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Authors: Megan Hart

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Our senior year, Patrick got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, with a princess-cut diamond ring in one hand and a bouquet of twelve red roses in the other. We set a date. We planned a wedding.

And two weeks before we were due to walk down the aisle at my father’s church, I found out Patrick had been lying to me all along.

I hadn’t been raised stupid, but I’d sure ended up feeling dumb.

 

The week passed. I heard the sound of voices as I passed Alex’s apartment, and I saw his car come and go, but I didn’t see him. I ended up watching
Pride and Prejudice
alone and somehow blaming Patrick for that.

The week before Christmas is busy for most people, even those who don’t celebrate the holiday, and I had a to-do list as long as anyone’s. I hadn’t put up a tree, but I had bought presents. I’d be spending the day with my dad and his family, though my brothers and their wives and children weren’t
going to be there. I’d also picked up a slew of last-minute design jobs for after-Christmas sales promotions, and a few portrait sessions for friends looking for down-to-the-wire stocking gifts for friends and relatives.

The little girl in my camera’s viewfinder didn’t have wings, but she was a little angel. Four years old, mop of curly black hair, stubborn little rosebud mouth and a pair of crossed arms. A tiny, badass version of Shirley Temple, including the dress with the bow at the waist.

“No! No, no, no!” She stamped her foot. She pouted. She glared.

“Pippa. Sweetie. Smile for the picture, please?”

Pippa looked at her daddy Steven and stamped her foot again. “I don’t like this dress! I don’t like this headband!”

She tore the bow from her hair and threw it on the ground, and to make sure we all knew just how much she hated it, stepped on it with her patent leather shoes.

“I blame you,” Pippa’s other daddy, Devon, told me.

I raised a brow. “Gee, thanks.”

Devon laughed as Steven grabbed up the bow and tried to salvage the look. “She’s stubborn, that’s all. A lot like you.”

“Pippa, princess, please—”

“Oh, and her daddy spoiling her has nothing to do with any of that?” I murmured, my attention focused on the scene playing out in front of me.
Point and shoot. Click.
I captured the battle between father and child with a press of one finger.

“Don’t take pictures of this!” Steven demanded.

Pippa, laughing, dodged his grasp and ran around the studio. Her shoes pounded the old wooden boards, the beat of freedom. She ran fast, that little girl. Just as I always had.

Devon laughed and sat back, shaking his head. I snapped
picture after picture. Pippa running. Steven grabbing her up, dangling her upside down, her pretty dress flipping up to show the rumba panties beneath, and her springy curls sweeping the floor. Daddy and daughter snuggling close. Then, two daddies with their little girl, the love among them a visible, tangible thing I didn’t control or edit, but merely captured.

“Pippa, do it for Daddy,” Steven said. “I want a pretty picture of you to give Nanny and Poppa.”

That rosebud mouth pursed again and the small, fine brows furrowed, but at last Pippa gave a sigh better suited to a little old lady. “Oh, okay. Fine.”

He settled her on the upturned wooden crate and arranged her hair and dress, then stepped back. I framed the shot and took it. Perfect. But even as I tilted the camera to show the digital image to Devon, I knew this wasn’t the one I’d tweak and polish to give them for their wall.

Small arms hugged my knees and I looked into an upturned face. “Lemme see, Livia! Lemme see the pitcher.”

I knelt beside the little girl and showed her the photo on the screen. She frowned. “I don’t like it.”

“Shh,” I whispered conspiratorially. “Don’t tell your daddy that or he’ll make you sit for another one.”

Even at four, Pippa was smart enough to figure out when a smile was a better weapon. She giggled. I joined her. When she hugged me, her small, soft cheek pressed to mine, I smelled baby shampoo and fabric softener.

“Why don’t you go play with the dollhouse,” I told her. “Let me show your daddies the pictures.”

“I wanna see the pitchers, too!”

