Page 40 of Until You

chapter

ten

Cora

He finds me against the fence at the far edge of the property, away from the lights. My face is tipped up, staring at the star-speckled sky. I wrap my arms around myself and concentrate on breathing.

The night is warm, but pleasant. Not sticky like it can get sometimes in the summer. The string lights behind me blur with the real ones overhead until it all looks like one continuous field of light, above and around, and I’m just standing in the middle of it.

I hear him coming before I see him.

Of course I do.

I’ve spent a week learning the particular weight of Oliver Blankenship’s footsteps—the rhythm of his boots on hardwood, on porch boards, on gravel. I know the sound of him the way you know the sound of weather approaching: by feel, by instinct, by the way the air changes when he’s near.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

He stops beside me. Leaves a foot of space. Leans against the post next to mine.

We stand there in the quiet. The party hums behind us. Distant music. Distant laughter.

“The slideshow was incredible,” he says.

I don’t look at him. If I look at him right now, with my defenses this low and his voice that soft, I will do something catastrophically stupid. Like tell him the truth. Or worse—lean into him and let myself be held. Oh, what I would give for an honest hug right now.

“It was just photos,” I say.

“It wasn’t just photos, and you know it.”

I’m quiet for a moment. “I found the box in the hall closet. I wasn’t snooping—I was looking for shelf paper. But once I opened it, I couldn’t—” I break off. Swallow around the tightness in my throat. “I couldn’t not do something with them. They deserve to be seen. Not just shoved in a closet.”

“Nobody asked you to do that.” His voice is quiet.

“I know.”

“So why did you?”

I finally look at him.

He’s leaning against the fence with his forearms resting on the top rail, the white button-down glowing faintly in the dark, those shifting hazel eyes watching me with an expression that undoes me. Not suspicious. Not guarded. Just—open. The same way he looked at me across that bar, like he had all the time in the world and intended to spend it right here.

“Because no one’s ever taken pictures of me,” I say. The words come out simpler than I expected. Plainer. Like they’ve been sitting in my chest so long they’ve worn smooth. “Not like that. Not with that kind of love behind the camera. And I thought—” My voice goes thin. I clear my throat. “I thought if I couldn’t have that, maybe I could at least make sure someone else’s version of it didn’t get lost.”

The words settle between us like something set gently on a table.

He doesn’t speak.

I watch him not speak. I watch the silence move through him. The way his jaw shifts, the way his fingers curl around the fence rail, the way that line between his brows deepens just slightly.

“Cora.”

“Don’t,” I say quickly. Too quickly. “Don’t be nice to me right now. If you’re nice to me I’m going to cry again, and I’ve already done that once tonight, and I have a strict one-cry-per-social-event policy.”

“That’s a real policy?”

“It is now.”