Foreplay (The Ivy Chronicles #1)(46)

I searched for something good about it. Everything was tidy and organized. Textbooks neatly piled on my desk beside my laptop. No clutter. I hated having a bunch of stuff I would only have to cram into my car at the end of the year and then find a place to store while back home at Gram’s for the summer.

He stepped up to my desk. Three pictures sat there. One of me and my dad blowing out the candles on my first birthday cake. I’m on his lap. There are a bunch of bodies pressed behind us, none of their faces visible in the shot, and I always liked that. Liked not knowing which one was Mom. If one of them even was. The photograph was of just me and Dad. The way it would have been if some land mine hadn’t taken him from me and left me with her instead.

Even though it was my birthday cake, Dad was the one blowing out the candles. Probably because I wouldn’t. Instead, I watched him with this wide-eyed, bewildered look on my little round face. Like he was performing the most amazing feat I had ever seen in my short life.

The second photograph was of me and Gram at my high school graduation. Tucked into the edge of that frame was a strip of four photo booth snapshots of me, Emerson, and Georgia taken at the mall last spring. It was on the same day we had decided to sign up for a suite together. We were making the requisite crazy faces. In every pose Em looked like she was making love to the camera. Like Porn Goddess was the only expression she could make.

The last picture was me with Lila and Hunter at their family’s annual Fourth of July barbecue last summer. His girlfriend had been lurking somewhere nearby, but the photo had been snapped when it was just the three of us. Reece’s hand went unerringly to this photo and picked it up off the desk. “Is this him?”

“Who?”

“The guy.” He looked at me and then back at the photograph, his expression thoughtful.

I blinked, startled that he would guess so accurately, and uncomfortable talking about Hunter with him. At least in any detail. It was enough that he knew I was doing this to attract someone else. Did I have to share everything with him?

He must have taken my silence for confusion. Or he’d become impatient. Either way, he tapped the glass over Hunter’s face. “He’s the one you’re doing this for. Right?” He waved the frame between us.

I gave something between a nod and a shake of the head. “How did you know?”

“You have only these photos here. I’m guessing these are the most important people in your life.” I glanced at the frozen faces of my father, Gram, Emerson, Georgia, Lila, and Hunter. He was right. These people were everyone to me.

“And,” he continued, “you’re glowing here.” He looked back down at me with Lila and Hunter.

I moved forward and took the frame from him and set it back on the desk. “I was a little sunburned that day. That’s all.” I don’t know why his words embarrassed me or why I felt the need to deflect them, but I did.

Moving forward had placed me closer to him. Only an inch separated us. I held my ground though, determined not to step back like proximity to him scared me. That would be silly considering I had invited him back here for one reason alone. Playing coy now would just be ridiculous.

Lifting my chin, I smiled, hoping it passed for a come-hither look. I wanted him to kiss me. Touch me. That would be easier than all this talking.

But instead of getting on with it, he moved his attention to the picture of me and Dad. “This is your father?”

I sighed. “Yes.”

“You’re cute. Your hair was really red then.”

“What little I had, yeah.”

His gaze trailed over my hair. “You have plenty of it now.” His attention returned to the photo. “Guess you didn’t get the red hair from him though.”

I frowned. Unwelcome memories nipped at the edges of my thoughts. Why was he asking so many questions? That’s not why I brought him here. We both knew what he was here for.

I took the picture from him and set it back down. Turning, I moved to the bed and sank down on it, propping my hands on the mattress behind me. Crossing my ankles out in front of me, I answered him. “No. That would be from my mother. She had the red hair.”

Hopefully the “had” would put him off from asking more about her. There was a reason a photo of her did not grace my desk. There was a reason she wasn’t included among those people that were most important to me. He was smart enough to figure that out. Without saying anything more about her, he should be able to understand this much about me. With that small bit of information, I’d told him more than even Emerson and Georgia knew.

“My father is dead,” I suddenly volunteered. I’m not sure why. I didn’t have to. He wasn’t prying about Dad right then. It was probably to distract him from the subject of my mother. It was less painful to talk about my father getting blown up in Afghanistan. Sad but true. Neither qualified as makeout conversation, but one was the milder poison at least. I would rather him look at me like a poor little orphan than the way he would look at me if he knew the truth about my mother.

“Sorry to hear that. So it was just you and your mom?” He wasn’t going to let it go about her apparently.

I stared at him, certain my frustration was visible. My feet twitched out in front of me. “My mom is gone, too.” Not exactly the truth but not a lie, either. “My grandmother raised me.”

Now the pity was there. A definite softness entered his eyes as he gazed down at me. But at least it was the orphan type pity and not the other kind. The other kind was so much worse. This I could deal with. The other pity did something to me, made me feel like I was ruined and past saving.