“You will,” I promised, knowing there was no way to keep
her from it, but not willing, as her fathers were, to indulge her every whim. “But first I have to put them on my computer. Go play.”

“She listens to you,” Steven said with an exhausted sigh as Pippa skipped off to the corner where I’d placed my old dollhouse. “Thank God.”

I shrugged and slipped the memory card from the back of my camera. I took it to the long, battered table I used instead of a desk, and pushed it into the card reader plugged into the back of my Macbook. My photo program opened, showcasing the series of pictures I’d taken. Steven and Devon pulled up chairs on either side.

“Look at that one,” Steven said about the one showing the three of them. “Gorgeous, Liv. Just amazing.”

The heat of pride flushed my cheeks. “Thanks.”

“No, seriously. Look at that.” Devon pointed to one of Pippa, backlit in front of one of the studio’s long, high windows, her dress belled out around her knees as she spun. “How do you do it?”

“Practice. Talent.” I clicked on the shot to enlarge it, and toyed with some settings to bring out the contrast of light and dark. “Mostly practice.”

“Anyone can take a snapshot. But what you do is art. Really art.” Devon sounded awed. He turned from the monitor to look at me. “She draws, you know. Pippa does. The pediatrician says kids her age are just barely making stick figures, but she’s already drawing full bodies.”

“I don’t draw,” I told him gently, and kept my focus on the screen.

“I’m just saying,” he answered softly.

We worked together for a little while on the photos they
liked best, until I’d cleaned them up and added them to a disc for them to take home. I added the raw shots, too, in case they wanted them for any reason. I lingered on the one of Pippa in front of the window.

“Can I use this in my portfolio?”

“Of course. Absolutely.” Devon had taken the disc and put it in his bag, while Steven went to check on their daughter.

“Thanks.” I’d get a print made later. For now I looked again, only for a moment, before clicking it closed and removing the memory card to place back in my camera.

“You know, Liv…” Devon hesitated until I glanced at him, and then he looked across the room. “You know you’re welcome, anytime, to see her. Not just when we come over for pictures or when we invite you. That was our agreement, wasn’t it? That you’d always be welcome to be a part of her life.”

I followed his gaze with my own. Pippa had rearranged the furniture in the dollhouse, putting beds in the living room and an oven in the attic. She giggled as Steven took one of the dolls and made it speak to the one in her hand.

“I know. Thanks.”

Devon meant well, so how could I tell him that I didn’t want to invite myself into their home to watch them raise my child? That I appreciated being kept a part of Pippa’s life, but that I didn’t expect or even crave anything more than what I already had? She was my child, but I was not her mother.

“Thanks again for the pictures.” Steven settled a check on my desk.

I didn’t pick it up. He’d have written it for too much, again, and I didn’t want to be ungracious by arguing with him about the amount. I liked taking pictures, but I liked paying my bills,
too. Besides, taking his money made this not a favor, but a job. I think we both preferred it that way.

“Livvy, are you coming to my birthday party? It’s a pretty princess party.” Pippa twirled. “And I’m going to have a piñata.”

I laughed and tugged one of her long, silky curls. “A pretty princess piñata for Pippa. Perfect.”

She tipped her face to look up at me, her eyes squinched shut with glee. “Yes! And all my friends are coming.”

“Then I guess I should come, too. Since I’m your friend.”

Pippa hugged my thighs just briefly before dancing off again. “Yes, yes, you’ll come to my paaarty. And bring a present.”

“Pippa!” Steven said, exasperated.

Devon chuckled and met my eyes. I think he understood me more than his partner did. Steven, hovering just a little too close, watched me. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. I could imagine how he felt. So I stepped back and watched Pippa, who twirled again, already chattering at her daddy about where she wanted to go for dinner and what she wanted to watch on television when they got home.

“I’m going to take Pippa out to the car. Get her strapped in the seat. Devon?” Steven lifted Pippa’s coat, an entirely impractical white, fur-collared jacket. “You coming?”

