Every Single Secret(10)

Like I’d anticipated, the photo shoot was excruciatingly awkward. Lenny vamped and puckered and pouted at the camera while I stood beside her, trying to obey the photographer’s encouragement to give her some attitude. I wanted to give it to her, I really did, but instead my face went immobile, I stiffened up, and I had the overwhelming urge to pee.

Somewhere in the middle of the horrific process, Heath ambled up behind the photographer and whispered in her ear.

“Take five, ladies.” She stepped away, her assistant scurrying after her. Heath joined Lenny and me under the lights.

“Lenny Silver-Hirsch,” Lenny chirped, offering her hand.

“Heath Beck,” he said. “Would you mind if I stole your partner for a second, Lenny?”

Lenny’s eyes went wide. She smiled. “Be my guest.”

Heath put his hand on my arm—actually, just inside the upper part of my arm, the spot a little above the elbow—and led me outside the pool of light. In the darkness, he leaned toward me, and I inhaled. He smelled amazing—of some kind of intoxicating scent that I couldn’t place. My arm was tingling where he’d touched me.

“You don’t like this,” he said.

“This?” I asked, waving my finger in the space between us. He couldn’t have been more wrong. I liked it very much.

He smiled. “I mean having your picture taken.”

“Oh, right. No. I mean, yes. I hate it.”

“Me too.”

I blinked at him. “But. You were great up there. Like, completely . . . great.” My face was burning. I was glad we were outside the light.

“I have a trick. A secret that helps me get through things like this.”

I stared at him.

“Do you want to know what it is?” he asked gently.

I cleared my throat. “Absolutely. Yes.”

“I pick out the sexiest woman in the room, and I pretend I’m approaching her. Imagine I’m standing in front of her, about to ask her out for the very first time. I muster all my resources—all my charm and wit and confidence—and then I just slay her with all the amazingness that is me.”

He was still smiling, but when I looked into his dark eyes, they were locked onto mine.

He is like me . . . We are the same . . .

“You understand?” he asked.

Somehow I managed to speak. “I think so. Slay with my amazingness.”

“So go ahead. Do it. Look around and pick out the sexiest guy in the room.”

“Oh.” It was all I could do to tear my eyes away from his and scan the room. My gaze fell upon the guy who’d stood next to me in the group picture, a plastic surgeon. A red-faced, somewhat sweaty guy with caterpillar eyebrows and a scraggly goatee. He wore a giant gold pinky ring.

“Really? That guy?” Heath sounded incredulous. A little crestfallen.

I smiled, then covered my mouth. “I, uh—”

“No, no. It’s fine. I didn’t mean to criticize. I just . . . I guess I expected somebody . . . else. But, different strokes.” He grinned broadly and touched my arm again. My skin goosepimpled.

“When she takes the picture, all you have to do is pretend you’re standing in front of that guy—that strapping fellow you just selected. You stand in front of that guy like the strong, beautiful, intelligent woman that you are. And you give him a look that says, Hey, sweaty guy with that sad beard and pinky ring. We should go out for burritos later.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Burritos?”

“That’s right, burritos.”

He gave me a gentle push back into the lights. The next thing I knew, Lenny and I were draped all over each other, laughing and posing. The camera clicked nonstop, and all the while, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Heath Beck, who, incidentally, wasn’t standing anywhere near the guy with the sad beard and pinky ring.

Later, as Lenny and I made our way through the parking lot to her car, my phone vibrated with a text. Only one word, from a number I didn’t recognize.

Daphne.

I stopped, my heart thudding while Lenny danced around me, oblivious, chattering about the shoot and her husband, Drew, and how much he was going to love the photos.

“Did you give him my number?” I asked her.

She just grinned, and then another text appeared, directly under the first.

We should go out for burritos.



Friday, October 19

Evening

I am sliding sideways down the face of the mountain, skiing over the blanket of wet leaves, using the slender beech trees for balance. The big coat flaps around me, and I’ve wedged the iPad against my back in the waistband of my jeans. My glasses keep slipping down. They’re fogged too, but I don’t bother to stop and wipe them. I don’t have time. I need to find the road, wherever the hell that may be, before it gets dark.

I’m not a woods person, even during the day. Past sundown, they’ll feel like they’ve grown deeper, darker, more labyrinthine, the setting of a monstrous fairy tale. There are bears and coyotes and God knows what else out here prowling, stalking. But there is also a man. And I am more afraid of him than I am of any wild animal.

I’m soaked through now, from my own sweat and maybe even blood, but I keep going. All those dawns on the track come back to me. Funny how I was always trying to push myself harder for some reason. It must’ve been all for this moment.