Page 10 of Foul & Fake
I scan her face a second longer before I turn back toward my food. “Probably. I don’t mind arguing with you, just don’t judge me when I get a boner.”
Her jaw goes slack. “What?”
I laugh around my next bite, taking my time to chew before I give her a response. “It’s your fault you’re hot when you’re angry. Not mine.”
“Weirdo.” She goes back to eating her burrito, but she can’t hide the way she smiles around it.
I’m growing on her.
I let her sit in silence until the chips are all that’s left, and then I fluff up her pillow to put behind my head. “So what made you choose journalism?”
She shrugs. “There are so many stories to tell and not enough people to tell them. I also highly distrust everyone and everything, so I decided to dedicate my life to finding the truth. What brought you to photography?”
It’s the first real question she’s ever asked me, and it kinda throws me off guard. I take a moment to get my answer together, slumping down on her bed a little so I can face her without being in her bubble too much. Something tells me that would push her away. “When I was young, my dad was always on the road, and photos were the majority of our communication. He’s a man of few words, so when he took the time to send me pictures of the places he was in… I don’t know. I felt closer to him. So I started sending some back, and one day, one of his teammates asked to buy one. It wasn’t even a photo I thought anyone would appreciate. I was just having a shit day and I came across this penny in the middle of the road so I took like forty pictures of this dumb coin to keep myself from thinking about anythingelse, and then played around on the computer with it for a while. It’s still one of my favorites, and I’ve sold about a hundred copies of it online.” I realize then I’m rambling so I cut myself off before I go into how much my father regrets getting me into photography. “I don’t know. I like things that feel random yet are exactly where they need to be.”
Her face softens. “That’s a nice way to look at things. I wish you’d have photographed something other than my vagina, but hey.”
“Oh no,” I chuckle. “Your pussy was exactly where it needed to be. My screenshot is blurry so I need a better picture of it honestly. Wait, don’t talk about it.”
I move her pillow in front of my lap so she thinks I’m getting a hard-on, but I’m not sure she even noticed.
“Screenshot?”
Shit. “I didn’t show anyone. It was just for… viewing purposes and the video ends too quickly.” Not that it took me long to come.
“Oh.” Her face falls again, so expressive even when she doesn’t want to be. “Well good for you, I guess.”
Aaaand now I ruined it. Great. “Want one of mine?”
“Not really.” She looks down at her hands, fidgeting with her thumb nail. “That’s actually really embarrassing for me,” she admits. “It’s not the type of first impression I wanted to make on anyone.”
Rejected once again, but here I am making jokes about jacking off when she sat here begging me to delete it. What the fuck did I expect?
God, I’m an asshole, but I’m in too deep now. “There’s no need to be embarrassed. I know that’s rich coming from me, but I — shit, I won’t bring it up again. Let’s change the subject.”
“No, it’s okay.” She finally looks up, pushing her glasses back up her nose. “You have it and I know you have it, so I guess… It’sfine. It’s still embarrassing, but I’ll try to take it as a compliment that you found it worth watching again.”
It absolutely is, not that she needs to hear it from me. “That’s all I meant it as, even if I fumbled it. Anyway, about the fuck-buddy thing. We can’t be fucking people on the side if we’re dating so I need you to tell Darren you’re choosing me and not tell him it’s fake. I lied to my best friend, my team, and a girl in my class who was DTF, so I need you to do some lying too.”
She’s silent for a moment as she watches me, but she grabs her phone and shoots off a text, then shows it to me.
She did it. She told Dennis I wanted to try things for real, so she can’t see him anymore. “Happy?”
I flash her a wide smile, then lean in to kiss her cheek. “That’s my girl. Send me your favorite photo of yourself.”
She bites her lip and flips through her photos. “Is this to show your friends?”
“It’s for my phone wallpaper, but I want one to show them too. I was already bragging about your eyes.”
I peek over to see the types of things she deems worthy of photos, and most of them are of Sam, campus, the sky, or possums.
I’m not sad at all to see she doesn’t have any of David — I’m well-fucking-aware his name is Dennis. I just don’t care.
She stops on one of her holding a puppy. She’s grinning so widely I can hardly see her eyes at all, but I’ve never seen someone look so happy before. When she swipes again, her eyes are clearly visible — but her face is covered in pepperoni.
Laughing, I fight the urge to snatch her phone and spend the rest of the night going through it. “I need them all.”
She sends me a few, including one of her sitting in a restaurant booth with a giant plate of fettuccine alfredo in front of her. I don’t know who she was with, but she’s blushingslightly, she’s smiling like a dork, and her eyes look bluer than I’ve ever seen them.