“Yep. I’ll be right along.”

Devon waited until the sound of Steven’s boots and Pippa’s patent leather shoes echoed away down the concrete stairs. He shrugged into his own coat, a soft brown leather that hit him at midthigh and belted at the waist. Something in the way he turned his head as he tied the belt caught my eye, and I lifted my camera to take a shot.

It blurred, but I took another as he glanced up at me with a self-conscious smile. I’d missed what I was looking for, something elusive I couldn’t have described in words. “Look back at your hands.”

The moment was lost, though, and I pressed the button to view the blurred shot, thinking how I could fix it. Devon peered over my shoulder. He laughed.

I looked up. “See? It takes practice.”

“And talent,” he told me.

Devon is a tall, broad man with skin the color of dark caramel. He shaves his head and wears a cropped goatee, and when he flexes I always expect to hear the purr of ripping fabric as he pops the seams on his shirt. He’s also one of the most gentle men I’ve ever met.

“You should come in and let me take your picture. Just you.”

Devon raised a brow. “Uh-huh.”

I punched his arm gently. “I like taking portraits when I’m not at Foto Folks. It would give me material for my portfolio, anyway.”

“We’ll see.” He smoothed the front of his coat. “I meant what I said, Liv.”

“About coming over? I know.” My camera made a nice barrier between us. I didn’t want to disappoint Devon, and I knew that’s what would happen. He wouldn’t understand my feelings about his daughter. Nobody seemed to.

“It’s just…we’re family, you know? All of us. I lost my parents years ago and my sister doesn’t speak to me.” Because he was gay, he didn’t have to say aloud. “Family’s important. I don’t want you to think you’re not welcome to be a part of her life.”

I nodded. “I know, Devon.”

“Merry Christmas, Liv.”

“Thanks. Same to you.”

He touched my shoulder gently and left, closing the door behind him. When he’d gone I sat back in my chair and opened the file with the photos I’d taken today.

Devon’s family had disowned him at age seventeen, when they’d found out he was gay, and he’d never reconciled with his parents before they passed away. He’d made his own family, gathered friends around him to love and be loved in return.

Pippa was my child, but not my daughter. Steven had requested we not call me Pippa’s mother, and that I sign all parental rights away upon her birth. I’d had no objections. I hadn’t counted on Devon’s love for family making this so complicated.

I took a last look at the photos of the little girl and her parents, her real and true parents. She looked like me and even acted like me a little, and I was blessed to know her. But I was not her mother, and never would be. I took one last look at the photos, and then I closed the folder.

Chapter
05

I
didn’t take the photo of Pippa along to my father’s house to show him on Christmas Day. We never spoke of her, or mentioned my pregnancy, which had been unexpected and definitely not welcomed by most people in my life. Instead I took bags full of gifts for Cindy’s and Stacy’s children, four of them apiece, nieces and nephews I didn’t bother putting “step” in front of.

We had a big ham dinner. We opened gifts. My brothers both called, and I spoke to them. I fended off questions about my love life and bragged about my work—not the part at Foto Folks or the photos I took at schools and for sports teams, but the brochures and ads I’d created for personal clients. I relaxed and enjoyed my family and hoped they enjoyed me, too.

I declined the offer to spend the night, and drove the hour and a half home with my iPod blasting everything I could play
that wasn’t a Christmas carol. I pulled my car next to Alex’s in my parking lot at just past midnight.

It had been over a week since I’d seen or spoken to him, and I thought about knocking on his door as I passed. Not that he was required to check in with me or anything. In fact, so long as the rent was paid on time, we really didn’t have to interact at all. But we had, and I missed it. I peeked and saw a line of light beneath his door; I took a deep breath and knocked. He didn’t answer, and my courage fled. Rather than knock again, I started up the stairs, and had made it just inside my door when I heard his voice.

“Olivia?”

