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“So we should have slept earlier?”

“I’d rather be tired all day,” Sean said as he sat up and stretched. When he looked in the mirror, he saw a small bruise at the base of his neck where Jaime had bitten down as he came, but it was already faint. Alana might notice it, but that would just be because she always noticed everything.

“And I can sleep on the train home so I don’t fall asleep in class.” Jaime pulled Sean back down on the bed after Sean yelled back at Travis’s warning. “I still have projects to work on and turn in next week, but you can come over Friday or Saturday if you want.”

“I will.” Sean almost asked if Jaime was still going home the next week, but stopped himself. It didn’t seem right to bring anything up when he had to leave. Even then, he couldn’t help adding, “Let me know if you need me to come over sooner, okay? I can work it out. It’s not that far.”

“I’m fine,” Jaime said, but Sean’s doubt must have shown on his face because he added, “but I’ll tell you. You don’t need to run out in the cold to talk to Lexi when she brings Lupe for her final intern evaluation. Please tell me she made up the thing about you not even having a coat on.”

“I had a sweatshirt.”

“Travis is going to kill me if you get sick.”

Chapter 15

J
AIME
KEPT
up a steady stream of texts and calls, but it didn’t escape Sean’s notice that he never brought up Lupe or his family. It was all random complaints about the projects he had to turn in before the end of the semester while still finishing enough freelance work to make rent.

When Sean wandered from Jaime’s bedroom into the living room of Jaime’s apartment on Saturday afternoon, Jaime and Aleksandra were already awake and sitting on the floor with photographs spread around them.

“We saved you food,” Jaime said, getting up when he noticed Sean standing behind him. “I didn’t want to wake you up just to make you watch us work.”

Sean followed him to the kitchen as Jaime pulled a plate out of the refrigerator and put it in the microwave. Sean considered pointing out that even he could use a microwave, but when he stepped behind Jaime and dropped a kiss on his shoulder, Jaime reached back to take Sean’s hands and pull him closer so Sean was pressed against Jaime’s back with his arms wrapped around his waist.

Sean didn’t realize he was expecting a comment from Aleksandra about how nauseating they were until it didn’t come, even after he’d snuggled closer and kissed the back of Jaime’s neck. When he tilted his head behind him, she just dropped her head back down to the pictures in front of her. He was still trying to figure out how to take that when the microwave beeped and Jaime pushed him away so he could take the plate.

Sean followed him back to the array of photographs in the living room, sitting on the couch to eat while Jaime dropped back down to the floor in front of him.

“We have to pick fifteen that tell a common story for our final portfolio,” Aleksandra explained. “Well, Jaime does. I picked mine already. The problem is that Jaime has an amazing series he did with my friend, and he’s too scared to turn it in, so he’s trying to pick between all of these. And they’re good enough, but good enough doesn’t work when you know you’re holding back on amazing.”

“What’s yours?” Sean asked instead of jumping into the trap Aleksandra was trying to set. If the glares Jaime was sending her way were a sign, he might have better luck trying to bring it up again when they were alone. Then again, the groan that question got from Jaime told him that question was just as bad.

“Actually, she should show you. Please tell her she can’t use her pictures and make her start over,” Jaime said.

“He’s not going to do that,” Aleksandra said, but there was a break in her voice as she got up and went to her room. She came back and handed him a black portfolio. “Please don’t make me start over. Jaime’s not being fair. I’m better at movement and this professor likes emotional portraits. Jaime’s going to get an A no matter what he decides to turn in. They’re not going in a show or anything. It’s just a final project.”

Sean already had an idea of what he was going to see when he opened the cover, but it still felt odd to see pictures of himself he hadn’t known were taken. Except, he had known, kind of. Jaime had mentioned that Aleksandra had taken pictures at the dress rehearsals, even though she wasn’t supposed to do that. He hadn’t thought much about the pictures beyond that he couldn’t mind if all she used them for was to get Jaime to come back to him.

But somehow he’d thought she’d taken a bunch of pictures of him dancing. He was used to that. Most people weren’t allowed to take pictures at rehearsals, because Steph hired people for that. She often let photographers in who were interested, and Alana had once done a series for a photographer who was doing a show focused on dancers who had grown up in the city. These pictures weren’t like that. There were close-ups of him and Alana as they sat on the edge of the stage to listen to Travis’s corrections. There was a shot of him with Travis after they’d finished one day. He’d let his mind drift to Jaime long enough that Travis had seen it on his face, and Travis had stopped the conversation he’d been having with Steph to come check on him.

There were pictures of Alana and him dancing Travis’s piece, but even those seemed raw in a way that differed from the professional pictures Steph’s photographer had taken—maybe because then he’d known her photographer was there.

“I know I should have asked. I wasn’t planning to use them for anything but showing Jaime how stupid he was, but then they ended up being so good,” Aleksandra said when he kept flipping back and forth instead of answering. “But if you really don’t want me to use them, I’ll find something else.”

“No.” Sean shook his head. It was weird seeing it like that, but there wasn’t actually anything that made him look bad. “Well, you should probably get permission from Travis to use the ones from the dance. But if I say it’s okay, he’ll let you. He’ll probably want copies, and then he’ll make Steph hire you next time.”

“Now you’re just encouraging her,” Jaime said, but he leaned back against Sean’s leg and smiled up at him. “Can you at least let her take some where you look like I make you really happy, so I can stop feeling guilty about these?”

“Please,” Aleksandra said before he could answer. “You could just take some yourself. Oh right, they are all over your phone anyway.”

“I hate you,” Jaime said, but he laughed from his space between Sean’s legs.

