Photographing Memory: A Friends To Lovers Romance Read online

  Jordan recoiled in disgust. “Dude. We’ve both got insurance. We don’t need to go that far.” He sat up straight. “Oh, Jesus Christ, please don’t put thoughts in his head.”

  Devon patted his back, still laughing. “Priceless. I’m not going to say a word, my friend. I’m not going to say a word.” He tapped Jordan’s arm to break him out of his semi-panic. “So, this rally against ICE we’ve got going on for Thursday — is it a great idea to do a protest on Thanksgiving Day?”

  “Why not?” Jordan turned to face Devon. “Other people do 5k runs; we’re just doing one around an immigration detention facility, to draw attention to a violation of international laws.

  “Plus, we got the permits. The city is aware of our plans, and we’re going to be good to go. There shouldn’t be any violence, no police activity, and the only injuries should be a sprained knee or two.”

  He cracked his knuckles and beamed. “Even Alex can’t object to this. It’s downright healthy. He should get the bank to sponsor it.”

  “I think if you so much as suggest that, you’d be in for a world of hurt, or at least lecturing.” Devon shuddered. “Hey, isn’t that the douche-y guy Alex used to date? Chad, or something like that?”

  Jordan twisted his back to follow Devon’s gaze, only to catch a glimpse of Chad Milton — the devil himself. “What the hell is he doing here?” He turned back to face Devon. “Why would Alex invite him? He told me he wasn’t inviting anyone from the bank, except Colby.”

  “Well, there he is. I doubt Alex invited him, but he’s here anyway. Let’s go see why.”

  Devon got up, and Jordan joined him. They followed the path Chad had taken, into the kitchen and out into the cold November air in the backyard.

  Jordan couldn’t understand why Chad would be here. He knew, between what Alex had told him and what Chad himself had said, that Chad looked down on Alex for living like this. Chad looked down on all of Allston.

  He would certainly never be caught dead at an Allston party, but here he was, in his perfectly-pressed dress pants and an actual blazer. He’d even worn an ascot. Who the hell wore ascots anymore?

  Chad didn’t seem to realize he was being followed. If he knew, he didn’t care. He made a beeline for Alex, who was paler than Jordan had ever seen him, and had set himself up behind one of the kegs like it would protect him from the press of people.

  “Alex, buddy, how are you?” Everyone turned to stare as Chad’s smarmy voice cut through the chatter and the music. “Slumming it a bit, aren’t you? Are these undergraduates?”

  Alex looked down and gave a nervous little titter. “I don’t really know any of these people, Chad.” He tugged at his collar. “I’m pretty much never home. You know that.”

  “Oh, I know, Alex.” Chad leaned over the keg, encroaching on Alex’s space. “But you’re not at the bank, either. Not as much as you should be. Where’ve you been, Alex?

  “You’re not putting in your time, not paying your dues. You think you can get ahead at the bank by slacking off? You think you can move up, or even keep the lowly, pissant job you have now, by bitching and moaning to your supervisor about a few extra projects?”

  Jordan’s blood boiled. So Chad was the reason Alex had to put in so many extra hours. And how dared he try to crowd Alex like that — and in his own home, too? He stepped forward, but Devon grabbed his shirt.

  “Alex is a big boy,” he said. “Let him handle this.”

  Jordan had no interest in letting Alex handle this. Couldn’t Devon see that Chad was deliberately pushing all of Alex’s buttons? He stayed put, though. Alex was an adult. He should be able to stand up for himself.

  Alex smiled thinly. “Chad, I didn’t say anything to Anna. She figured things out for herself. You weren’t subtle. I asked her specifically not to make an issue of it when she said something to me.”

  “I don’t believe you. And neither does anyone else. A bunch of the execs were at the house, having lunch with my dad today, and you want to know who the topic of conversation was, buddy? It was y-o-u.

