Kaleidoscope Hearts (16 page)

I always thought you were mine.

I wish I had the balls to ask him about that, but I don’t, and Mia’s clicking camera interrupts us anyway.

“Okay, here’s the deal, I’m going to sort of guide you through this, but I want this to be as natural as possible. We’ll do a couple where you guys are looking at each other first, and then we’ll see where it goes.”

“I’m kind of worried about your ‘we’ll see where it goes,’” I mutter under my breath, earning a laugh from Oliver.

“All right, darlings, let all that pent-up sexual tension come out and play,” she says, stepping away.

Oliver and I stare at each other, wide-eyed, wondering what we’ve gotten ourselves into. Or at least I thought we were both wondering that, until his shock dissolves and his face darkens, and I’m left with a thrashing sense of holy shit as Mia walks away to open the blinds. Suddenly it hits me that I’m in my underwear with Oliver—who is also in his underwear—and we’re surrounded by needy music. I gulp in a deep breath.

“You okay?” he asks, his voice too low, too husky, as his fingers run over my calves.

I shiver, close my eyes, and nod.

The bed shifts, and I feel him move closer. When I open my eyes again, his nose is almost touching mine.

“Perfect!” Mia says. “Hold that pose!”

The look in his eyes holds me there. I can’t really think of even blinking anyway.

“Elle, do you mind taking off your bra?” Mia asks, lost behind the lens, and Oliver inhales sharply, his eyes widening at the request. “You’re not showing your boobs in the pictures, I promise.”

“Ummm . . . okay.” I have zero qualms about nudity, though I have to admit that this entire thing is making me nervous as hell.

“You need help taking it off?” Oliver asks.

“No.”

“Actually, that would make for good pictures,” Mia chimes in, and I turn to glare at her. She shrugs. “What? Bean, you’ve seen your fair share of tits before, right? You don’t mind?”

“This is definitely the most awkward form of punishment I have ever received. I think I’ll take the spanking next time,” I say to Mia, making her smile and Oliver laugh.

I drop my head as he wraps his arms around me and finds the clasp of my bra.

“You need to look at him,” Mia says. I take a breath, and with what I find in his gaze, it takes everything in my willpower not to look away or close my eyes again.

His fingers unclasp my bra, and as soon as it loosens, he brings his hands up to my shoulders and ever so slowly, drags the straps down my arms, never breaking eye contact with me. My stomach flips, my heart is in my throat, and I feel like I may or may not vomit because of the amount of nerves circulating inside of me right now. I just pray really hard the last one does not happen.

“Okay?” he whispers, his breath on my mouth.

“Perfect,” I whisper back.

Our noses touch.

“Elle, put your right hand over your boobs like you’re shielding them. Bean, keep looking at her like that and fix her hair on the side facing me,” Mia says.

I bring my arm over myself as one of Oliver’s fingers thread into my hair and the other cups the side of my face. I’m completely lost in his eyes. I’m mesmerized by the way he’s handling me, looking at me. I can’t seem to do anything else but breathe and stare back.

“You are so beautiful,” he says. His guttural voice mixed with the lust in his eyes make my stomach dip and my lips part. Oliver takes it as his cue to inch his face closer and brush his mouth against mine.

“Perfect,” Mia says, reminding me that we have an audience. “Shit. I’ll be right back. I need my back-up battery, and I left it in the fucking car.”

I pull back, not taking my eyes from his, and drop my hand from my chest. I can tell he’s having a really hard time not looking down. I smile at him, wondering how long it’ll take for his eyes to drop, but they don’t. He continues to look into my eyes, search my face, touch my hair, my cheeks . . . He scoots forward and pulls my legs apart so that they’re overlapping his in a scissor on either side, and our naked chests are almost touching.

“How much longer do you think we’ll have to do this?” I whisper, my eyes flickering between his mouth and his eyes.

“I don’t know. I’m kind of hoping it takes all day.”

“It definitely makes for an interesting friend date,” I say with a smile.

