Page 28 of Tempting the Teammate
“I didn’t realize you had these here,” Griffin said as he opened the box. That, at least, was genuine and true. That was the line for the episode that Jen had suggested, but Griffin hadn’t seen the photos. He only knew I had been taking and developing them last year. We’d never gone through all the photographs I’d brought with me when we moved here. We’d never sat down to look at them.
And for good reason.
It hurt to see the fourteen-year-old Griffin in a wide shot of a snowy field, standing next to a snowman half again as tall as him. He called the snowman Andrei when I’d suggested taking this photo.
I had only been starting to play with film cameras. The composition was all wrong, the exposure burning the shadows away, but I liked the fine grain that came naturally with film. Developing it was hell. I’d botched it four times before getting this one right.
“I remember this,” Griffin said, not laughing. “Me and Andrei.”
“The snowman?” Jen asked.
“Yep,” Griffin said, waving the photo. He thrust it to me, and I took it, our fingers touching for a moment. It was like a zap of electricity, and my hand jerked away with the photo between my fingers.
He dug into the box and took out a bunch of photographs. Some were black-and-white, others bursting with color. One was from last year. It was our first semester. In fact, it was our first week at Northwood. Griffin lay on his bed, pillow crushed beneath his elbow, a comic book with a broken spine between his hands, skin around his eyes wrinkled in a radiant smile.
He lingered, looking at the picture. “You took two that night.”
I snort laughed and shook my head. “This was the first one.”
“Yeah, you thought you were so sneaky, but you turned on the flash then.”
I laughed. “I thought it was too dark.”
“It was perfect,” Griffin said. “See?” He waved the photo again.
“Do you have the second photo?” Jen asked.
We shared a laugh.
“He developed it,” said Griffin. “And then we ceremonially burned it outside on the lawn. The flash made me jump, and I looked like the meme of the guy waking up.” He looked at me. “Nobody’s ever taken a worse photo of me in my life.”
But not this one. This one was among the best.
Griffin flipped through a handful of photos, all of them spontaneous snapshots of his figure. Sometimes, he was a lonely figure on the ice. Other times, he was surrounded by friends. At times, he didn’t know the lens was watching him. At other times, he looked right into it, dimples popping and teeth shining.
Griffin narrated the memories surrounding those snapshots, so I didn’t have to talk.
My throat tightened as I looked at the photos.
“Andrei,” Jen said. “You’re not in any of these.”
I shook my head. “Um…I’m behind the camera.”
“In all of these?” she asked.
I looked at her, ignoring the camera’s widening eye as the cameraman zoomed into my face. “Yeah, I took all of them.”
They let the silence drag as I looked into Jen’s eyes. I could feel Griffin looking at my profile, and I knew that the shot would be all over social media five minutes after the episode aired.
“Perfect,” Jen said, looking at her tablet. “I think we’ve got everything in the house.”
The crew got together for a lunch break, and I wandered off after Griffin to do the same, but away from the observers and producers and crews. He and I went to the Thirsty Thinker for a round of juicy, medium-rare burgers and a portion of fries to share. Griffin made the standard order and paid for us both, then led the way to an empty booth.
As we sat down with a huff, I thought we were about to talk. Things needed to be aired out, but the knot in my throat wasn’t letting me open the subject.
He looked away.
Why are you mad at me?I wanted to ask. It was an indulgent, defensive question. I hated myself for wanting to ask that one in particular. Especially because I knew the answer. He wasn’t. He wasn’t mad at me. He just couldn’t stand looking at me.
