She swallowed. “The same thing that happens to everybody eventually. We grew up, grew apart.”
“I don’t want to be apart.”
He didn’t—couldn’t—mean that how it sounded.
Except…his gaze dropped to her mouth and he was bending his head.
Ay Dios mio, is he going to kiss me?
Her pulse went slow and thick, and time turned elastic as he slowly, inexorably began to close the distance between them.
The “Cha Cha Slide” began to blare.
Lexi jolted reflexively back as the moment shattered. “I need to get back to work. Thanks for the dance.”
Pulling free of his arms, she made a beeline for her camera and didn’t even care if he thought she was running away.
She couldn’t face him. Couldn’t face what had maybe almost happened. It was better this way. She would just have gotten everything wrong again and ruined what they were managing to rebuild. He was too important to take that risk.
In the two weeks since Lexi had bolted away from him like a scalded cat, Zach had agonized, thinking about that almost kiss and wondering exactly how long it would take for things to go back to normal between them. Trying to kiss her had been an obvious mistake. She hadn’t avoided him, but she hadn’t been herself either. There was a tension between them, and Zach hated himself a little for putting it there. She’d opted to pretend he hadn’t tried to kiss her, and as much as that sucked, he’d gone with it, keeping his hands to himself and putting all his efforts into being the friends they’d always been. As much as he regretted that she wasn’t on the same page, he figured it was worth some discomfort on his part to keep her in his life. The attraction would go away eventually. He hoped.
Not that it showed any indication of waning as he sat beside her in the studio, reviewing wedding proofs on the double monitors at his desk.
“If we can, I’d like to be able to take a flash drive of previews to Jace tonight when I meet him and the guys for dinner.”
“We should be able to get that far. I suppose that’s a downside to two shooters at a wedding. Double the pictures to go through after the fact.”
They’d both individually culled their raw files, cutting out the blurry, the poorly composed, or any other shots that didn’t pass muster. There would still be paring down to the best of the best and a ton of editing to do, cleaning up and refining each one to maximum perfection. They’d already been through the ceremony and the staged shots of the wedding party and the family.
“I’d say the end results are well worth it. Between the two of us, we caught some moments I couldn’t usually get on my own. Jace and Tara are going to be ecstatic.”
“I certainly hope so.” Lexi reached across him, clicking to add some gorgeous detail shots of Tara’s dress and shoes to their folder of keepers. She didn’t flinch away from him this time, and he called it a win.
“I wouldn’t have thought to use this composition. I mean, I usually try to get shots of the dress before the bride puts it on, but they never turn out like this. This is art.”
“It probably helps that my mother is who she is. Much as I am not a girly girl, I was raised to appreciate design. I know what goes into a dress like this, so it’s natural for me to want to highlight the craftsmanship.”
“It shows. You should come tonight.” The invitation was out before he could think better of it, so he barreled on, determined to reinforce the just friends thing. “It’s Trivia Night at Los Pantalones. You love trivia.”
“Uh, no. I’m not going to be the pink wheel.”
“The pink wheel? You’ve never liked pink in your life.” This he knew with unarguable certainty.
“It seemed as good a term as any for the token girl. No, y’all can enjoy your rituals of masculinity unencumbered. Besides, Mom and I have a date for pizza and our annual viewing of Runaway Bride, so I need to be getting on in a little bit to go by Speakeasy to pick up dinner.”
Probably for the best.
“I think that’s the last of the prep shots. Time to start on the reception.” She popped out her memory card.
Zach inserted his last one. “I haven’t done as much culling as I’d like from this one. I focused on getting through all the wedding party shots so I’d be able to go ahead and give them a few to share while we get to the rest.”
They made their way through the cake cutting and the obligatory smashing of cake in Jace’s face. Tara’s expression of satisfaction made Zach snicker because he knew what was coming.
“I think the one where he streaks icing down her nose and she’s laughing is my favorite of this bunch,” Lexi said.
“Same.”
He dragged more images into the edit folder and moved on to the shots of the speeches and various crowd reactions. When the picture of Lexi came on screen, he regretted not finishing his own cull in private. He’d caught her in an unguarded moment. A few tendrils of hair had escaped from the roll at her nape to frame her exquisite face. Her expression was soft and yearning as she looked at…well, he didn’t know what. Or who. But it was how he wished she’d look at him. It was a shot that said as much about the photographer as the subject. Zach felt exposed, sitting beside her, waiting for her to say something. With half a brain he prepared to deflect her questions, to minimize what filled the high-resolution screen as nothing less than a lucky shot.<