the fireplace, hippie wedding attire on, eyes on each other, they had that look. And yet, where they ended up was so far gone…
Dad, away from home more nights than not, his face red and his eyes unseeing when he was home, blowing up at the stupidest things. Mom, barricading herself in her room, though the thick oak-panel door couldn’t muffle her sobbing… And it wasn’t just the years of it, the two going on three, until they finally broke up.
If that had been all of it, if they’d been able to bounce back after it, maybe then whenever I heard about or saw love I wouldn’t get an instinctive shiver. But they didn’t. Mom was still popping the same pills she’d been proscribed a few months after their separation, and Dad was as much of a functional alcoholic as ever.
That’s what love does to people.
I take a contemplative bite of my granola bar, chew some.
Maybe not always, but a lot of the time. Either love fizzles out and you become the bored couple that nitpick everything the other does or the love inverts, turns into something so hateful and ugly and monstrous that it’s unbelievable that what’s left behind even came from the word.
But Hannah and her guy, you can see it. She’s happier with him, he with her. They make each other better people.
But is it worth the risk?
Tossing the wrapper in my bag, I rise.
Whatever the answer to that question, there’s no point moping around in here. It doesn’t matter anyway. Greyson is my boss. End of story.
As soon as I stick my head outside the tent, I realize it’s been longer than I thought. Already the sun is setting, the shadows growing long. The others have set up a fire and are sitting round its crackling warmth. Greyson is back with Russel, who’s glowering into the fire, with an almost-full bag of marshmallows pressed to his chest.
“Hey,” I say, approaching them. “What’s up? Did you find which way we have