let a beat go by before adding, “And don’t ask about his father, please. He passed away before Fred was born, and that’s all I like to say about that.”
“Understood.” He’s quiet now as we walk. I’ve ruined the mood. Which is probably for the best since I’m not trying to form any attachments between us.
Any more attachments between us.
Still, I can’t help being sour over it. I’m so busy brooding, in fact, that it’s Hendrix who has to point it out. “Look,” he says. His face says that he’s charmed by something. I know that because I’ve seen him look at me in the same way.
I follow his gaze and see Freddie standing in front of the gray-stone colored wizard, his expression full of wonder.
Quickly and with stealth, Hendrix approaches them, taking the lens off his camera and bringing it to his eye as he does. I creep behind him with equal excitement, hoping he caught the picture I’m seeing in my own head.
“Let me see,” I say eagerly when he pauses his clicking to look at the screen. He hands over the camera willingly.
The photos are good. They’re really good. Much better than the shots he took in class yesterday. These aren’t missing what those lacked.
Still.
“May I?”
He understands me immediately, taking the sling off his shoulder so I can use the camera. Slowly, hoping that Freddie stays exactly as he is, I crouch down and manually adjust the focus. I only click three times, but when I stand up again, I have exactly the shot I envisioned—Freddie looking up at the wizard with awe, taken from his height so that the wizard appears as looming to the observer as he does to the child.
“That’s it,” Hendrix says as he peers over my shoulder. “That’s the shot.”
It’s twenty-two degrees, and I’m warm under my long-sleeve floral wrap dress, but I shiver at his words. Just like I’ve never had a partner parent, I’ve never had a partner in my other aspects of creation.
I hadn’t ever imagined how much I might want them.
“Look at the witch!” Freddie is off again, running toward a bronze woman with snakes for hair.
“She’s Medusa,” I correct, handing back the camera to its owner. I start in the direction Freddie headed, then stop with a frown.
Hendrix stops with me, slinging the camera over his shoulder. “What’s—?” He catches sight of what caught my eye, or rather who caught my eye. “I didn’t come with her,” he says, seeming to know how much I want to hear it.
He probably didn’t. Kaila with an i had the same assignment that Hendrix did. Of course there was every chance she’d be here, too.
I force a smile and wave at my other student, grateful that she’s too consumed with her photography to do anything more than wave back.
It doesn’t do anything to lighten the lead in my stomach.
Hendrix is deeply in tune with my displeasure. “It’s the first time I’ve seen her all day. Swear.”
It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t. He can do what he pleases. He has no need to give me excuses.
Yes, my jealousy is irrational, but it’s as real and spectacular as the humans pretending to be stone. “Why would I think otherwise?” I say cattily. “Because she’s here at the exact same time you are. Because she partnered up with you in class. Because you bought her a negroni while she hung on you at Nightsky.”
It’s amazing how Hendrix tolerates my petty behavior. “She said to get whatever I was getting,” he says simply. “And she was the one doing all the hanging.”
“You went with her to the bar in the first place. She arranged it, I’m guessing?”
“She did,” he admits. “Remember there was a group of us.”
“But she’s the one who asked you.”
He steps closer to me, his body almost brushing against my arms crossed over my chest, and though I’m acutely aware what we might look like to Kaila, to any other student observing us, I don’t move away. “And I said yes,” he says quietly, “because I was already planning to go as soon as you told the class you liked to go there too.”
I glance up at him, needing to hear what I so shouldn’t hear. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to see you. And so I went to where I thought it was most likely that would happen.”
The photographer-in-wait. Staking out the subject’s known habitat.
“Some women file restraining orders over such behavior.” I say it like a dare, though I don’t know what