Recipe for Romance

by Snyder, J. M.

  Aware that he was staring, Preston cleared his throat and switched Abby’s hand from his left to his right, then wiped his hand on his jeans before offering it to the photographer to shake. “Preston Pruitt,” he said, hoping his grip was as firm and confident as the other man’s. “I want to thank you for being so patient with my daughter.”

  The photographer’s smile was disarming. “All in a day’s work. I’m Cam Richards. You’ve already met my assistant, Lacy.” Turning the full wattage of that sunshine grin onto Abby, he said, “Remind me what your name is again, little lady.”

  Preston opened his mouth to answer; Abby didn’t usually speak to strangers, and after Lacy’s failed attempts at drawing her out, he was pretty sure she’d have nothing more to say to anyone else for the rest of the day. So he was more than a little surprised when he heard his daughter say in a small voice, “Abby.”

  From behind the photographer, Lacy whistled. “Impressive. She must like you.”

  Before he could stop himself, Preston asked, “What’s not to like?”

  That smile again, lighting up those eyes, damn. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Mr. Pruitt,” the photographer joked. “Do you maybe want your picture taken, too, while we’re at it?”

  Preston waved him off with a laugh. “My ugly mug? Nah. And it’s Preston. Mr. Pruitt makes me sound old. Do you go by Mr. Richards?”

  “Call me Cam,” came the reply. “Now, Little Miss Abby, let me see that smile.”

  * * * *

  Preston didn’t know if Cam was a natural when it came to dealing with children, or if his warm personality helped kids relate to him, but whatever his secret, his ability in handling the little ones made him remarkably good at his job. Abby was slowly drawing out of her shell, allowing the photographer to lead her to the chair in front of the camera with little protest and barely a backward glance at her father for support. As Cam set up the shot, checking the view through the lens, Lacy flittered around adjusting the lights and smoothing out the backdrop. Whenever she smiled at Abby, the girl glared back.

  After a few moments, Cam seemed to notice. “Why don’t you start packing things up, Lace?” he asked. “I’ve got this.”

  Lacy hesitated. “Are you sure? I can help out.”

  “This is the last one today. Unless I can talk Daddy over there into sitting for me.” Cam winked at Preston, who felt his face heat up all over again. God, in no time at all he had regressed fifteen years to become a bumbling teenager, easily embarrassed by a cute guy flirting with him.

  And it was flirting, right? Preston hadn’t actively dated in years, not since Tess re-enlisted and he found himself a full-time father, but he was pretty sure he remembered what it looked like. The coy glances, the quick smiles, the teasing words that might mean something more if he wanted to go there.

  Which I don’t, he told himself. Or rather, I shouldn’t. Not here, not at Abby’s school. I’m only here to make sure she gets her photo taken, not pick up the hottie behind the camera.

  When he realized Cam was waiting for a response, Preston shook his head. “No, no, not today.” Which still left open the possibility of some other time, didn’t it? Two could play this game.

  As Lacy began packing up the equipment unneeded for Abby’s shoot, Cam focused his attention on Preston’s daughter. “So, Abby,” he started, then as Abby’s attention wandered after Lacy, he snapped his fingers to recapture it. Abby’s gaze returned to the camera he held near his face. “Don’t look around at anyone else, honey. Eyes on me. Otherwise your school pictures are going to look all wonky.”

  Abby giggled, covering her mouth with both hands.

  Cam gave her a wink. “There’s that smile. I knew you had one in you. It’s just been hiding all day. Hands back in your lap, pretty please.”

  Straightening her back, Abby did as she was told, though Preston saw her glance in his direction quickly before she refocused on the camera. He gave her a little wave, and even though Cam had told her hands down, she still waved back. He mimed brushing her hair off her shoulders. “Put your hair back, baby,” he told her. “You know your mommy likes it that way.”

  Her smile dimmed a little but she obeyed. Cam lowered the camera a moment while she adjusted her hair. “Want to come over and help her, Dad?”

