Slash (Slay Quartet #4.5) - Laurelin Paige Page 0,2

have earned me attention. Most of the time, I just got lucky.

Chapter One

Cropping: Editing, typically by removing the outer edges of the image. - MoMA Glossary of Art Terms

You’ve got to be kidding me.

The thought races through my mind repeatedly as I shuffle through the registration papers in front of me, as if I might have the wrong stack, as if I might see something different when I return to the sheet with the names of all my students.

Of course nothing changes when my eyes return to the enrollment form. There are still thirteen names arranged in alphabetical order. There are still more women than men by a three to one ratio. And Hendrix Reid is still the last male name on the list.

It can’t be a coincidence. It’s bloody unlikely there are many Hendrixes in the photography world, less unlikely more than one of them has the surname Reid.

Despite the unlikelihood, I hold on to the slim thread of doubt, mainly because I have no other choice. I have no time to prepare mentally for the alternative since class is set to begin in, oh, four and a half minutes. A good majority of the thirteen students are already sitting at the three tables squaring the room in front of me, and since none of them are recognizable, it isn’t impossible that the Hendrix Reid enrolled is not my Hendrix Reid.

Not that I have a Hendrix Reid. He was never actually mine. Even for the one night we spent together, we remained strangers. Sure, we took our clothing off and engaged in wicked behavior, but the lights were out so it was more anonymous than not, despite having exchanged names, which I try to never do. Technically, I hadn’t then either. The conference we’d attended had taken care of that, listing both our names and our bios with headshots in the event directory, without any regard to the fact that some of us became photographers because we preferred to remain on the other side of the lens.

Which is neither here nor there.

I would have told him my name anyway and with no regrets. The conversation that had led to the tryst in his hotel room had been rather remarkable, and a lot of it had centered around the fact that we were both notable photographers, so anonymity wasn’t ever going to apply between us.

And why would famed wildlife photographer Hendrix Reid be registered for a portrait course, in London, of all places? He’d told me he was wintering in the savannahs, and while spring is definitely upon us now, there is not much in the way of wildlife here beyond the hedgehogs and kestrels at Regent’s Park. Certainly nothing to attract him. The idea it’s the same man is ludicrous.

Except, hadn’t he said he was sure that we would see each other again one day?

I bite the inside of my lip so that I won’t audibly groan.

I was stupid not to go through the enrollment form earlier. Strike that, I was cowardly. I’d been nervous about the prospect of teaching the class in the first place. Almost immediately after agreeing to lead the advanced course, I’d wanted to back out. It had been my brother who had convinced me it was a good idea, for reasons I can no longer remember, and why am I listening to his advice about how I live my life these days when he’s practically settled in New York with his new wife and child? It’s not like he knows what I need now any more than any of the other times we’ve been apart over the course of our lives, and he’s halfheartedly tried to parent me from afar.

I listened to him, though, because while I am well into adulthood and a single mother/career woman who doesn’t need governing, I also sort of do.

“Do you actually live your life?” he’d asked, and how dare he, but also maybe thank goodness he dared because I didn’t have a good answer to the question, and though I very much objected to his right to know, it was probably something my therapist would want me to consider. Just. There was a reason I didn’t see her anymore, and it wasn’t because I’d achieved mental clarity.

Rather, like in all things that scared me, I was the type to lower my head, as I had with Hendrix. As I had with this class.

One and a half minutes to go.

One minute.

I watch the seconds tick by on the analog