The best part of skiing is that first moment looking down the mountain. Getting ready to push off. To speed and swoop. To fly. This felt like that moment.

“Hi, Alex. Merry Christmas.”

He wore a pair of jeans and an unbuttoned, long-sleeved shirt over nothing else, his hair rumpled and one cheek creased. “Merry Christmas. I heard you come in.”

“Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. I was in a post–Christmas dinner stupor.”

“Do you want…to come in?” I held the door open wider.

“It’s late. That’s okay. I just wanted to give you this.” Alex held up a small box wrapped in silver paper with a crisp blue bow.

I looked at it and then at him. “You got me a present?”

“Sure. It’s that time of year.”

“But I didn’t get you anything.”

“That’s okay. Just open it.”

“Well, come in, then.” I stepped back and he followed, but not too far inside the doorway. The box had been wrapped
so I could simply lift the lid without removing the paper. Inside, nestled on a soft bed of pretty fabric, was a bracelet made of polished stones. “It’s beautiful!”

“I’m glad you like it. I know it’s not much—”

“I didn’t get you anything,” I reminded him. “It’s pretty. You shouldn’t have, Alex. Really. But thank you.”

“I just wanted to give you something,” he said. “Prove to you I’m not a total douche bag.”

I was startled into laughter. “Oh, God. I don’t think that.”

“No?”

“Of course not.” I paused. “Should I?”

He studied me, brow furrowed. “I just thought…Never mind.”

“Thought what?”

He waved a hand. “Nothing. Really.”

I wanted to press him for an explanation, but didn’t. I slipped the bracelet on my wrist and held it up to tilt it back and forth, admiring it. “Thank you.”

Neither of us moved. I hefted a tote bag full of leftovers Marjorie had packed for me. “Are you hungry?”

Alex put a hand on his stomach. “Wow. Um…no. I don’t think I’ll ever be hungry again.”

I laughed. “Until tomorrow.”

A smile drifted slowly across his mouth. “Yeah. I’m sure I’ll want to eat again tomorrow.”

“All right, then.” Again we stayed still, him a step inside the doorway. “Sure I can’t convince you to take a slice of Christmas ham?”

“Hmm…I didn’t have any ham. We had something called a turducken, if you can believe that.”

“You did?” I laughed some more. “Wow. Patrick always said he wanted to make one of those for Christmas.”

“Well…yeah,” Alex said. “He invited me over.”

I could think of nothing to say to that but, “I’ve never had one.”

“You should try it. Well, I’m going to bed. See you, Olivia. Merry Christmas.”

“Thank you for the bracelet.”

“You’re welcome.” He smiled over his shoulder at me as he left.

I closed the door behind him and leaned against it, not sure why knowing Patrick had invited him over for Christmas had been such a big deal, only that it was.

 

If Patrick’s Chrismukkah extravaganza had been an orgy of food, music and drama, his New Year’s Eve party was much quieter. Still plenty of food and music, but the guest list had been cut way down. Teddy’s sister, Susan, and her teenage son, Jayden, Nadia and Carlos from next door, and a few of Teddy and Patrick’s friends I’d met but didn’t really know. Patrick’s brother, Sean. Me.

And, of course, Alex Kennedy.

He came in the back door, arms laden with packages wrapped in silver paper tied with blue bows. I turned from the counter where I’d been slicing cheese and laying out a new supply of crackers. My heart gave a stupid little skip of surprise.

“Alex!”

“Olivia.” His smile flashed white teeth that had never seen braces, I’d bet, because they were just endearingly imperfect enough. “Happy New Year.”

He saw me looking at the bundles he carried. “Patrick said you all exchange New Year’s presents.”

We did. Small things, usually. None of the elaborately wrapped gifts in Alex’s arms looked small.

I grabbed at the one getting ready to topple. “Let me help you.”

“Thanks.”

