Camera

4 - Conversation (edited)

 The corner of his mouth rose up. “Well….my friends are like that. Most of them. My best friend Leo – Leo Mandrakis-  isn’t. I’m not. Sports isn’t really my thing.”

 It sure as hell didn’t look like it. I mean, he wasn’t unfit. He looked alright. I guessed he worked out or something but didn’t ask.

I grinned at him. “Right, right.”

 “I do know a lot of cheerleaders, though,” he mused.

 “I bet you do,” I said, rolling my eyes.

 He missed my jibe.

 “The head cheerleader isn’t blonde, by the way,” he informed me. “She’s a brunette.”

 “Refreshing,” I commented. “What’s her name?”

 “Megan.”

 I nodded to myself as I absorbed this.

 “So what is your thing then?”

 Luke gave me a confused look. “Sorry, what?”

 I rolled my eyes, shifting lower under the covers. “You said sports isn’t your thing…what is your thing?”

 He looked down again, and then he said, “Photography.”

 So that explained the camera in the closet.

 “That’s pretty cool,” I told him honestly.

 Besides, guys with cameras are always hot. But I didn’t need to tell him that.

 “Thanks,” he mumbled.

 “Are you going to do it seriously later on?”

 I had no idea why I was asking so many questions about him. Usually I’m never really interested in anyone’s life, I just tune out when they talk to me, but I wanted to know more about Luke, I wanted to know about his expensive camera and the handmade bracelet lying on his bedside table.

 “I want to,” he answered.

 “Which is the same thing as doing it,” I supplied.

 “Not really,” he said, and his tone was bleak.

 “Why not?”

 His jaw clenched, and he still didn’t look up.

 “You don’t have to know. Let’s talk about something else.”

 I frowned, and then shifted up higher, settling against the pillows on his headboard. We were closer now.

“Tell me, Luke.”

 He shot me a look, and I was surprised when I didn’t see anything but vulnerability in his azure eyes.

 “I don’t want to bore you,” he admitted.

 “I won’t get bored,” I assured, nodding at him. I really wanted to know.

 He looked down again, and shrugged his broad shoulders. “I probably will do it, but...I dunno, my family is complicated.”

 I waited for the punch line, but it didn’t come.

 “Complicated how?” I prompted.

 He mumbled something that sounded like “my dad is a fucking jackass.”

 “That can’t be the whole story,” I said. He looked up at me.

 “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”