  Though Preston knew she could do it herself, he didn’t want her hair getting staticky again, so he stepped over the cords that snaked across the stage floor and hurried to his daughter’s side. “Thanks,” he said, ducking under the lights, Abby’s comb already in one hand. He hunkered beside her and ran the comb through her hair, chasing after it with one hand to make sure it stayed down smooth. In a soft voice, he told her, “Sit up as straight as you can, sweetie, and be sure to smile when he tells you to.”

  “I wish I could wear my wings,” Abby groused. “I’d look so much better.”

  “You look perfect as you are.” Planting a kiss on the top of her head, he stepped out of the shot and gave Cam a thumbs up. “All yours.”

  Cam moved in closer, toying with the camera in his hands. “What’s this I hear about you wearing wings?”

  Abby’s lower lip pooched out, and her chin trembled. “I wanted to wear them for my pictures but Ms. Coffman told me no. Daddy said it’d make the other kids feel bad. But it isn’t fair, because now I feel bad.”

  Preston turned away, his heart aching. “Oh, sweetie,” he murmured. Great, now he felt bad, too.

  For a long moment, Cam didn’t say anything. Really, Preston thought, what was there to say?

  Then the photographer came up real close to Abby and got down on one knee in front of her chair, the camera resting in his lap. Now he could look her in the eye, or almost—she actually had to frown down at him, just slightly, and the sudden disparity in their heights confused her enough, it dried up any tears that had been about to fall. She sniffled once, but that was it. “Let me tell you something,” Cam said. “You see that backdrop behind you? The big piece of blue cloth hanging behind your chair?”

  Abby turned and looked, then nodded. It was much the same backdrop Preston remembered from all the pictures he’d ever sat for all throughout his school years, a variegated blue that paled in the center to draw attention to the student. The same shade, year after year, regardless of whichever school he had attended. Elementary, middle, high…even in college, his senior cap and gown portrait had a similar backdrop.

  Now Cam grimaced as he looked up at it. In a conspiratorial tone, he asked Abby, “It’s kind of ugly, isn’t it?”

  Without hesitation, she nodded, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her shirt.

  “Not really the kind of background you’d want to use for a fairy picture, you know?” Cam continued.

  Preston wondered where he was going with this. Abby shook her head, vigorously this time.

  Cam asked, “What kind of background should a fairy have, do you think?”

  Abby squinted one eye in concentration, and tilted her head to the side. “Maybe some kind of trees? Fairies mostly live in the woods, so something like that. With sparkles.”

  “With sparkles,” Cam echoed. “Let me show you something. Come over here.”

  He stood and headed for a table set against one wall, out of the way. Cases for the cameras and the lights were scattered across its surface, and on one corner sat an open laptop, connected to the camera in his hands by a long cable Preston hadn’t noticed before. Intrigued, Preston trailed behind his daughter as she followed Cam to see what it was the photographer wanted to show them.

  Cam stopped in front of the laptop and, with a few keystrokes, pulled up a couple of pictures from an entirely different photo shoot. These were professional pictures done in a studio, not candid shots, and definitely not school photos.

  For one thing, none of the photos had that ugly blue backdrop. Some were group portraits with a busy cherry blossoms background that made Abby gasp in delight. Some were close-ups of children against plain black backgrounds so brightly lit, the kid
s could have been cropped out in Photoshop and inserted into any other image with little difficulty. A few were boys dressed in sports uniforms, wielding baseball bats or hunching over in defensive football positions, the backdrops behind them stadium seating or baseball parks.

  And then came the photos that made Abby clap her hands in delight.

  Little girls dressed in dance recital costumes, photographed against dense woodland trees or open fields, sunlight dancing off the flowers entwined in their hair. Girls Abby’s age playing with sand pails and seashells, dressed in bathing suits, the backdrop behind them a beach with rolling waves and, in the distance, a boardwalk and amusement park rides. One little girl in red pigtails, her freckled nose a mirror image of Cam’s, dressed in a clown outfit as she waved cotton candy on a stick and, behind her, the backdrop displayed a carnival in full swing.