He flashes his charming half-smile. “You still think this is a friend date?”

The door opens and shuts, and we turn our heads at Mia’s return. She stops dead in her tracks when she sees us. “Holy shit. That pose! If I can get a couple of shots with that pose, I think we’re done!”

Oliver and I face each other again as she sets up the camera.

“Why’d you do it anyway? Take over Marlon’s spot. I mean, other than the overprotective, big brother thing.”

He gives me a confused look, which almost looks comical with the way his mouth drops. “You think this is a big brother thing?”

I shrug. “You tell me.”

“Elle, I’m sitting in a bed practically naked with you, doing everything in my power to keep myself from getting hard because we have an audience, and as you can see, nothing is working.” I look down, of course, and gape at the large condition inside his boxers. “Yeah. So obviously, I don’t see you as a little sister. I can’t believe you would even . . .” He trails off with a huff.

“Okay. Look at each other again,” Mia says. “Same pose and hold it.”

His hand goes back to my hair, mine goes back over my boobs, and we look into each other’s eyes again.

“I want to kiss you so bad right now,” he whispers against my lips.

“Don’t,” I say in a breath. “That’s a rule.”

“I don’t like rules.”

“Oliver, please don’t.”

“I love it when you call me Oliver,” he says, his bottom lip settling between both of mine. He doesn’t move though, just stakes out there until I have to close my mouth over his lips. Then he groans and moves his mouth against mine, and before I know what’s happening, I’m on my back, and he’s on top of me deepening the kiss that wasn’t supposed to happen. But when his tongue touches mine, and his fingers thread into my hair, I can’t help but reciprocate, and we end up in a tangled mess of sheets and tongues and rough hands down my sides, and mine down his toned back. It isn’t until we hear a loud cough that we snap and tear away from each other.

“Well . . . that was . . .” Mia says, fanning her face with her hand. “I can honestly say that I’ve seen a lot of shit happen in shoots, and that was by far the hottest. Okay, lovelies, we’re all done here. Go get dressed. Elle, we need to talk.”

Oliver pushes himself off me and brings me up with him. We’re both still catching our breaths from the kiss, but now that the lights are on again and the moment is broken, I feel the weight of what just went down, and I can’t bring myself to look at him. Instead, I look around, trying to locate my robe, which I wrap around myself as I stand up. Heading to the bathroom, I refuse to turn and look at him. This is what we do, anyway. We have our moments and then nothing. And this wasn’t even supposed to be a moment, so I have nobody to blame but myself for the way my heart feels like it’s going to break at any moment.

In the bathroom, I look in the mirror and bring my hand to my lips. Why does he make me feel this way every time? I close my eyes, think of Wyatt and his lips . . . his touch . . . and I feel guilty for having this moment with a man he would never approve of. Not that Wyatt knew Oliver, but he knew of him. He got an earful from me about Oliver when we first met, and after that, he just never liked him. He was furious when he found out I extended an invitation to the grand opening of the gallery to him, because he said Oliver didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as me. He said that I was too good for somebody like him. At the time, I believed it. I believed it because when we want to believe something, that’s what we do. Wyatt loved me despite my brokenness. I loved him because of his. But now I’m back at square one, and I can’t figure out if there’s anything really left of me to love.

I WALK OUT of the bathroom and find Mia and Oliver engrossed in a quiet conversation. From the look on her face, I know she’s telling him to stay away from me, as if I’m some damsel in distress who can’t fend for herself. When they hear me approach, they stop talking and turn their attention back to the camera in her hand.

“The pictures look incredible,” she gushes, turning it so I can see the little screen.

“Wow. I can’t even believe it’s us. We look so . . .” My eyes snap up to Oliver, who’s staring at me with a look I want to get lost in forever. I look away quickly, back down at the rest of the pictures.

“Won’t this be bad for you?” I ask, looking at him again. “I mean, for work. For your residency or future work.”

He shrugs and looks at the pictures. “I want copies.”

