It stung, I couldn’t lie about that. Mostly because he wasn’t wrong. “It is wasteful. There’s no real excuse for it.”
“I get it—you don’t know any different. You’ve all lived your entire lives like this, and I’ve got a chip on my shoulder about it. I’ve been working on it.”
“Oh, have you?” I said on a chuckle.
“I have. Billy’s always telling me not to be a snob.”
“Sounds wise.”
“That’s one word for it,” he joked. “Anyway, he has an old injury that makes it hard for him to get around, so I need to be close by.”
“He’s lucky to have you.”
“I say the same thing about him. I’m right down here,” he said, leading me to the end of the hall. The massive metal sliding door groaned when he rolled it open.
The room itself was dark, the furniture silhouetted against twenty-foot paned windows that framed a view of Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea, downtown rising up beyond. We weren’t very high up—just the fourth floor—but with the low-profile buildings around us, it was just high enough to afford a bit of view and ample charm.
Levi flipped on the lights and headed for the kitchen as I milled around, admiring the space. “Drink?”
“Please. Whatever you’ve got.”
The kitchen was a good size and modern, built under the open loft space that housed his bedroom. Polished concrete made up the bottom floor, and opposite the wall of windows was an equally epic wall of red brick that wrapped around both sides to meet the windows.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, stopping by the window to look down at the street.
“Like I said, I’m a lucky guy.” He jerked his chin and extended what looked to be a glass of whiskey. “Come on. I’ll show you the studio.”
I followed him up the stairs, curious as to where we were going, seeing as how the entire apartment was visible from the door. But once in his bedroom—a simple and utterly masculine affair—I noted two doors and the slider for his closet. One had to be the bathroom. The other, as anticipated, opened into pitch-dark.
He closed the door behind me and walked away. “This space was used for storage and custodial services—it was too small to make an apartment, plus there were no windows. So Coop split it off for me, keeping the bottom floor for storage like before but giving me the space for this.”
A click, and the far wall illuminated, the light soft and diffused. He was a void against it, his features indefinable, a black shape against white light. Broad shoulders, the curves of his arms, his narrow waist. The cut of his profile when he turned his head and reached for a stool, placing it in front of the wall.
“Come here.”
Two words, a command that had everything and nothing to do with the stool he’d just set down.
I did as he’d bidden, taking a sip of my drink before setting it at my feet. “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.”
A chuckle from the near dark, and I caught movement, just ghostly golden highlights of an arm or his hand or his cheekbones and jaw. And then he came into full view, camera on a tripod pointed at me.
I crossed my legs and straightened my back out of instinct.
His eyes flicked from his camera to me, then back again. “You’re not posing for a portrait, you know,” he teased. “Take a drink. I’m just checking the lighting.”
With a chuckle, I hinged to pick up the glass and take a sip. The click of the camera startled me.
“I thought you weren’t shooting yet.”
He shrugged, but I couldn’t see his face. “Whoops.”
At that, I laughed. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just be.”
“Just be what?”
“Be nothing but you.”
I exhaled, wondering how exactly to do that while on display.
Click.
“Dammit,” I said on a chuckle.
“Take another drink and close your eyes.”
I hesitated for a second before downing what was left in my glass. Once I set it down, I closed my eyes and folded my hands in my lap, my body turned three-quarters. My heart fluttered, shaken by nerves. Not because I didn’t trust him.
I wanted to be beautiful for him, and I didn’t know how.
“Have you been photographed before?”
I cracked a lid to give him a look. “Picked up an Us Weekly lately?”
“Close your eyes,” he directed, amused. “Not like that. Not a bastardized, unwanted invasion. I mean like this.”
“I’ve done a little modeling, but I’ve never been good at it.”
“No, not like that either. Not a sell, not a gimmick. A truth.”
“Then no.”
Click.
I resisted the urge to open my eyes.
“Truth can’t be staged, can’t be forced. It happens when it thinks no one’s looking.” Click. “You can’t command something to be truthful, to be real. You can’t even ask it of yourself, because thinking about it sends it burrowing deeper.”
“Why is that, do you think?” My head bowed.
“It’s different for everyone. But mostly, it’s because we’re afraid. Truth requires trust, and trust has to be earned. But that’s the problem—trust is also the space where we’re most vulnerable. So how do you give someone that power? How do you give them your truth, knowing they could exploit it?”
Click.
“I don’t know,” I answered quietly.
“I do—they take it without you knowing, and you won’t realize it until it’s theirs.”
The streak of emotion in my chest was an amalgamation of feeling, of shock and of recognition, of hope that I could find someone worthy of my trust and fear of what would happen when they stole it.
“Open your eyes.”
The shutter rapid-fired when I did.
He rose, stepping around the camera, holding my gaze as he approached. Silently, he smoothed my hair, exposing my shoulder as his eyes charted my face. I wondered what he saw, what he wanted behind torn eyes, his face cut in two. One side planes and angles, the other darkness, shrouded but for the catch of light in his eyes and a glint on his cheekbone. Just a glimpse, a glimmer of his truth. What he showed the world cast in light, what he kept to himself left unseen.
A breath, and the moment was gone, wiped away by his cavalier smile. “Come with me.”
I stood on shaky knees, all the blood in my body seeming to have rushed to my chest in a hot bloom of warmth so fast, it left my hands chilled. And I followed.
He stopped at his camera and fiddled with it before heading away. The darkness swallowed him up, and I hesitated, too unfamiliar with my surroundings to risk breaking an ankle tripping over anything. But with another click, and a slice of crimson appeared before me with Levi’s silhouette cut from it.
A smile rose on my face, my eyes wide as I stepped into his dark room.
The room was shades of red and shadows of black cast over the large table in the middle, topped with tubs of developer, and the counters around the walls housed a number of tools I didn’t know the names of. Levi bustled around preparing what I could only figure was a roll of film, and while he was occupied, I came to a stop in front of a wall of black-and-white photos.