We piled the presents on the table. I gave him a sideways glance. I was used to the men in Patrick’s house looking pretty and smelling good. Truthfully, it had sort of spoiled me for men in general. Tonight Alex wore jeans, faded just right, and a black fitted T-shirt beneath the heavy peacoat he shrugged off and tossed onto a chair. His hair fell down a little into his eyes as he straightened the packages. I didn’t want to stare, but did anyway.

Dinner was simple but good, and the conversation flowed as sweetly as the wine. I sat next to Sean and across from Patrick, Alex at the other end of the table. Maybe I liked leaving the conversation up to everyone else. Or maybe it was still the season making me quiet and watchful. It wasn’t until I saw Patrick touch Teddy’s hand that I realized it was more than simply holiday blues.

There wasn’t anything sexual about the touch. That I’d seen plenty, in the days when Patrick in his newfound gayness had fucked his way through half the city and not been too ashamed or too tactful not to include me. The way Patrick touched his lover’s hand was comfortable, a gentle, brief squeeze.

My eyes burned. Next to me, Sean leaned to say something to Teddy’s sister on the other side of me. Everyone was laughing at something I’d missed while I’d been taken up with
unexpected jealousy. When I glanced down the table to the end, Alex met my eyes.

In his gaze I saw a mixture of emotions, most of which looked like some form of pity. It stung. It left me naked.

It also lasted only seconds before he was laughing, too, ignoring me and my plight, but instead of being grateful for his compassion, I wanted to poke him with a fork. Alex Kennedy, the man who’d had a diva breakup anthem tossed in his face at a holiday party, then let the singer blow him on a back porch, didn’t have the right to judge me.

“So, Liv,” Sean said when he turned back to me. “What’ve you been up to lately?”

“Yes, Liv. Tell everyone what you’ve been doing.”

Suddenly the focus of the entire table, I found my mouth inconveniently empty of food, which meant I had to fill it with words. “Oh…I’ve opened my own studio.”

“Recording?” Jayden, who’d been kicking everyone’s butt on a popular guitar-playing game, asked.

“No, photography. It’s more of an advertising business. Graphic design for local places. Brochures, Web sites, that sort of thing. I take pictures for the work, rather than using stock photos.”

“But some of your pictures have been used on those sites, right?” Patrick sounded proud, and I didn’t really mind the nudging.

“Pretty much anyone can upload pictures to a stock photo place, but yeah. Some of mine have been very successful.” I’d made more money on selling the rights to some of my images than I could using them exclusively. It wasn’t art. It was business.

“Don’t listen to her. She’s a great photographer. I have some of her landscapes hanging in the living room,” Patrick said.

“You took those?” Sean looked impressed. He leaned a little closer. “Wow.”

I tried to think why this should be such a surprise—I had almost married his brother, after all. It wasn’t like Sean had never met me before. But back then my camera had been a hobby. Now it was a job. Or, I thought as I caught a whiff of his cologne, he was paying more attention to me than he had back then. I sniffed surreptitiously. He smelled nothing like Patrick, but spicy and masculine just the same. Beneath the table, his knee nudged mine again. This time, I thought it was on purpose.

This close to him, I could see the white flecks in his blue eyes, identical to Patrick’s. Like his brother, Sean had thick blond hair and a mouth that curved just so, and also like his brother he had broad shoulders, a lean waist and a flat, flat belly that begged any straight woman with half a libido to lick it.

Unlike his brother, though, Sean Michael McDonald wasn’t gay.

“Yes. I took those.”

The conversation moved on after that, but I’m not sure what we talked about. I didn’t look at Sean again. I didn’t have to. I knew all too well that he was right there.

After dinner came the opening of the gifts and more wine. I kept my glass full by mostly pretending to sip. Alcohol’s never good mixed with self-pity, especially on New Year’s Eve at an ex-lover’s house to which you have not brought a date.

