She was deliberately standing at the other side of the pier from Max, but the wind carried his voice over to her regardless, so that she could make out snippets of his phone call. “I promise I’m all right.” A laugh, then, though Josie thought it sounded slightly bitter. “It’s not like it’s my choice.” “Chill, OK? I’m not going to do anything drastic.” He went quiet for a moment and Josie realized she’d paused in the action of taking the photo, her attention on what he was saying despite herself. “I know, I know.” A sigh, then, “Well, I’m not alone, exactly.” Josie immediately started fumbling with her camera, suspecting that he would be glancing over at her. “No, look. Josie!” She started, then turned to see him gesturing her over. She hesitated, then walked across to him.
He held out the phone to her as she approached. “Say hello to my sister, won’t you? She thinks I stuck with the room-service plan.” He thrust it into her hands.
“Hello?” she said cautiously.
“Hello?” A sharp, direct voice came from the other end. “So you’re the—？”
Max snatched the phone away before she could finish. “See?” He rolled his eyes at Josie, as if they were both in on his sister’s behavior. “Anyway, I’ve got to go, I’m having a lovely time with Josie at the beach.” Josie didn’t catch what his sister said, but Max cut her off anyway. “Yes, the beach. I’ll call you all later, OK?” And then he hung up, slipping his phone immediately back into his inside pocket. “Sorry about that. She’s just worried about me.” Though he smiled, it held a tight quality, not the relaxed, open smile she’d seen when he’d played in the water.
Josie nodded. “Nice that she worries though.”
“Yeah. I suppose.” He sighed, shook his head. “She’s the golden child, followed in Mum and Dad’s footsteps and is now a junior doctor. We both try not to resent her for it.”
“You both do?”
“Yep.” He leaned back against the railings. “It’s just as hard being the golden child as it is living in their shadow, don’t you know?”
“Hmm, wouldn’t know anything about that, being an only child and all.”
Max looked down at Josie’s hands and she realized she was still clutching the camera. “Can I see some of your photos?”
Josie bit her lip. “I suppose so.”
He chuckled. “Don’t sound too enthusiastic.”
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “Yes, sure.” She handed over her camera and showed him how to flick back through the recent photos, twisting her hands as she stood a little behind him, her gaze flicking between him and the viewer. It was a personal thing, more than she suspected he realized, to share them with him. “They need editing,” she said. “And they’re just fun photos, you know, not—”
“I like this one.” It was one of him, with his face partially turned toward her, the contrast between the sea and sky perfect without any enhancements, the photo somehow managing to capture the icy chill of the day while keeping a warm feel to the composition.
Josie smiled a little. “Me too.”
He flicked through a few more. “They’re really good. Not that I’m the best judge, I guess, but it’s like I can feel you in the photos.” He handed her back the camera, and she felt herself blush. It was the best thing to say. Oliver always used to say that she was hiding behind the lens, and got grumpy with her because she didn’t like to be in the photos, just take them. He hadn’t ever seemed to totally get that, even if she wasn’t visible in them, she still was very much a part of every photo she took.
“My mum bought me my first camera,” she said with a little smile. He took her hand as they walked back along the pier, and it felt so easy, so natural.
“Really?”
She nodded. “When I was nine. It was a cheap Kodak one, you know, one of the disposable ones, and I was thrilled.” She grinned at the memory, at how excited she’d been. “Mum used to take all the photos too, I guess that’s where I got it from.” The smile faded as she thought of it, of how her mum had always taken too many family snaps on holiday and at parties, how her dad had complained but gone along with it, how her mum had to take several before she managed to get her thumb out the way and everyone’s eyes open. Josie was glad of it now, because it meant she had memories of her childhood, but there were too few photos of her mum actually in the shot, like her childhood was documented without her.