after me. I held back a sigh. I had already bailed on the picture once, and Amy was super nice to let it go. She didn’t deserve any blowback for my recent wave of flakiness. I picked up my backpack that carried my camera and my laptop. My phone was fully charged, so I quickly scrolled through my contacts and found Mike’s number.
Meet you at library tonight?
Sure, came the quick response.
The campus movie theater, the Varsity, sat on the very edge of the south end of campus, down by the diner. We’d just walk. I didn’t want this to appear any more date-like than it already did.
I pulled the backpack on and picked up my tripod. Opening my bedroom door, I said to both, “Let’s go.”
As we descended, I could hear footsteps on the stairs below. Noah’s face appeared around the next turn.
“Great. I didn’t want to be late for my tutorial,” Noah smiled at us. I heard Amy give a breathy sigh behind me.
“I’m the assistant,” Lana told Noah.
I muttered, “Fine,” motioning him to turn and go down the stairs.
At the porch, Noah stopped me and tugged at my backpack with one hand, grabbing the tripod with the other. For a moment I resisted until I realized how ridiculous we looked, as if we were two dogs fighting over a bone. I let both the backpack and the tripod go.
“Let me guess—something to do with your momma.” I rolled my eyes.
Noah shrugged on the backpack. “I had it easier than you, you know.”
“I don’t think that just because you lost your mom when you were born, and I lost my dad when I was twelve that you had it easier than me,” I replied softly. I didn’t want Lana or Amy to hear me, but I also didn’t want Noah to believe I thought his loss was less than mine. As if sensing I needed a moment, Lana hurried a reluctant Amy along.
“It’s true. I don’t think you can miss what you don’t know,” Noah replied.
“Sure you can.” I think Noah missed his mother more than he ever would admit.
“I don’t have memories of her, but you have twelve years of them with your dad.
“I also didn’t have someone blaming me for my dad’s death like your dad has.”
“Are we going to try to out-horrible the other?” Noah ran a hand through his hair.
“Out-horrible?”
“Like my life is more horrible than yours?” Noah explained.
I shook my head. “Is that what I’m doing? Because I didn’t mean to.”
“I know it wasn’t,” he let out a deep breath. “This is too heavy a discussion for a sunny day.”
I looked up and squinted. Full midday sun.
“What’s wrong?” Noah asked. Maybe I did have a black-ants-on-a-white-blanket face.
“I’m just hoping for a little cloud cover.”
“Why is that? I thought pictures needed a lot of light.”
“Full sun is great for taking photos of the sky, but it casts hard shadows and makes even really beautiful people look kind of awful. You have to have a lot of experience to take good full sun pictures, and I’m not there yet.”
Noah opened his mouth, but I jumped in to add, “And don’t say that’s why I should major in art, because the best way to become a better photographer is just to practice.”
“Fair enough. Tell me about how you create these pictures that look like Bo’s old mechanical football game with the tiny plastic guys.”
“I’ll do better than that,” I said. “I’ll show you.”
After climbing the three flights of stairs to a messy room at the top of the Delt house, I was grateful Noah was carrying my bag and tripod. Lana and I were both a bit winded, as was Jack, who escorted us up. Two younger Delts stood in the room frantically trying clean up, but it was too late. While a path from the door to the windows had been cleared, it still smelled like old socks and pizza boxes. Red plastic cups lay haphazardly on their sides, and the two desks pushed away from the window were piled high with video game boxes, textbooks, and a variety of T-shirts.
“Sorry,” Jack said as we entered. He glared at the two fleeing Delts. It looked like someone was likely to get a house punishment later.
I took my tripod from Noah, and set it in front of the window. “Can we take the screen out?” I asked Jack.
“Sure.” He walked over and peered around the sill. I could tell he didn’t know how to remove it. Noah