The rule of the gifts was that they had to be small. Handmade, or inexpensive. Nothing too fancy, and everyone was
to bring an extra to pass out in a grab bag exchange. I got a great new pair of soft driving gloves, a more-than-fair exchange for the gas station gift card I’d tucked into the basket of goodies to be passed around. There were personal gifts, too, obviously, and I made out well there, as well, but better for me was watching the faces of Teddy and Patrick as they opened the gift I’d brought for them both.

“Liv, this is…amazing.” Teddy stroked the sleek mahogany frame. “Beautiful. Really.”

“When did you take this?” Patrick asked softly.

“Over the summer.” We’d gone to a local park to have a picnic dinner and listen to a band play on the riverfront. I’d captured the two of them sitting with the river behind them, their gazes locked and mouths almost touching. Getting ready to kiss.

They hadn’t noticed me in that moment, and behind the shield of my camera I’d convinced myself I hadn’t felt like a third wheel. Now I couldn’t help remembering that I had. Beside me, Sean shifted until his thigh nudged mine again. Behind me, I felt the warmth of his arm snake along the back of the couch. The hairs on my neck stood up.

Alex was watching me.

I forced myself to focus on Patrick. “I hope you like it.”

“Love it,” he said. “Look, Teddy, it will go right there.”

As they talked about the perfect place to hang the picture, Sean’s fingertip whispered along the back of my neck. I shivered. He leaned close to whisper in my ear. “Cold?”

I turned, just slightly, away. “A little.”

“Maybe you need a sweater or something.”

As other gifts were opened, the room rang with laughter. Patrick certainly wasn’t looking at us. In the past there had
been many times when everything around me disappeared but the sound of Patrick’s voice, or the sight of his face. Almost the same voice murmured next to me, now. Almost the same eyes looked at me.

There was still a moment when it could have gone a different way. If Sean hadn’t shifted again to press his thigh to mine in a move more blatantly sexual than Patrick had ever made on me, or if I’d come with a date the way I’d planned…or if it hadn’t been New Year’s Eve and I hadn’t still been in love with the one man I would never have.

“Actually, I’m going to grab something to drink.”

“Want me to come with you?” Sean smiled an easy, quirking smile that would’ve charmed me senseless if it hadn’t been almost identical to his brother’s.

“No. I’ll be right back.” My own hard-edged smile must’ve put him off, finally, because I escaped to the kitchen without a tagalong.

I didn’t want a drink, really. I needed some fresh air to clear my head. I was absolutely not going to give in to the glums, not tonight, not ever. Not again. I was fine.

I was fine until I shrugged into my coat and found the small, wrapped package in my pocket. I’d meant to give it to Patrick some time when we were alone, not in front of the group. I’d bought him a button featuring the stabbity knife from his favorite cartoon,
Kawaii Not.
He’d gotten me hooked on the quirky, sick-sense-of-humor artwork, and it was one thing we still shared that he didn’t with anyone else. I’d wrapped the button in nondenominational paper and scribbled his name across it. I’d wanted to make sure, so fucking sure, he knew how casual and careless a present it had been. An afterthought. Not important.

But feeling it there, the button’s round edge through the cheap paper, I knew I was the only one who’d have ever thought it was important, or meaningful.

By the time I got out the back door and down the porch steps, I was crying. My vision blurred. Tears froze on my cheeks. They burned, and I stumbled. I drew in a hitching, labored breath that seared my lungs. I made it all the way down the path and past the detached garage before I burst into raw, hateful sobs. I stopped, a hand on the bare wood, to swipe at my eyes.

“Fuck!” I cried when I saw I was not alone. “Where’d you come from?”

Alex, bundled against the weather, stood beneath the eves. He’d been leaning, but straightened now. In one hand he held a cigarette that wasn’t lit.

“I went around the front of the house. Olivia? Are you all right?”

“Do I look like I’m all right?” I’m sure I meant to answer him calmly, but the words shot out of me, riding the backs of more sobs. I pounded the garage wall. “No! I am not all right!”

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