  “It was all about how you’re just not the right fit for Charles River Bank after all, not if you’re running around with that hoodlum Davenport — I mean, you went and got yourself pregnant! By a guy who’s actually trying to get the bank shut down. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking I love him, Chad.” Alex stood up from his chair. “That’s enough for me, and it’s going to have to be enough for you.”

  Jordan’s chest swelled three times its size. He must have lit up the whole of Allston with the grin on his face.

  Chad just scoffed. “Love is for idiots. There’s time enough for making a family or whatever after you’ve built your career.

  “No one’s going to hire or promote a guy who’s sitting there popping out puppies for some antiestablishment hippy type who keeps getting arrested. How long before you start raiding the bank vault for bail money?” He stepped in even closer, so there wasn’t enough room for a piece of paper between them.

  Jordan couldn’t listen to any more of this crap. He ran over to the pair and gently moved Alex back, standing between him and Chad. Chad smelled like aftershave, and lots of it.

  The scent drove away all other sensory input — the sound of the crowd, the music, even the train yard on the other side of the fence. It was just the aftershave.

  “Chad, why are you even here? This isn’t your crowd. You don’t like Allston, and I’d have figured you’d be at the country club instead of a kegger. Why don’t you just move along, and if you have an issue with your colleague, maybe you should take it up with human resources on Monday morning.”

  Behind Jordan, Alex winced. Jordan knew right away that he’d said the wrong thing, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it now. How was he supposed to know that human resources was bad?

  “Run along, hairball.” Chad waved his hand in a shoo-ing gesture. “The grownups are trying to have a talk. You know, the people who still have jobs. While we still have them, that is, Alex.” He craned his neck around Jordan’s shoulder to waggle his eyebrows at Alex.

  “Jordan, come on. Let’s just get out of here.” Alex, sounding exhausted, put a hand on Jordan’s shoulder.

  “Alex, I’m not going to let this bloated sack of crap chase you out of a party at your own house, okay?” Jordan shook Alex’s hand off. His pulse hammered in his ears, and he widened his stance.

  He could see, just as clear as day, that no one had ever stood up to Chad. Not in this lifetime. Jordan was more than happy to be the first. “Chad, I’m not sure how you even wound up here, but you need to leave.”

  “It’s not your party, pissant. Run along, go pee on some trees and howl at the moon, or whatever you hippies do. Alex knows he’s got a job to do.” Chad shoved Jordan, and not gently.

  Fortunately for Jordan, he’d been expecting the push. He didn’t fall down, the way Chad was probably expecting. Instead, he responded with a right hook to Chad’s jaw. Chad went down, hand to his face.

  “You crazy son of a bitch!” Chad screamed. He scrambled to his feet. Jordan could see his face darkening in the place where he’d punched him.

  Chad wasn’t letting that deter him, though. He swung wildly for Jordan, landing a hit on his arm. Jordan responded with an uppercut that caused Chad to lose teeth.

  Chad spat blood everywhere. His face was a snarling mask of fury, and he pulled his hand back, ready to strike. Before he could land a blow, though, both he and Jordan got soaked with cups full of ice and water, thrown into their faces.

  Jordan sputtered with shock and rage. He and Chad both turned to face whoever had thrown the missile at them, only to find Alex standing there with two more Solo cups ready to go. His face was twisted with rage, and he pointed to the door.

  “Both of you, out. Just go.”

  Jordan gasped. Alex couldn’t mean that.

  Chad scoffed. “Come off it, Alex. You know I’m right.”

  “I know you crashed
a party you were never invited to, stood there and insulted me, and then stood there and insulted my boyfriend and the father of my child.

  “Get out. Leave. Let them fire me over it. It sounds like their minds are already made up, anyway. Whatever, I’m not obligated to sit there and suffer through you starting a fistfight at my house when you were never invited here in the first place. Go.”

  He pointed again, and Chad, befuddled by Alex’s sudden lack of deference, staggered toward the exit.

  “Jordan, I love you, but you did not need to do any of that. I had everything under control, and I did not need a white knight. I told you not to get started with him.

