Always, in December(26)
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.
“Used to?” Max asked.
Josie hesitated. “They died,” she said softly. She felt his head whip round to look at her, but kept her gaze firmly on the ground in front of her. “In a car crash when I was nine, driving back from a party on Christmas Eve.” She felt his grip tighten on hers for a moment. He was still staring at her.
“Jesus,” he said. “That’s…Jesus.” She finally looked up at him. His eyes were round, his lips pressed together as he took it in, clearly trying to figure out what to say. This was the worst bit, when you first told people, because they never knew how to react. “That’s awful, Josie—and I know it’s a cliché, but I’m sorry.”
She nodded. Funny, how it was the done thing to apologize, to take responsibility for it. “It was a long time ago,” she said, which was what she always said.
He squeezed her hand. “Doesn’t make it OK,” he said softly.
She felt a lump in her throat and forced it down. She was not going to start crying. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
The sun was setting now, a blaze on the horizon, the orange glow reflected on the water. “It changes you, that kind of loss,” Max said, his voice husky now, like he was voicing his own feelings and not hers. She wondered who in his past he’d lost, or if he was thinking only of her. “But you get through it, learn to live with it.” His gaze was intense on hers, so that she felt she couldn’t look away. It wasn’t a question, but it was like he was seeking her reassurance then, like he needed her to tell him she was OK.