Then again, maybe answering Serena’s question about his photography didn’t have to be about his mom. Maybe he could just tell her about himself and that would be enough. For now, at least.
“My sister Olivia had one of those little toy Barbie cameras as a kid. I stole it from her and wouldn’t give it back.” He liked hearing Serena’s laughter. It made it feel easier to talk to her about things. “At first I mostly took pictures of the sky. Trees. Water. Bugs. People came last, and only because when I was a kid they reminded me of bugs.”
“They did?”
“Sure. Some are social. Some are solitary. But everyone’s just trying to stay alive. And when you get a good up-close shot, they all look pretty funny.”
“What kind of pictures do you like taking now?”
“I haven’t taken any in a while.”
She was quiet for a few moments, but he could practically hear the gears in her head working. Finally, she said, “You know, if you ever want...” She paused, clearly uncertain about what she was about to say. “I know bugs are a much better subject than I could ever be, but if you—” She paused to swallow hard again. “—if you ever want to use me to practice working with light or shadows or whatever, I’d be happy to help.”
The thing was, by that point he’d started to get a pretty clear picture of the fact that after nearly two straight decades of modeling, she didn’t much care for being photographed. But before he could reply, a stranger walked up to them with his phone out.
“Hey, any chance I could get a pic of the two of you for my Stanford Football blog?”
With everything in this section of the campus close together, they’d quickly gotten close enough to the stadium to be surrounded by other football fans. Tailgates were wrapping up in the parking lots all around them and the smell of barbecues and beer permeated the air. Fortunately, until now, no one had so much as looked over at them with any recognition whatsoever, given that there were just enough other crazy football fans in similar getups that they barely stood out.
But even though he doubted the guy with the blog had a clue who he was talking to, when Serena immediately flinched and turned away from the camera, Sean told him, “Actually, there’s a group of about ten guys over there who would be way better for your blog. One has even painted his entire body like a tree.”
The blogger bounded off, but Sean could see that Serena was still tense. She’d actually cringed at the thought of the guy taking her picture. That was how much she hated it.
And yet she’d offered to model for him?
“Hey,” he said, reeling from the knowledge of just how huge her offer had been—and how tempting the thought of photographing her was even though he never thought he’d want to pick up a camera again, “it’s okay. He didn’t know who we were.”
She stepped out of the way of a couple of girls who were taking a selfie. “Thanks for throwing that guy off our scent.”
He knew she was trying to change the subject, but first he had to know, “If you didn’t like your job, why did you do it for so long?”
“I liked it at first, or at least I thought I did because everyone was so nice to me when the pictures were good. But by the time I realized I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life standing in front of a camera…” She paused. “So many girls dream of being on magazine covers and in Paris fashion shows that I always felt like a snot when I wanted out, so I tried to stop wanting it. But then I realized I couldn’t keep ignoring my own dreams forever. I just couldn’t. So that was when I made the decision to apply to college.”
“Sometimes baseball feels like that for me.”
“It does?”
He could see that he’d surprised her. Hell, he’d surprised himself, too, not only by admitting that, but also by saying it out loud.
“I’m good at it. Really good.” It wasn’t bragging when it was the truth. “And when we’re winning and everything is clicking and the crowd is going nuts, I’m not going to lie and say it isn’t pretty damned fun.”
“Being on the runway was like that sometimes. If the designer was really spectacular and I knew fashion history was being made that day, it was pretty cool. But every time I met people who had real passion for clothes and fashion, I’d end up feeling like a fraud for not being one of them.”
“Most of the guys on the team, especially the ones who are good enough to go pro, they live and breathe the game. So I know what you mean about feeling like a fraud sometimes.”
Just then, the campus mascot—a seven-foot-tall redwood tree made out of sewn-together pieces of felt—danced by them with the Stanford band not far behind. The campus band was notorious, not only for their crazy outfits, but also for their shocking antics. Tonight it looked like they were going to be putting on one of their better shows, as the guys were all dressed in drag and they were playing a dirty “alternate” version of Come Join the Band.
There was no way Sean and Serena could have kept from laughing at the perfect break in what had become far too serious a conversation for a Friday night football game. He wanted to get to know her better, but he was just starting to realize that sharing didn’t go one way. He couldn’t just dig into her past, her secrets, her fears and dreams without letting her do the same to him.
The things was, he thought as he handed the girl at the gate their tickets, he didn’t know if he was ready to go there yet. But could he do it for Serena?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Wow,” Serena said as they stepped into the stadium, “this place is huge. And loud. Really loud.”
Deliberately shaking off the dark cloud of his thoughts—his worries about the future and his grief over the past—Sean made himself focus on the here and now.
His family had been coming to games for as long as he could remember, and they’d worked their way up over the years to sweet seats right at the fifty-yard line. But if he and Serena sat there, it would make their disguises pointless. Which was why he’d sucked it up and bought a couple of crappy seats in the nosebleeds.
Clearly, though, she had no idea that their seats were terrible as she looked around her with such wonder on her face that he could read it from behind her sunglasses. “This is so great.”
He’d taken girls to games a couple of times in the past and had always regretted it. They were too cold, too hot, too bored, too annoying. But Serena was already perfect.