Page 80 of All These Beautiful Strangers

“Yeah,” I lied. “Everything’s fine.”

“What do you think of this guy?” he asked, and I leaned closer to him to get a better look at his laptop screen. My shoulder leaned into his shoulder and I felt him stiffen beside me.

“Um, so this photographer uses all natural light in his photos,” Dalton said. “They’re showing his latest exhibit in the West Village next Wednesday. He’s even doing a Q & A afterward. Maybe we could go? Get bonus points for getting a quote from the artist for our paper?”

“Sounds good,” I said. “And I can ask him about his thoughts on the line between the public and the private in his art,” I said sarcastically.

“Interesting line of thought, Ms. Calloway,” Dalton said, clearly mocking my exchange with Mr. Andrews that first day of class. “Ethics and art is always an enlightening discussion.”

I turned to laugh and caught Dalton smiling at me. There were barely three inches of space between us. My breath caught in my throat and Dalton leaned forward and kissed me.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he said.

“How long?” I asked.

“Pretty much since you were a freshman and you called Libby Winkler Libby Wanker right to her face in the dining hall because she was being snooty.”

“She was so full of herself,” I said. “Everybody secretly hated her.”

“Still, it was a pretty ballsy move for a freshman to call out a senior like that.”

He moved his laptop off his lap and skimmed his fingers along the edge of my jaw until they were on the nape of my neck, and he pulled me forward and kissed me much less gently, his fingers wildly clutching in my hair. It was painful and exciting at the same time and when he drew back it felt like he had sucked the oxygen from my lungs. I had never been kissed like that.

“And I wanted to do that from the first day in Introduction to Photography,” Dalton said.

“Oh, yeah?” I said, and cocked an eyebrow at him. I was a little breathless but trying to hide it. I didn’t want him to know the effect he had on me. I wanted to keep the upper hand. I reached forward and playfully unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. His mouth was slightly open; I saw the want in his eyes. “And what did you want to do to me after I beat you at poker?” I asked.

“You only beat me because you cheated,” Dalton said, smiling, his voice low.

“It wasn’t very gentlemanly of me,” I said. “But maybe if you were less of a gentleman, you would have won.”

“I’m not always a gentleman,” Dalton said.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said.

He pushed me down on my back on his bed and pinned my wrists above my head in one of his hands. He was on top of me, kissing me, his other hand trailing down my neck, skimming my collarbone, grazing my breasts, my belly button. Then his hand slipped underneath my shirt, warm skin to warm skin.

The door to his room slammed shut, and Dalton bolted off of me.

“Shit,” he said.

He went over to the door and opened it and stepped outside, glancing up and down the hall. I sat up and ran a hand over my hair to smooth it.

“That was weird,” Dalton said when he came back in. “It was probably a draft or something.”

“I should get going,” I said. “Now that we have our project figured out.”

I reached for my laptop and started to gather up my things.

“Yeah, I’ll walk you back to your room,” Dalton said.

Drew wasn’t back yet as it wasn’t quite curfew, so I sat on my bed with my laptop taking some notes on the photographer Dalton and I had picked for our project. The USB drive with the interviews from my mother’s case file was still sitting on my bedside table, and it kept catching my eye.

Maybe my mistake was not in listening to the interviews, but in listening to the wrong ones. I put in the USB drive and clicked on Grandma Fairchild’s audio file and put on my headphones. The first half of the interview covered the same ground as my aunt Grier’s—basically, my mother’s personality and character—but of course, Grandma Fairchild painted a very different, much more pleasant picture of my mother. Then Mr. Lynch asked about my parents’ relationship.

“Grace cares for Alistair a great deal,” Grandma Fairchild said. “It was kind of a quick, whirlwind affair when it all started, which was unusual for Grace. She had a hard time opening herself up to anyone after Jake.”

“Jake?”