  “You ignored me, got goaded into a fistfight, might have gotten me fired if I wasn’t already well on my way, and, oh yeah, might have gotten the cops called, which you already know we cannot afford. I need you to go now. We can talk about it later.”

  Jordan searched Alex’s face for some sign he was kidding, but all he saw was resolute anger. He spun on his heel and followed Chad toward the exit.

  21

  Alex hid in his room for the entire weekend, only leaving it to use the bathroom, and then only when he could hear no one else in the hallway. He didn’t reach out to anyone — not to his parents, not to his roommates, and not to Jordan.

  Much to his chagrin, Jordan didn’t reach out to him either.

  He didn’t sleep while he was in his self-imposed incarceration, either. All he did, all weekend, was alternate between absolute despair and trying to rework his budget as a single man. Not that he and Jordan had broken up — no, not at all. He just needed to be ready, to be prepared in case the worst happened.

  And in his deepest, darkest hours, when he wondered if every little sound around him might be a mouse, he had to consider whether or not he and Jordan separating would actually be the worst outcome.

  He loved Jordan, and he had been genuinely happy to be starting a family with him. He knew Jordan wasn’t thrilled with Alex’s lack of interest in embracing activism. And he knew his anxiety had been wearing on Jordan.

  It wasn’t as though Alex could control it.

  And it wasn’t as though Alex’s concerns weren’t valid. The fact that he couldn’t turn off his concerns, couldn’t address them and move on, didn’t mean those concerns didn’t come from a very real place and make real sense.

  More arrests would make it more difficult to find housing. Bail money would take away from what they needed to survive, and survival would be at the most razor-thin of margins as it was. The violence involved with arrests, especially at protests, would risk both the child Jordan carried while he was pregnant, and his ability to earn a living afterward.

  Maybe it was all worth it to Jordan, and Alex wanted to honor that. But their kids had to come first. Their kids did come first, for Alex, and they deserved to come first for both parents.

  Sure, Jordan’s parents had put him second, but that wasn’t Alex’s problem. Jordan’s parents’ choices didn’t mean Alex had to put his kids last.

  He had to wonder, too, if some of his anger didn’t come from Jordan’s refusal to stand down when Alex tried to intervene. Alex didn’t know if he had the right to be angry about that. Jordan was a grown man, who had a right to make his own choices.

  Chad had been insulting Jordan too, and Jordan was the one Chad hit. But he wouldn’t have gotten to that point if he hadn’t made the choice to ignore Alex’s request to just leave it alone.

  Alex finally emerged on Monday morning. He still hadn’t heard from Jordan. He didn’t know if he had a job to go to or not. On the off chance that they hadn’t gotten around to filing the paperwork to fire him yet, Alex decided to go to the office. He might as well put more time in, and get a little more money, while he could.

  No one said anything about the party when he got there, except for Colby, who thanked him for a good night. Apparently, he’d left before the fireworks with a grad student from Berklee. Well, good for Colby. At least someone was going to get a happy ending out of all of this.

  It certainly wasn’t going to be Alex. His exhaustion made concentration impossible, and anticipation made his palms slick with sweat. Every footstep was security or HR, coming to escort him from the building. Every incoming email was a virtual pink slip, and he had to fight down nausea before checking his in box.

  He checked his phone, to see if there was some kind of reassuring text or something. It was the kind of thing Jordan used to do, when he first figured out what Alex’s issue was. He’d send little texts throughout the day, just letting him know things were okay. It had done a world of good for Alex, but he’d stopped sending them as often lately, and there were none today.

  He missed Jordan.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have kicked Jordan out of the party. He loved Jordan. He should have been more accommodating, right? He should have appreciated Jordan’s gesture of rescue or whatever, and just swallowed his anger.

  The cops had shown up, but by then everyone else had cleared out (frightened away by Alex’s outburst, but no one else needed to know that) and there hadn’t been any harm done.

