Chapter 8

Well.

As they walked away from Broadway Market, Joel mentally replayed the last few minutes, rewinding and fast-forwarding through not only the Belgian juggler's performance, but also his own actions.

In the presence of awe-inspiring art, he'd shifted deep into Dan's personal space. Even as the spinning balls and leaping rings had defied gravity, he'd been powerless to resist that fundamental force between them.

The Rules totally allowed it. Furthermore, all of his and Sam's mutual friends hung out in DC. No one would see him here in Baltimore.

But hooking up with the man he'd spent the last seventeen years dreaming about wouldn't be like his (and Sam's) usual sanctioned extracurricular activities. Dan wasn't some random hot person at a conference. He and Joel had a history, and history was almost as powerful a force as gravity.

"Which way?" Dan gestured to the intersection that Joel had apparently just stopped in front of, lost in thought.

He pointed straight ahead. "My favorite record shop's over on Thames Street." As they crossed, he said, "Sorry for smooshing myself on you back there. I kinda got caught up in the moment."

"Did you forget you were with me and not Sam?"

As if. "Not a chance. Sam would've ragged on that juggler behind his back. He'd make some crack about him living in a van, or speculate about which college degree Arnaud had wasted to pursue something so frivolous."

"What does Sam do for a living?"

"He's in finance, so it's not like he performs a hardcore essential service like farming or surgery." Joel shook his head. "I think he's threatened by people who follow their dreams because he never did."

"That's kinda sad."

Joel wiped his mouth. He shouldn't have said those things. "Sam's a good guy. He's been so supportive of me—financially and emotionally—while I've built my academic career. He's never once complained that that process has gone a lot slower than I planned."

"Did you go straight to grad school after college?"

Nice rescue there, Dan jumping on the first chance to tweak the subject away from Sam. "I did. Thought about taking a year off to work, but the economy sucked in 1992."

"I know." Dan waved at him. "Graduated the same year, remember?"

Of course. Why had he assumed Dan couldn't have gone to college without a football scholarship? Maybe he was as elitist as Sam. "Where did you end up?"

"University of Northern Colorado."

"The place with the cool radio station?"

Dan pulled his head back to regard him. "How'd you know that?"

"You told me in 1987, and I remembered, because I'm a dork."

"Riiiight, you kept a journal."

"I can't believe I told you that." Joel pressed his palm to his warming cheek. At least it was too dark now for Dan to see him blush.

They came upon a pair of white-haired, hippie-ish men handing out yellow fliers.

"Help end the war in Iraq?" the taller, bearded one asked them.

Joel took a flier, which featured a peace sign in red looking like it was bleeding at the bottom. Saturday, June 4, Washington, DC it read.

"We're marching from the White House to the Secretary of Defense's house," said the shorter one, who wore a T-shirt adorned with the Grateful Dead "Steal Your Face" lightning-skull logo.

"I live in Rockville, so I'll definitely try to make it." Joel shook their hands. "Thanks for doing this. It's important work."

As he and Dan walked on, Joel folded the flier and slipped it into his back pocket. "They'll probably have a good turnout. After Abu Ghraib, I can't see how anyone still supports this war."

Dan offered only a noncommittal grunt.

Wait. He was from Wyoming, one of the most conservative states in the country. Then again, he lived in a university town, so maybe nothing should be assumed.

"Are you not against the war?" Joel asked.

"I'm not for it or against it. It's complicated."

Joel kept his mouth shut to let Dan explain.

"After 9/11, I tried to join the military." Dan sidestepped a sandwich board outside a raw bar advertising half-price mussels. "It sounds clichéd, but I felt called to do something meaningful, to serve something larger than myself."

Joel nodded. He'd felt the same impulse back then, but there hadn't been much call for entomologists to heal a grieving nation. "What happened?"

"I went to the local Army Reserve recruiter, but he said with my busted knee I'd never pass the physical, much less make it through basic training."

Joel's heart gave a sudden lurch at the image of Dan under fire in that unforgiving desert. "I'm sorry you were disappointed, but I'm not sorry you couldn't join the Army." He gave Dan's arm a gentle squeeze. "I'm glad you're here."

"Me, too." Dan shook his head. "Still, I feel ashamed to be relieved. Is that weird?"

"Of course not. Men are taught to be warriors from an early age. That's basically what sports are, except without actual killing. Usually."