“For what?” I ask a little too defensively.

“Your faces aren’t going to show all that much,” Mia says, interrupting us. “Trust me, when I’m done editing these, you’re both going to want to frame them.”

“What magazine did you say this was for?” I ask.

“V!”

“Holy shit,” I breathe, looking at Oliver, who looks impressed.

“I know. I’m so excited!”

“Yeah. Exciting. I feel like I might throw up,” I say quietly.

“Why? They’re beautiful pictures.”

“Yeah, but I’m posing half naked with Victor’s best friend!”

“And?” she says.

I look at her like she’s crazy and turn my attention to Oliver, who’s looking the other way now. Of course, he hadn’t thought of that.

“When does this come out?” I ask.

“In . . . a month? Right before Thanksgiving.”

I nod. I guess if I tell my parents and Victor about this before they have a chance to see it, it won’t be so bad. Victor will definitely need time to process it.

“Okay. What else do you need?”

Mia looks at Oliver. “I need to talk to Elle. I can take her home if you want.”

He looks at me, scratching the back of his neck. I shrug, he shrugs back and then says, “Sure,” before giving us each a kiss on the cheek and leaving.

That’s when I start to feel murderous. How can he just leave?

“Can you believe this shit?” I say after he’s out of earshot. “We just did all of that.” I signal to the bed. “And he still leaves in the middle of what was supposed to be our date, right after my brother and these pictures being viewed by the public is brought up. I don’t even know why I bother.”

Mia rolls her eyes. “You know exactly why you bother. He’s like your drug. No matter how far you go or what crazy measures you take to stay away from him, you always end up back where you started.”

“Not this time,” I say with finality. “Nothing has really happened this time.”

Mia laughs. “Elle, what I just saw, I mean, what I just captured, says otherwise,” she says waving her camera around. “You can’t make this shit up.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You said you needed to move on.”

“Yeah, but not with him. You said so yourself, it’s a bad idea.”

“Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it’s not a bad idea.”

“Oh, really?” I roll my eyes. “You got all that from a few pictures?”

“No. I got all that from talking to him. I think he’s grown up.”

I wave frantically in the direction of the door. “He just left! Again!”

Mia shrugs. “Yeah, because I asked him to. Do you feel guilty for entertaining the idea of hooking up with someone?”

“I don’t think so. I think it’s just him I’m afraid of.”

Mia leans forward and gives me a hug. “Love is supposed to be scary.”

“Love is supposed to be comfortable,” I reply.

“Do you really believe that?”

“Wyatt was comfortable.”

“Wyatt didn’t make you go on tantrums and break your brand new Isaac Mizrahi Target plates because he didn’t call, or go into seclusion for weeks on end when you heard he was going to be living four hours away.”

I drop my arms and stare at her, feeling like she just said the most significant thing in the world.

“Do you think it’s possible to have different kinds of love?”

“You mean like head over heels in love and then just in love?” she asks.

I shrug, following her out the door. “Yeah, like soul mate love as opposed to just regular love.”

“Soul mate love?” she asks, laughing. “As far as I’m concerned, the only soul mate I have is you. And maybe Robert, since he’s my twin, and you know how we twins are.”

“I don’t think . . . I mean, I don’t want to think that I didn’t love Wyatt with everything I had. That makes me feel so bad, you know? He died so young, and to think I wasn’t the love of his life makes me sad.”

“Oh, honey,” Mia says, pulling me to her as we walk side-by-side to her car. “You loved him so much, though. You gave up so much for him, Elle. Dance, your friends, time you used to spend with your family . . .”

“Yeah, but he gave me a lot too. The studio . . . he taught me how to hone my craft . . . and he left me his house.”

“I’m not saying he wasn’t a good guy for you, but was he your forever guy? You know I can’t agree to that.”

We drive in silence, only singing along to her Taylor Swift CD when a song we both like comes on. When we get to my brother’s house, I’m a little sad that Oliver’s car isn’t there. He really ran off. Again. Unbelievable.