I remembered the feel of his hands positioning me on the wall that morning. The breathless wonder of what would happen with my eyes closed. And, feeling brave, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, unlocked it, and slid it across the table to him. “Take my picture again.”
He studied me for a moment, then picked up the phone, rose, and walked around the table. “Put your arm on the railing,” he directed. I did as he said. “No, like your elbow. I want you to lean the side of your forehead slightly on just your index finger.” When I didn’t get it right—admittedly, a little deliberately—he took my hand and positioned it for me, then touched my cheek to angle it just right. “There. Now cross your legs toward the railing.” I debated letting him do that too, but the direction was unmistakable. He took a few steps back and looked at me again, this time through the camera’s screen, adjusting the image with two fingers. “Good,” he said, more to himself than me. “Now smile.” I smiled. “No. The way you smiled at me before. When I said seeing the island was worth it.”
“I was smiling back at you then.” The same sultry grin spread across his face, and I reflexively returned the look. He snapped it and then handed the phone back to me, our hands touching as he did.
I looked down to see what he’d gotten, and I felt goose bumps rising along my arms. There was something so intimate in the picture. It was posed, but it looked like he had captured a spontaneous moment of flirtation.
“Good?” he asked.
“I—how do you get a picture like that with a phone? I mean—here,” I said, taking a quick shot of him and turning the phone for him to see it. “My pictures don’t look like that.”
He laughed. “You also didn’t look for lighting or try to create a mood; you just snapped.” He handed the phone back. “Close your eyes.” It was the second time that he’d asked me to do that today, and there was something exciting in the request. I closed them. “Picture me. Not the picture you just took. How do you actually see me?”
I thought about the smile he’d given me. He had smiled like that at the caption on the earlier picture too. Like there was a secret we shared. And the promise of more to come. He was vibrant and alive, and he made me feel like I was too.
I opened my eyes.
“Now tell me where to go and what to do.”
Looking around, I gestured back to the railing. “Angle your body toward the island,” I said slowly, thinking. I stood along the railing as well, farther down, parallel to him, then came back and turned his head so he was looking at me, my hand lingering a second too long, and I thought his face moved a fraction closer to mine.
But I wasn’t sure.
So I pulled away and went back to the spot I had staked out, five feet from him, and took a deep breath.
“Am I going to like whatever is out on the island?” I asked. When his lips curled into that same smile, I took the picture, then looked at it.
“So?”
I held the phone out for him to see. It was the best picture I had ever taken. Not on par with his, of course, but better than anything I had done before.
“I like how you see me,” he said, taking the phone and sitting back at the table, zooming in to examine the photo. “You’re good.”
“I’ve got a good teacher.” I sat as well and took another sip of my drink. He reached out to hand me my phone, and I leaned in to take it, and for a moment, we both held on, our hands touching. I looked at them, his right and my left, which still looked so naked without its wedding ring.
I took the phone and leaned back in my seat. It was too inebriating. The whole situation. Being away from home, the sound of the waves crashing on the beach, the drinks, the way he looked at me, the moonlight. And while I knew full well what my friends, my cousin, and, hell, even my grandma would tell me to do tonight, I couldn’t. I didn’t have a vacation fling in me. It wouldn’t make me feel better. I wasn’t Stella getting her groove back. If I tried to get over my failed marriage by sleeping with someone new, I’d only wind up even lower than I had been. And that was all this could be. I needed to remember that.
“I—I should head back,” I said, rummaging for my wallet.
He looked at me quizzically. “What just happened?”
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. If I let my mouth open, I had no idea what kind of disastrous truth about how I felt would come spilling out. And while I wasn’t ready to act on anything, I also didn’t want to scare him off, which I knew I would if I answered his question.