“How’d she get this drunk?” I asked as I followed him out of the house, the telltale sounds of the college party muting the farther we walked from the door.

   “She just kept going back for more. I tried to get her to slow down, but when I realized she wasn’t going to, I stopped drinking so at least one of us would be sober.”

   The thoughtfulness of his actions wasn’t lost on me. Not all college boys would stay sober to make sure their sloppy-drunk date was safe. I imagined most boys would drink right along with her hoping it would lead to drunken sex. Liv looked anything but sexy right then.

   “Liv has some issues. When she drinks, all the walls she usually puts up to protect herself fall down and she starts to feel things. Don’t take it personally. It’s not you she’s angry with.”

   He was silent for a while and I just listened to the sound of our footsteps on the concrete.

   “How high are her walls?” His voice was rough, a mixture of emotion and exhaustion.

   “What do you mean?”

   “Her walls. Are they so high that no one will ever be able to get over them? Or are they just, like, intimidatingly high?”

   I thought about his question, picturing him on one side of a cartoonishly high wall, Liv on the other, back leaning up against it, hair fallen around her face, head bowed. “I don’t think anyone’s ever really tried to climb them.”

   “You’re on the other side,” he said in argument.

   “I didn’t climb it, though. I watched her build it and just happened to end up on the right side.” It was true. I’d been a part of her life before she’d been damaged and, thankfully, she’d never pushed me away. He let out a loud sigh, either from frustration or from exertion. “No one’s ever really stuck around long enough to try to break through, Devon. She’s never let anyone get that close.”

   I saw determination in his eyes and again, couldn’t tell if it was his will to carry her all the way to our dorm, or his need to get through to her. I figured it was probably a lot of both.

   We were silent for the rest of the walk to our dorm, which was fine with me. I didn’t want to talk about imaginary walls or how just having Liv in his arms, he was literally and figuratively closer to her than anyone else she’d been with in years. She looked good in his arms and he looked good holding her. I tried to ignore the small part of my gut that ached with that realization.

   We made it silently up to our room and I watched as Devon laid Liv down with ease, gentleness, and care on her bed. He had beads of sweat on his brow and his biceps were flushed red under the sheen of the fluorescent lights. He pulled her covers up over her body and then pulled our tiny wastebasket to sit right on the floor next to her head. Thoughtful. I watched as his eyes roamed around our room and then he moved to her desk, grabbing the water bottle she usually took to the gym, and then disappeared into the hall. He returned just a minute later, the water bottle full from the drinking fountain. He placed it next to the wastebasket, and then turned to me.

   “Do you have any pain killers?”

   I opened my desk drawer and pulled out my generic bottle of Tylenol. I handed it to him and he placed it on the floor next to the water bottle.

   “Make sure she takes the pills and drinks the water whenever she’s conscious enough.”

   “Do you think she has alcohol poisoning?”

   “No. She didn’t drink enough for that. She’s just passed out. Hopefully, if she gets sick, it’ll make it in the garbage.”

   I scrunched up my nose, making a mental note about how I wasn’t going to clean up her vomit.

   “You’re a good friend,” Devon said, pulling my eyes from Liv back to him.

   I shrugged. “I just carried her flip flop.”

   “No. You left the party, and Elliot, to help your friend.” His voiced steeled a little at the mention of Elliot’s name.

   “She’d do the same for me,” I said.

   “I hope so, but I’m not entirely sure.” A silence fell between us again and I wasn’t sure what to say. I knew it was time for him to go, but I couldn’t find the will to send him on his way. “Listen,” he finally said as he pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Elliot’s an okay guy. I don’t have anything bad to say about him to try to steer you away, but something just doesn’t feel right about it.”

   “We were just hanging out,” I said quietly, suddenly feeling like I had to defend myself.

   Devon held up his hand, palm out, to stop my words. His face was contorted as if he were in pain. “I don’t want to know what you were doing with him.”

   “Okay,” I whispered.

   “Just…” he started to say, but his words tapered off. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

   I nodded at his words and whispered again, “All right.”

   He nodded and then turned, walking to the door. Just before he walked out of it, he turned to me, gave me the saddest, weakest smile I’d ever seen, and then closed the door behind him as he left. I heard his heavy footsteps until he got to the stairs, and then I released the biggest breath I’d ever held. I grabbed my nightgown, locked the door, then proceeded to get ready for bed, trying desperately not to think about Devon, his face when he pictured me with another guy, and the way my entire body filled with butterflies at his reaction.

Chapter Four

Present Day

   “Great. Perfect. Now, tilt your head just a little to the left. Right there.”

   My finger hit the shutter button furiously as I snapped the picture I’d been trying to create all morning. The light was battling me at first, then the wind, but finally, I was able to capture the perfect image. Or so I thought, anyway. My model, a woman I’d worked with more times than I could count, knew what I was looking for, and gave me gorgeous shot after gorgeous shot. My adrenaline was pumping, knowing I’d found my little pot of gold.

   After a few minutes of my suggesting poses and Shelby, my model, doing beautiful work, we both paused as a cloud shrouded the sun. Usually, losing light in the middle of a good round would piss me off, but I knew I’d already gotten the shot I wanted, so I could do nothing but smile furiously.

   “That was amazing, Shelby. Thank you. I think we got it.” She smiled at me and came to look at my camera over my shoulder as I showed her the images I’d captured.

   “You’re brilliant,” she said, her voice full of wonder, as she looked at the screen on the camera.

   “Well, you’re pretty damned amazing yourself.” She laughed and we both got to work cleaning up our supplies. Shelby was a great model, but what made her even better was that she was a licensed cosmetologist, so I never had to hire a make-up artist. She was a twofer. I loved it, and sometimes even used her to do make-up when I wasn’t photographing her. She’d been with me for a few years and we definitely didn’t have a strictly professional relationship. As many women tended to do, when we worked together, we talked about our personal lives. I knew about her husband, and their troubles getting pregnant, and she knew all about the hardships I’d faced in the last few years.

   “How’s Devon doing?” she asked as she slipped a hooded sweatshirt over her head, covering up the sweeping lace dress she’d worn for the shoot.

   I shrugged. “I guess he’s doing fine. Although, we don’t really talk about Liv often. I’m usually only there to get the kids ready for school and then in the evenings until he comes home.”

   “And the kids?”

   “Better every day,” I said with a small smile. “They miss her, obviously. Some days are harder than others, but the sadness is lessening, and they’re having more good days than bad, I think. I hope.”

   “And how are you?” This question was asked with even more gentleness than the others, her voice soft and full of genuine concern.