Brandon gave her a twisted smile. “Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I’m not! I mean”— Hallie caught herself —“OK, I am. But come on: everyone calls themselves a photographer these days. They just point and snap, and post everything online.”
“But there’s so much more to it than that. Here.” Brandon set down his box and pulled out an old-school camera with all kinds of knobs and settings. He passed it to her, almost reverently. “See, this is a Pentax, from the eighties.”
Hallie held it up to look through the viewfinder at him. For a moment she was caught, looking into his eyes. They were a dark shade of blue Hallie had never noticed before, almost gray. . . .
She lowered the camera quickly. “It still works?”
“Sure. These things last forever, if you take care of them. The hard part is finding the film,” Brandon explained. He took the camera back, and showed her how to twist the lens to focus. “I get it off auction sites online, and at estate sales around town. Last month, I found a whole lot of untouched film: sealed, no damp, nothing.”
He snapped the cover shut, and handed it back to Hallie. “Go on, take something.”
“Now?” Hallie paused, the camera an unfamiliar weight in her hand. “OK . . .” She held it up quickly and snapped a shot of Brandon before he had a chance to cover his face.
“Not me!”
“Why not?” Hallie kept clicking. She had to wind the film between shots, and only got in a couple more before he took the camera back.
“I’m not that kind of guy,” he said, and under the harsh light, Hallie could swear he was blushing. “I don’t like being the center of things. I’m more a behind-the-scenes kind of guy.”
“I think that’s a good thing,” Hallie decided, hopping up on one of the counters. He started shooting her, and she struck a pose, blowing kisses until the film ran out. “I mean, people who want to be in the spotlight, they have this hunger, you know? Like they’ll do anything to make it, even if it means crossing the line.”
“Oh, yeah?” Brandon raised an eyebrow.
“Not me!” Hallie protested. “But, you know, people.”
“I know.” Brandon looked at her carefully, so carefully that Hallie shifted, uncomfortable.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He turned back to the camera. “Just, you seem different now.”
“Different bad or different good?”
Brandon smiled. “We’ll see. Now, turn off the light, we have to do this next part in pitch-black, so we don’t wreck the film.”
Hallie stayed in the darkroom for the rest of the day, watching as thin spools of negatives were transformed into actual prints under Brandon’s careful hands. “We made them, from scratch!” she exclaimed, delighted, looking at the final print of her photos of Brandon.
He groaned, trying to snatch them away. “You can’t keep those! The exposure’s all wrong, and the focus is smudged —”
Hallie held them close to her chest, out of reach. “But they’re mine!” She paused, looking around the tiny room, pictures dangling at every turn. “It’s pretty cool, what you do here: taking moments and making them last.”
Brandon looked bashful. “My therapist says it’s supposed to remind me how everything is fleeting, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real, in the moment, you know?”
“I know.” Boy, did she know.
Hallie followed him out onto the back lawn. It was dark now, she was surprised to see, the house silent in the glow of the security lights. “I guess nobody’s home. Amber said something about a charity thing. . . .”
“Want to come over?” Brandon suggested. “We could get pizza and watch something.”
“You mean, Hellfire 4?” Hallie grinned.
He laughed. “Nope. That doesn’t come out until next year. You can pick.”
“Ooh.” Hallie clapped, heading around to the front of the house. “There’s that new Russian movie . . . or did you see The Artist? It’s a French movie —”
“No subtitles!”
“There aren’t any, silly,” she reassured him, with an evil grin. “It’s a black-and-white silent movie!”
Brandon stopped dead.
“It’s good, I promise,” Hallie told him. “It won a bunch of Oscars, and . . .”
The words died on her lips. Standing in the driveway, with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, was the one face she’d never expected to see.
Dakota.
“Hey,” he said, with that familiar smile. “Brandon.” Dakota gave him the guy nod. “How’s it going, man?”
Brandon didn’t respond. He was frozen next to Hallie, tension radiating from his body as he glared at Dakota. Dakota stared back, his expression changing as he looked from Brandon to Hallie and back again.
Hallie nudged Brandon, breaking the face-off. “You go ahead,” she told him. “I’ll be over in a minute.”
He gave her a searching look. “You sure?”
Hallie nodded. “Order extra-crispy,” she said, amazed to find her voice emerge steady and sure. “But no —”
“Anchovies,” Brandon finished, finally relaxing. “Got it.” He glared one last time at Dakota and then sauntered past.
Dakota cleared his throat. “So . . .” he started, moving closer. “Hey.”
Hallie stared back evenly. “Hey.” She expected a rush of feeling — anger, longing, regret, something — but instead, she felt nothing. Nothing! As if the months of pained longing and fervent sobs had burned all her emotion away.
“You guys look pretty friendly.” Dakota tried a teasing smile. “Is there something going on I should know about?”
“I don’t think so,” Hallie said coolly. “I don’t think you have the right to know anything about my life anymore.”
Dakota’s smile dropped. “I guess I deserve that,” he said quietly.
Hallie sighed. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re back in L.A. now,” Dakota explained, “doing final mixes and promo for the album.”
“And going to movie premieres.”
He looked away. “Yeah. I’m, sorry about that. I wanted to warn you, about the photos, and events, but —”
“It’s fine.” Hallie bit out the words. “It’s nothing to do with me anymore.”