"One of my high-school buddies is a Marine stationed in Fallujah. He says it's way worse than we've heard. A few weeks ago his company took a mortar attack, and a round landed two feet away from him."

"Holy shit."

"It didn't explode, though. He said, ‘I should've been dead. They should've been picking pieces of me out of the gutter to ship back to Dover.' He said being spared like that through sheer luck—being on the receiving end of a miracle—made him feel invincible."

"I bet."

"But that feeling lasted only a few days," Dan said. "Then it really sank in, what had happened. Now he says he feels like a delusional ghost—his exact words—like his real self died that day and this version of him who's still walking around just doesn't know it yet."

Joel shivered despite the night's heat. "That's fucked up."

"War is fucked up," Dan said. "Even knowing that, I can't really be antiwar, because it feels disloyal to troops like my friend."

"I get that, I do." As they reached Thames Street, Joel motioned for Dan to turn right. "A big part of being against the war is wanting troops like your friend to come home safe."

"But then what do they leave behind? Pulling out now would cause even more chaos, and where there's chaos, there's death."

It was hard to argue with that specific point. "You're probably right, but it's time to start planning how to do it the least worst way." Joel swiped a hand over the sweat at the back of his neck. "You want to know my reaction to 9/11? I was scared and sad and angry and confused, like everyone else. Then I watched the memorial service at National Cathedral. At first it was comforting to be part of that communal mourning. It even felt like a spiritually useful thing to do, like my thoughts and prayers could somehow help those who were suffering. I don't know."

"That makes sense."

"So the last song they played was the Battle Hymn of the Republic." Joel blinked hard. "I can still hear those trumpets and drums, and then the giant organ, and then all the living Presidents and First Ladies in the front rows belting out this war song." The memory made him stop and steady himself against the gray brick front of a tavern. "And that's when I knew that 9/11 was only the beginning, because a wound that deep had to be avenged. And then the wounds we inflicted would be avenged, and so on, and so on, in this never-ending circle of death, and the dread literally made me puke." He swept his hands down over his face. "No one's a good guy, and no one ever wins."

Having said those words, he couldn't look at Dan, who was probably thinking he'd found Joel after all these years only to be faced with a crabby little Debbie Downer. So he just stared at the ground, toeing a hinge of the tavern's steel cellar door.

Dan took in a breath, seeming to let Joel's statement hover between them for a few moments. Then he said, "Call me naive, but I still think there's something good about America. Something worth fighting for."

Was that what Joel was fighting for? Did he hate the war because he believed his country was better than that? Or were the conservative politicians right when they said people like him simply hated America?

Joel shook his head. "I envy you, dude, because I can't find that good anymore." He plowed on quickly in case Dan was finding himself in that Joel-hates-America camp. "Do you remember how after 9/11, the world threw its arms around us? We could've done so much good with that pain. Instead we just spewed it out in every direction—including at our own people."

Dan hesitated, then said softly, "That's not an American thing, Joel, it's a human thing."

Could it be so simple, that this country was full of imperfect beings who were no better—and no worse—than those in the rest of the world? It wouldn't make for a good slogan or political fundraising email, but that was probably an asset.

"It's hard not to feel angry when the world is so screwed up," Dan said. "I get it."

For some reason, it helped to hear that. "Whenever I feel helpless about the future, my brain rewinds time and imagines people making different choices that would have given us a better world." That sounded as foolish as it felt. He had to pull them out of Deep Thoughts and back onto banter. "Starting with a different President."

Dan made that awkward noncommittal noise again.

Joel snapped his fingers. "I knew it. You're a Republican, aren't you?" He added a broad smile so this would sound less like a murder accusation.

Dan scoffed. "I don't do politics."

"You don't vote?" Not voting was way worse than voting Republican.

"Of course I vote."

Whew. "And?"

"It's a secret ballot for a reason." Dan's face was unreadable in the dim streetlight, but his tone bobbed melodically with what sounded like amusement.

"Noted." Joel held up both hands in mock surrender. "I mean, it's not your fault you're a Republican. It's probably a residency requirement for Wyoming, right?"

Now Dan grinned, flooding Joel with happy hormones.

"Yessirree," he drawled, tipping an invisible cowboy hat. "We gotta do anything ol' Dick Cheney says. He's our secret emperor."

"Ooh, what a coincidence," Joel said. "He's our secret President."