“You love me, and I showed him my project and he said it’s fine, so you could at least show him what your project should be. And I’m going to point out that Anastasia posed for those pictures, and she wants you to show them before you try to say they’re exploitative. They aren’t even nude. There’s, like, maybe a side boob in one of them.”

“That’s not the point,” Jaime said.

“No. It’s not.” Aleksandra looked up at Sean, but he’d already decided that staying out of her argument was a better idea than getting dragged into it. He expected her to say something, but she shook her head instead and turned back to pictures on the floor. “I hate it, but I get it. So we have to find something else.”

Later, when Jaime had made no move to stop him from spending another night and they were lying in bed, sated, but still not tired enough for sleep, Sean couldn’t help turning toward Jaime and asking, “Can I see the other pictures? The ones you don’t want to turn in?”

“It’s cheating to ask me that right now,” Jaime said as he traced his fingers down Sean’s bare chest.

“I prefer to think of it less as cheating and more as asking you things when you’re in a really good mood.”

“Cheating.”

“I’m just curious. You never actually said why you don’t want to turn them in.”

“I’ll show you if you promise me one thing,” Jaime said as he sat up. “You have to promise not to argue with me about it.”

“That means I’m going to want to.”

“I know. And that’s why I didn’t tell you about them. Aleksandra’s annoyed. She wants me to be able to turn them in because it was Anastasia’s idea, and Anastasia wants to tell her story. But she never should have picked me to help her do it. Aleksandra does understand why I won’t turn it in. She doesn’t like it, but she gets it. I’m not sure you’ll get it.”

“Explain it to me, and I can try.” Sean figured he should not point out how many times Alana had thrown up her hands and declared that there were some things she just couldn’t make him understand, no matter how many times she tried.

“No arguing,” Jaime said again, as he got up and opened the drawer to his desk to pull out a portfolio just like the one he’d used for the pictures he’d decided to turn in a few hours ago.

“I won’t argue.” Sean sat up, pulling the blankets over his lap as he did.

“Okay.” Jaime sat back down next to him, but instead of handing over the portfolio the way Aleksandra had, he kept it as he opened the first page to show Sean. It was a bright shot taken outside in the sun. Anastasia was looking up at the camera from where she was seated on the grass. Her blonde hair was shining from the sun behind her, and it looked like Jaime had caught her laughing. “Anastasia’s a dance student here. She also knows Aleksandra from this bikini bar where they used to work. But Anastasia also strips.”

Jaime turned the page to a very different picture of Anastasia on a pole. It was clear she was nude, but the angle Jaime had taken it at cast shadows in just the right places.

“She’s not ashamed of it or anything. It pays for school. She also does sex work, and while she agrees it’s not healthy for everyone, maybe not even her, she thinks there’s too much shame in it. She knows other girls who do it, and they don’t just hide it from their families. They hide it from their best friends and their roommates. She runs her own ads and picks her own people. She says she’s not going to do it forever, but she’s fine with doing it so she won’t have to take out loans. Most of the time. Sometimes she admits she hates it, but she’s not willing to give up the money yet. She gave Aleksandra the idea to do a series for
her
project, and agreed to let her into the hotel rooms after her meetings. Of course, Aleksandra told her I should do it instead. Aleksandra is amazing at movement. Every shot she got of you dancing is clear in a way I couldn’t manage, but that’s not really what they wanted for this.”

“These are really good. I mean, I know it’s not really my thing, but I think these are good,” Sean said as Jaime flipped through the next few pictures. Most of them were in hotel rooms. Sometimes she was on the bed, but there were also a few of her standing by the window. There was one of Anastasia taking off her makeup in the bathroom and one of her smoking a cigarette outside on the sidewalk. There was something so different in her eyes compared to the first picture that Sean felt like something was breaking inside him when he reached the end.

“I know,” Jaime whispered as he closed the portfolio and set it on the bedside table.

“And she wants you to turn them in.”

“Yeah, and I feel kind of like a jerk that I can’t do it after she let me in. I should give them to her and let her do whatever she wants with them without crediting me, but I haven’t been able to do it yet.”

“So why can’t you use them?”

“Some of the best collections are going online. If I turn these in, they could end up online with my name attached to them. I can’t chance that.” Jaime looked at him like that should make sense.

“Why?”

“My family would see it. I can’t have someone search me online and have these show up on the school website. We’re Catholic. My mom goes to Mass three times a week. She’d go every day if she didn’t have to work so much. When I go home next week and I have to go to confession, I’m going to have to start with how I lie to her every week about going to mass, and then move on to the sex and finish with how I hang out with sex workers, and even then, it won’t feel right because I’m not going to stop doing any of those things. The priest can’t tell her any of that, but if these show up online, she’s not going to think it’s amazing. She’s just going to be angry and ashamed of me.”

“You’re not giving her much of a chance to surprise you,” Sean said.

“You promised not to argue.” Jaime leveled him with a look, but Sean had a built-up resistance to the same kind of looks from Travis.

“I’m not arguing. I’m observing. Didn’t Jesus hang out with prostitutes?” Sean asked, and got a glare as an answer. “It was just a question, but I’m done.”

“I just can’t. Aleksandra gets it. Her parents still think we’re engaged because that helped them get over her living with a guy. She just has more leeway because they’re in Russia. She only brought it up because she wanted me to tell you about it.”

“I’m glad you told me,” Sean said, lying back down and pulling Jaime with him. “I don’t get it completely. My mom would think it’s amazing, but I’m trying to get it.”

“I know. She’ll like my theme for my graduate exposition anyway. Of course, Lupe was helping me with it, but now that’s not going to work. Do you think Alana would help? I can probably change some things so I can use more than one subject.”