  Abby turned to Preston, her eyes wide with longing. “Daddy! I want to go there!”

  “These are only pictures, honey,” he told her. “It’s all make believe. It isn’t real.”

  “But it looks real!” Abby turned back to the computer screen, moving in as close as she dared. She did the same thing when she Skyped with Tess every week and grew excited telling her mother everything she’d been saving up since their last call. “I want to take pictures like this. Can I, Daddy? Can I?”

  Preston rested his hands on her shoulders to keep her from falling face first into Cam’s laptop. “We’ll see, honey. Right now, though, you need to get your school picture done so you can get to lunch and I can get back to work.”

  Cam gave a guilty start. Closing out the photo viewer, he ran a hand through his thick hair. “Right, yeah. Sorry about that.”

  “It’s fine.” Suddenly Preston was aware of how close they were, with only Abby between them. When Cam’s arm brushed Preston’s, the air seemed to flicker into flame around them. “That last one, is that your daughter? She has your freckles.”

  With a laugh, Cam shook his head. “Me? No. I’m not the fatherly type. That’s my niece, Jocelyn.” Tapping Abby on the nose, he added, “You’d like her. She’s about your age.”

  “Does she like fairies?” Abby wanted to know. Obviously important stuff that might make or break a potential friendship.

  Cam widened his eyes in surprise. “She does. At least, she likes me.”

  Abby shook her head, amused. “You’re not a fairy! You don’t have wings!”

  But Preston caught the meaning in Cam’s words. Added with the remark about not being the fatherly type, and the flirting—because really, it was flirting, wasn’t it?—well, he wasn’t dumb. He could do the math. If he needed any sort of prompting to show his own interest in the man, he wasn’t going to get a better opening than that.

  * * * *

  Preston waited until after Abby had had her pictures taken before he made his move. She kissed him goodbye and raced down the steps to join her classmates in the lunchroom, even as he hollered after her not to run indoors. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Cam lingering over the equipment table, carefully putting away the camera and its lens and cables. The laptop was still open, which seemed like a good way to start the conversation. Preston drifted over there.

  “So, these pictures of yours…” He gestured vaguely at the laptop, then leaned on the table, close enough to Cam so there could be no misreading his interest. Looking up at the photographer, he asked, “They are yours, right? I mean, you took them all?”

  Cam grinned. It was everything Preston could do not to lean into him at that moment. Despite his earlier easy banter, Cam could pull off a bashful smile when it suited him. It looked kissable and cute, and went well with the freckles dotting his nose. From where Preston stood, he couldn’t see that dark spot on Cam’s lip, but he already knew it had slipped into its usual hiding place inside the dimple at the corner of Cam’s mouth.

  Damn, I’m falling hard, Preston thought. They’d only just met, and without Abby as a buffer between them, he couldn’t take his eyes off the man. Everything they said, every move they made, every look, every gesture, seemed weighted with added meaning, fraught with longing. Was it always so fragile between men? So difficult to move things forward when starting something new?

  “Yeah, I took them,” Cam said, meaning the pictures. As he tucked the camera into its case, his elbow brushed Preston’s stomach, and even through the layers of clothing both of them were wearing, the touch was electric. “I have a little studio over in Short Pump. If Abby really wants some pictures taken with those fairy wings of hers, I’d be more than happy to set something up. I can give you a great discount, too. Or, you know, if you and your wife ever want family portraits done sometime…”

  He trailed off, one eyebrow cocked suggestively.

  Reaching out, Preston touched Cam’s wrist, then let his fingers fall back to the table. It was a subtle message, nothing much, but easily read into. “I’m not married. Never was, actually. That’s a story in and of itself.”

  Cam’s grin widened. “One I’d like to hear. Maybe over dinner sometime?”