They laughed together, even though being ruled by a party who wanted to outlaw same-sex marriage was no laughing matter. Later Joel would no doubt think of a dozen ways to convince Dan he was wrong. But right now, that brilliant smile was an even more powerful drug than being right.

As they started walking again, Dan said, "Tell me an amazing scientific fact."

Joel chuckled. "To change the subject?"

"Yep."

"Let me think." Joel looked across the street, where the driver of a rusty black sedan was making a poor attempt at parallel parking. "You know how atoms have a nucleus with electrons spinning around it? It turns out, atoms are 99.9999999999996% empty space," he said, counting off the nines on his fingers. "Which means everything made of atoms—everything that exists—is also mostly empty space. And get this: If all seven billion people in the world suddenly lost their atoms' empty space, the entire human race would fit into a block the size of a sugar cube."

"Wait." Dan stopped in his tracks in front of the record store and turned to Joel. "What's in all that empty space? Air?"

"Nothing. It's a vacuum."

"Then how come I can do this"—he poked Joel's bare forearm and kept his finger there—"without going right through you?"

"Electromagnetic forces. They're responsible for friction and separation, but also connection."

"So, you're saying the same forces that keep us apart also bring us together?"

"Sounds like a line from a commencement speech, but yeah, basically." Joel looked down at Dan's fingertip but couldn't have moved his arm away even if he'd wanted to. Would it be brazen to mention friction again?

Dan pulled his hand away and looked over Joel's head. "This must be the place."

They entered the music store, where the purple-and-raven-haired young woman at the register informed them the shop was closing in fifteen minutes.

Dan hurried over to the new-releases display. "Check it out. Morrissey has a new album." He lifted the CD from its rack, then pointed to another. "And Prince, too. Have you heard these?"

"Uh-uh."

"But they were your favorites. I know Morrissey's solo stuff doesn't compare to what he did with The Smiths, but?—"

"His early solo albums were good," Joel said. "It's not about quality. Morrissey and Prince are just…of that time. They spoke to me when I was a teenager, and to the extent they still do, it's only nostalgia."

"What's wrong with nostalgia?"

"It's like sugar—a little makes you feel great, but a lot makes you want to puke." He pulled out Franz Ferdinand's self-titled debut album and pointed it at the ceiling, where it was playing from the speaker. "I've found new bands that speak to who I am now. I don't expect any artist to last me a lifetime."

"What about people? Can people last you a lifetime?"

"Doubt it." Had Dan meant romantically? Joel shifted his answer so he wouldn't sound disloyal to Sam. "I'm not friends with people from high school anymore. Most of my friends are from grad school, when I became basically the person I am today."

Dan took the Franz Ferdinand CD from him. "Hate to break it to you, but you're the same guy I got high with in that meadow seventeen years ago."

"Dude, I am not."

"You even still say ‘dude.'"

"But now I say it ironically."

Dan laughed, and so did the cashier. Joel gave them both a smirk and slid into the aisle on his left.

Dan mirrored his move on the next aisle, speaking to him over the top of the CD racks. "When I say you're the same guy, that's a compliment. I liked that guy. A lot."

"I know you did." Joel gave a coy shoulder tilt. "I liked you too." He flipped through the extensive selection of Yo La Tengo CDs in case there was one he didn't have. "Alas, fate yanked us apart," he said with a sigh.

"What if it hadn't?"

"You mean if your dad hadn't died? Your life would be way different. You might never have become a photographer."

Dan held out a palm. "I can't think about that. Anyhow, it's not what I—" He spied the CD Joel was holding. "Okay, hypocrite. That band's been around since the eighties."

"But I didn't discover them until last year. That makes them part of today's me." He lifted YLT's latest release and held it out over the racks. "Here you go, the sound of the summer."

Dan took the CD without examining it. "What I meant was, what if you and I had stayed in touch? Would we still be friends, or would you have ditched me for your cool grad-school buds?"

"Not if you ditched me first."

"I wouldn't have."

Had Dan grown more naive over the years? "Really?" Joel asked. "You would've been proud to show off your queer little friend from back east to your pals at the ranch?"

"Why are you being so hostile?"

"I'm not being hostile." Okay, that sounded defensive. Joel softened his tone. "I'm saying maybe fate knew what it was doing. Maybe we wouldn't have stayed friends back then."