  Alex shook himself out of it. No, he should not have been more accommodating, or swallowed a single one of his feelings. Jordan hadn’t paid a single consequence for getting into a fistfight. Alex, on the other hand, was sitting here waiting to lose his job over the whole thing, which had been his whole fear in the first place.

  A twinge in his gut was the only warning he had, and he had to run into the bathroom. He made it just in time to be sick without making a mess. What a legacy to leave behind.

  He cleaned himself up, tried to get himself under control, and went to the coffee station to grab a cup of coffee. He was going to need it if he was going to make it through the rest of today.

  When he got back to his desk, he found Anna waiting for him. He almost ran back into the bathroom, but there wasn’t anything to bring up.

  “Alex, can I talk to you for a minute in my office, please?”

  Alex almost said no. What would be the harm? It wasn’t like he was sticking around anyway.

  She was dragging him into her office to fire him; he didn’t have to sit there and meekly accept it. He could run, he could be free, he could be Daffy freaking Duck and “woo hoo” his way out of the office if he wanted to.

  That might affect any severance package they wanted to offer, though, and he’d have to make that baby stretch. Plus, he was pretty sure that cartoon physics didn’t apply in his world. At least once she was done firing him he could go home and maybe get some sleep.

  He nodded and followed her into the office. He closed the door behind them and sat down in the guest chair, head bowed. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Are you doing okay today?” She leaned across the desk and spoke softly to him. “I don’t want to be rude, or overly familiar, but you’re doing your best raccoon impression, and I didn’t think they had raccoons in Guatemala.”

  He snorted in spite of himself. “I’m okay. Just not sleeping well.”

  She paused for a second, biting on her lip. “Did you and Jordan have a fight? I checked in with him before pulling you in here, and he said he hadn’t seen you since Friday night.”

  She opened her mouth like she had more to say, but closed it instead. Whatever it was she might have wanted to say, it wasn’t good.

  “We, um. We got into it a little bit. My roommates threw a party, and things got out of hand. You know how things get.” He could feel his cheeks burning.

  “Well. Okay, if you’re sure. Um, so, I did a little poking around, and it turns out the bank has this one benefit they literally never talk about at all.” She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a pamphlet.

  “The bank has child care on site, and they subsidize child care for employees who fall into certain income and rent brackets. I don’t know what your housing plans are, but I’m pretty sure you’ll qualify, no matter what.” She pushed the pamphlet across the desk. “It’s kind of a holdover
from the good old days, but hey — we’ll take it, right?”

  Alex gaped. “That’s incredible,” he blurted. “I had no idea — this will make all of my calculations so much easier.

  “But wait.” He pulled back the hand that had been about to pick the pamphlet up. “I can’t use it.”

  She blinked at him, like he’d just slipped into speaking Mandarin. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m getting fired.”

  Anna blinked again. “Is it the sleep deprivation? We can get you to a clinic, Alex. That’s not a problem.”

  “No, no. I got told.”

  Alex bit down on the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t going to rat out Chad, even if Chad was an ass. Chad had still steered him right any number of times, and Alex owed him that much.

  “I got the heads up from someone. They all got together on Friday and decided.”

  Anna lifted her head for a moment, and then she glared at the door. “I think I know who’s responsible for that rumor. And Alex, I can promise you, it was just that. I was in the only management meeting on Friday. You did come up in the meeting. The idea — even the vague idea — of firing you did not.”

  Alex shook his head. “My source … he knows what he’s talking about. He wouldn’t steer me wrong. Not about this.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Anna got up, walked around her desk, and sat down in the other guest chair. “Alex, I’ve already heard about the fight between Chad and Jordan at the party.”

  Alex’s chest felt too tight again. Was this how people felt when they were having heart attacks? He put his hand on his chest and tried to play it cool. “How?” he croaked, as his vision tunneled.

  “Breathe, Alex. Come on, listen to the sound of my voice. In for four, hold it, out for seven. Again.”