Beneath The Skin(18)

“I guess so,” I respond, thinking of all the girls I’ve taken, each girl like a photograph burned into my retinas.

“Maybe you’ll score some perfect photo and it’ll land on the cover of a magazine or some shit.”

“Maybe I’ll work for a newspaper.”

“Maybe you’ll take pics of dead bodies at crime scenes.”

“Maybe I’ll work for some porn company,” I throw in, sneering as I poke a finger through a ring I make with my other hand, simulating the mystic act of human fornication. “I’m told I catch good angles when it comes to photographing the ladies …”

Clayton laughs, and whether it’s at my gestures or he actually caught my words, I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t matter; I laugh too. And for a fleeting second, it’s just like old times.

Then his phone vibrates yet again. He pulls it to his face right away, still laughing, and starts to text.

I look down at my arm, distracted by a crescent scar that still lives there. I got it the day Clayton and I fought as prepubescent twerps, not long before he lost his hearing. We were fighting over a girl. This was back when he thought that the way to show me how to get girls was to take them away from me, each and every one that I ogled.

We’ve come a long way. Or perhaps just traded places.

Or else I’m all alone in this lady-lovin’ conquest.

“Maybe,” I say, knowing full well I’m talking to myself, “I’m still that kid who can’t look a girl properly in the eye. Maybe I’m kidding myself with this whole photography thing. Maybe the more photos I take, the less I actually see.”

Clayton smiles at the text he gets back, then types a hasty response. In the next moment, the server comes by with our food, and with the noise of late night laughter and familial banter engulfing us, we stuff our faces.





NELL



I really didn’t expect him to show up at all. So color me a pale shade of surprised when I find him waiting by the Quad fountain, perched on its stone lip like some romance-tormented college boy bard. The only thing he’s missing is a lute and a song.

Upon my approaching, he turns his head and a charming smile stretches the length of his face, his dimples popping out. I would never admit this outside the confines of my head, but the sight of him sends a nervous flutter of excitement through my body. He is such a pleasant sight. I wouldn’t mind walking up to a hundred different fountains if a guy like that was perched on every single one, awaiting me and smiling the way he does. Where’s his chariot?

“You live in the dormitories?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows. “Which one’s yours and is your roommate gone?”

And then he goes and ruins it. “Follow me, camera boy.”

“It’s Brant.”

We continue across the vast parking lot with the sun hugging us every grueling step of the way. He keeps mostly silent, perhaps inspired to shut the hell up after he realizes how utterly unimpressed I am with his incessant need to think with his cock. Until I open up his pants and find a brain in there, I’ll deflect every sweet, sugary word he utters.

No matter how insufferably sexy I find his voice.

“This … is the bad part of town,” he mutters quietly.

“What makes you say that?” I throw back defensively.

“Don’t have to be a genius to, uh … see the part of town we’re in.”

See? You don’t “see” anything, camera boy.

“I had a buddy, Robbie,” he goes on, “and he was mugged over here on his way to a damn Burger King. Had his iPhone stolen too. 50 or 60 gigabytes of porn and music and family pics, all gone forever.”

“Doesn’t that all back up on a cloud or something?”

“Backing up his porn? You nuts?”

“I’ve been accused of that before,” I admit coolly, taking a left down Pinemont when we reach the first crosswalk.

Brant hesitates a second before crossing the street with me, perhaps because I didn’t wait for the light to turn green. I barely even checked to see if a car was coming.

“I’ve been accused of a thing or two myself,” he calls out, then catches up to my side.

“I can’t imagine what,” I return dryly.

“You know, we might have some more engaging conversations if you don’t pretend to know everything about me.”

He thrusts his hands in his pockets as we walk. I presume it’s a defense mechanism because he’s uncomfortable, but it only succeeds in flexing his arms, which does not go unnoticed by me. Not a good time to get distracted, Nell.

“You can’t say I’m not an artist when you haven’t seen my work,” he goes on. “What if I said the same thing about you? What if I said you’re not an artist? How would that make you feel?”