"Maybe. But this time." Dan tapped his new CDs together. "This time, we stay in touch."

"Totally."

"And if you and Sam are ever in Laramie, you guys are welcome to stay with me. I've got a futon and everything."

"Deal. You have me at ‘futon.'"

Dan's expression said what Joel was thinking: I'd happily have you on a futon.

Joel cleared his throat. "Are you getting the Franz Ferdinand? Before you answer, the answer is yes."

Dan flipped over the black CD case and read the back. "I've heard a couple of these songs on the radio." He glanced at the ceiling speaker. "Sounds fun."

"That album's amazing. And a little bit gay. Just like you."

Dan smiled. "How can you tell I'm amazing?"

"I have amazing-dar."

"Because you're a scientist?"

Joel winked at him. "Because I'm me."

"Because you're also amazing."

Zing!went Joel's entire body, an echo of the word's final syllable, a word that meant more coming from Dan's mouth than any mouth it had passed through before.

Joel made finger guns at him, shooting Dan with bullets of appreciation. Then he turned away, because if he didn't look at something else, anything else, he'd drag Dan into that soundproof listening booth for a make-out session accompanied by whatever album the previous listener had left behind, an album that would automatically become Joel's new favorite ever.

It was definitely way past time to tell Dan about the Rules. But then there'd be no going back, no more pretending this night was about two old pals catching up. The Rules could open up a whole new realm of decisions and awkwardness.

And ultimately, probably, heartbreak.

Dan couldn't pindown the exact place—In the record store? In front of the French juggler? At their table by the lake?—but somewhere, something had changed between him and Joel.

Now, standing in line for allegedly the best gelato in Fell's Point, he couldn't even look at Joel without getting dizzy, like they were on a carnival ride that wouldn't stop.

But he'd bought the ticket, so he was sure as hell gonna see how this ride ended.

"Large affogato, please," he told the barista behind the gelato freezer. Espresso over ice cream would clear his head.

"What flavor gelato?" she asked.

"What do you recommend?"

"Cardamom," Joel chimed in beside him. "Trust me."

"Is that what you're getting?"

"I'm getting pistachio."

"I hate pistachio." He turned back to the barista, who was holding out a bite of cardamom gelato in a tiny taster spoon. "Thanks." He tried it. "Sold."

"Told you," Joel said. "You didn't trust me."

"You don't know what I like."

"I know you're adventurous," Joel purred, passing a fleeting hand over Dan's waist. "Or maybe that's wishful thinking on my part."

Seriously?

He stepped away from Joel, bumping into someone behind him. "Sorry about that," he said without turning around.

"That's all right, hon," came an older female voice.

Joel tilted his head, mouthing, You OK? Dan glared back at him.

He paid for their treats over Joel's protests, then waited near the espresso machine to pick up his affogato. Joel joined him, stabbing a spoon into his cup of pastel-green gelato.

As the machine started its slurpy roar, he turned on Joel. "Are you flirting with me?"

Joel's eyes widened. "Me?" He fluttered a hand at his own chest. "Flirting?"

So it was just a joke to him. "You're not subtle. You're also not single."

"I know, but?—"

"But you enjoy driving me crazy?" He had to yell to be heard over the espresso machine.

Joel gaped at him. "I'm driving you crazy? The way you keep looking at me, I can barely"—the machine silenced—"stop myself from jumping your bones!"

Dan looked around the room, where every eye was turned toward them in the relative quiet. "We're rehearsing a play," he told them.

"Slick," Joel muttered. "Look, I'll explain everything when we get some privacy."

Dan took his affogato and slipped past the incoming customers to reach the exit. Joel followed him, and they joined the crowds on the sidewalk, crowds that didn't thin until they were halfway down a long, brick-lined pier that jutted far out into the harbor. Most of the bricks beneath his feet were etched with people's names, some with birth and death dates as well.

Instead of benches, the pier was ringed with long, low horizontal wooden posts, large and flat enough to sit on but offering no protection from falling in, which didn't seem to bother anyone else.

In one corner of the pier's end, beside a wrought-iron street lamp, sat a short, thick, iron bollard with no boats moored to it. That looked way more secure than perching on the edge, so Dan went over and sat with his back to the bollard.

Joel sat close but turned outward, legs dangling over the water. Beyond him, far across the harbor, loomed a huge red neon Domino Sugars sign, painting a scarlet-tongued reflection upon the waves.