  Preston returned the smile. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe getting back into the game wouldn’t be so difficult after all. “It’s a date.”

  Chapter 6

  Before Preston left Abby’s school, Cam gave him a business card with the number to Richards Studio on it. Even though he told himself he wouldn’t call too soon—he didn’t want to look desperate, because he wasn’t, he didn’t need to go out with anyone, no matter how hot the photographer might be—Preston caved and dialed the number to Cam’s cell later that same evening after Abby was in bed. Was he making the right move? The date had been Cam’s idea, after all. But was Preston moving too fast?

  The sound of Cam’s voice in his ear that evening put Preston’s mind to rest. “Hey, there you are,” the photographer purred, obviously pleased to hear from him again so soon. “I’m glad you called.”

  Preston felt giddy, the way he had in college when he actually started dating. Sure, he’d liked guys in high school, but he’d never had any then who’d liked him back. In college he first realized he wasn’t the only gay boy on the planet, and a whole new world of possibilities opened up to him.

  He felt like that again now, after eight long years of fatherhood, of working long days and staying in nights, of looking but not touching, like a man window shopping at a Ferrari dealership when he couldn’t even afford to test drive a new car. It wasn’t Tess, either; she knew who he was, and she loved him because of it. From the beginning of their friendship, she always told him to be true to himself, no matter where that might lead.

  But when Abby was born, Preston’s priorities changed. At first he wasn’t in her life much; he didn’t have to be. Tess was more than capable of taking care of the newborn by herself, as she made abundantly clear. Preston was there on the periphery, more uncle than father figure, helping out where he could. That would’ve been the time to date, if his life hadn’t suddenly taken a turn for the worse.

  His father’s debilitating bout with lung cancer was what brought Preston home from New York in the first place; he’d been living in the Big Apple since graduating from culinary school, and he chafed against the small town mentality of Colonial Pines all over again. He couldn’t wait to escape. Then along came Abby, and he couldn’t leave Tess hanging. A few months short of her first birthday, though, Preston’s father passed away, and his mother didn’t last much longer. Now he really didn’t have a reason to stay, but by then Abby was walking and Tess wanted to buy a house twenty minutes north in Richmond. She didn’t have the credit to get a nice place in a good neighborhood on her own, but maybe if Preston signed the lease as well…?

  Why not? It was better than raising his daughter in the barracks on Fort Lee.

  Then Tess’s unit was deployed to Afghanistan, leaving Preston to raise Abby alone. Tess was either very patriotic or a sucker for punishment, because whenever she was home on leave, she never stayed too long; she was always the first to
sign up again when duty called. It wasn’t until the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Act was repealed that she admitted to Preston what he’d sort of suspected all along—she was in a relationship with a fellow soldier. The problem was, her lover wasn’t the same rank; Tess was a Specialist First Class, and the woman she was involved with was a Private First Class. So though they could no longer be dishonorably discharged for being lesbians, they weren’t supposed to be consorting together in the first place.

  To be honest, Preston didn’t get it. “You’re both a pair of first class dames,” he had argued. “That would’ve been enough for the snobs on the Titanic. Why can’t it be enough for Uncle Sam?”

  “There’s a difference in pay,” Tess tried to explain. “And technically, I outrank her. The military frowns on officers sleeping with anyone under them.”

  Preston had to laugh at that. “Don’t they know you’ve always liked to be on top?”

  * * * *

  The strange story of his relationship with Tess that he had promised to share over their first date came spilling out in that first long phone call. Somehow Preston lost track of time; talking to Cam was like talking with an old friend, and Preston found himself stretched out on his bed at quarter to midnight, his ear hurting from where the cell phone was pressed against it so tight, his throat sore and his eyes tired, but every inch of him otherwise sated.

  “I could listen to you talk all night long,” Cam admitted, his voice soft through the phone line.

  Preston stifled a yawn. “I could ramble on, too, but Abby’s going to want her pancakes at seven thirty sharp, so I better go.”