They ate their ice cream in silence, Joel's heels bouncing against the pier's concrete side, his thick-soled Vans making a steady thump-thump…thump-thump…thump-thump…

An older couple, maybe in their fifties, walked up to the nearby coin-operated binoculars, the woman popping open one of those old-fashioned rubber squeeze coin holders, the kind Grandmom Nanny used to use for poker night.

Joel set down his empty ice-cream cup and stilled his feet. "So here's the deal with me and Sam. We love each other, but—" He made a corrective gesture with his hand. "No, not but. We love each other, and we have an open relationship."

Oh.

Oh.

"Cool." No point faking indifference. "What's that like?"

"There are rules," Joel said, "to mitigate any hurt feelings."

Mitigate, not eliminate. Interesting.

"Rule One: Practice safe sex, obviously." Joel counted off on his fingertips, tapping them with the bowl of his plastic spoon. "Rule Two: No hooking up with anyone your boyfriend knows. Rule Three: Do not bring that person into our home. So basically we're limited to, um, travel."

So far, so good. "Does Sam, ‘um, travel' a lot?"

"He does." Joel stared out into the harbor, where a nearby seagull was poking its bill into a floating hamburger wrapper. "A lot more than I do."

"And you're okay with this?"

Joel shrugged. "Rule Four says we don't tell each other when we've screwed around. It's not like he gets back from a business trip and I go, ‘Hi honey, how was Chicago?' and he goes, ‘The deep-dish pizza was fab, and so was the delivery guy's deep-throat blowjob.'"

Dan snorted, then covered his mouth and looked at the binoculars couple, who were chattering loudly about something called a "water taxi."

"So for all I know," Joel continued, "he's never been with anyone else."

"Have you?"

"A couple times. But I've learned that it's more important to have that opportunity than it is to take it." The wind blew Joel's hair into his eyes, and he pushed it back out. "Just because the door is unlocked doesn't mean one must barge through it. But it's nice to have a bit of fresh air."

"Makes sense." He watched the older couple saunter off, hands joined and arms swinging cheerfully. "What's it like being on the other end of that bargain?"

"Being the one left at home, you mean? Lying in bed with a book, wondering if the man you love is currently buried up to his balls in someone else's orifice?"

Dan snorted again.

Joel put on a wide-eyed caricature of a straight face. "What's so funny?"

"The word orifice. It's inherently funny."

"I'm a biologist," Joel said with a smirk. "Legally I can't say hole when fancier terms are available."

It would be so easy to exit this conversation, using another joke as an off-ramp. But clarity was still needed. "You haven't answered my question. What's it like when Sam's away?"

"I dunno, it's just…life. I trust him to be careful with my feelings, because I'm careful with his." Joel blinked at the water, its reflections of pier lights dancing over his face. "Rule Five is simple: Don't do anything you wouldn't want the other person to do."

"Such as?"

"Things that would complicate our lives. Like doing it with a married person, or someone at our jobs."

"‘Don't be a dumbass' is an excellent life guideline."

Joel nodded, tapping each of his heels once against the pier.

"Five rules, then?"

"Actually, there's—" Joel cleared his throat. "Yes. Yes, five rules. Five."

He gave Joel a moment to correct himself, then plowed on. "So, how do you decide?"

"Whether to barge through that unlocked door? I guess I just follow my…you know."

"Heart?"

"Hormones. My heart belongs to Sam. At least—" Joel folded his lips under his teeth.

Dan held his breath. Surely that sentence ended with words like, until today.

"Sometimes," Joel said, "I don't act on my desires, because I like feeling virtuous, like I'm the better person in this relationship."

"But if you both agree that this is a good arrangement—and it seems perfectly rational and mature and fair, by the way, not that I would ever agree to it myself—why would refraining make you a better person?"

Joel twirled his spoon in the air. "Because I've internalized the false morality of a heteronormative society that claims to idolize monogamy?" He sagged again and rubbed his eye with a knuckle. "It should be simple. The whole point of this arrangement is to keep things easy, to not overthink it all. To be happy." His voice cracked on the last word.

"You don't seem happy."

"I am! That's the problem, see? I'm just now remembering—today—what real happiness feels like."

Dan froze. So he wasn't delusional. There really was something between them, some precious thing born in that meadow, then crushed by Dad's death but never truly smothered. All these years, they'd kept it alive in their imaginations, waiting for this day.

Joel shook his head hard. "So if you're wondering whether us fucking was in the cards this weekend, we totally could, if we wanted to."

Dan swallowed hard. "Ah." That was all he had the breath to say.

"The question is, do we want to?"

A minute ago, Dan would've shouted such a Yes! it would've been heard across the harbor at the sugar factory. But Joel seemed to be teetering on a mile-high cliff of indecision, letting Dan decide whether he should jump.

"I don't want to?—"

"Fine." Joel turned his face away. "Me neither."

"Joel—"

"I just thought I should put all that out there, in case you wanted to."

"Joel, I do want to! Jesus, it's all I can think about every time I look at you. I want to kiss you and take off your clothes and bury myself—" Dan covered his face, heat radiating into his palms. "But not if it's gonna mess with your head."

Another thump-thump of Joel's heels against the pier. "I understand."

What did that mean? What did any of this mean? Dan pressed his hands to his eyelids. "Maybe not everyone is cut out for an open relationship."

"You're probably right."

"And maybe you should talk to Sam about that."

"I did. Once."

He finally looked up. "What did he say?"

Joel swallowed. "He called me neurotic."

Dan's face flared. He could prove right now that Sam was the World's Biggest Idiot. He could check them into that Admiral Fell Inn they'd passed and show Joel all night long that he deserved better.

Instead he said, "You sure he didn't call you erotic? Because that's a closer fit."

Joel barked out a laugh, startling the scavenging seagull into flight. "Definitely using that as a comeback one day."

Though he'd popped the tension ballooning between them, Dan had to make his position clear. "Believe it or not, I didn't come to Baltimore looking for sex."

"Weird, since it's so well-known for that."

"I showed up out of the blue and gatecrashed your life. You don't owe me anything, and I'm sorry if my being here causes you grief?—"

"Definitely not grief."

"—but I just wanted to see you. I wanted to know how you were."

"As you can see, I'm fabulous."

Though Joel was clearly being flippant, Dan replied in a serious tone. "You sure are."

Joel's dark eyes met his, reflecting his own longing, the longing that had finally busted out of its cage and driven him 1,489 miles across the continent.

Now would be the perfect moment to shift over next to Joel and kiss him.

Or now.

Or…now?

His legs twitched, the first step in moving toward Joel.

Laughter rang out to his right. Dan turned his head. A small group of college-age kids were standing halfway down the pier, talking in a loose huddle. They were far enough away for their words to be inaudible, but close enough to see if Dan and Joel kissed.

Which definitely wasn't happening with an audience. If he was ever going to kiss Joel, it had to be in private. At least the first time.

So Dan pulled his camera case into his lap and unzipped it. "You look so fabulous, in fact, do you mind if I shoot you?"

Joel let out an exaggerated sigh. "If you must. Just give me a few seconds to protest, so I won't seem vain."

"At least you admit it." He fixed the lens onto the camera body, then adjusted the aperture to its maximum. Nighttime portraits were a pain in the ass, but Joel was worth it. "Turn toward me so this streetlight is on you."

Joel slung one leg over to straddle the post. "Like this?"

"Looks painful. How about you sit next to that thing instead of on it? Then you can relax."

Joel did as he asked, settling on the pier with his knees pulled in and his arm resting on the horizontal post. "Better?"

"Nice. Just stay like that. I'm waiting for the breeze to come up again and…there." He took several shots as the wind blew Joel's dark, silky hair over his right eyebrow, almost concealing his eye.

There was a scraping sound of cardboard against brick.

"My ice cream cup." Joel lunged out of frame to grab it before it blew away. He caught it just in time.

As Joel was taking both empty cups to the trash can, Dan checked the digital playback screen. In the last photo, Joel's face had blurred with the sudden movement.

"Check this out." Dan turned the camera so Joel could see the screen. "Looks like you're running away."

Joel nodded but didn't smile. He settled back into place as Dan raised the camera again. "Sorry I'm not more photogenic."

"Stop fishing for compliments." Snap-snap. "You know you're beautiful."

Joel's jaw dropped in what seemed like genuine shock. Maybe he didn't know? Had no one ever told him? "I'm cute, maybe, but not beautiful. Especially not in pictures."

Dan lowered the camera, exposing his own eyes. "Maybe you just haven't met the right photographer."

Joel's smile glowed in the dark.