return

Alistair was something special, Eric thought, but particularly postcoital. That was when all the sharp edges seemed to melt into something vulnerable and Eric could hold him without needing to be concerned about the prickles.

He enjoyed Alistair's acid tongue and simmering irritation with the world at large—that was just passion in another form—but an Alistair at peace was rarer and therefore more precious.

Eric turned on his side in bed to trace a finger down the length of Alistair's spine. "Are you awake?"

Eric's great photographic weakness was people.

He'd sailed countless waters and captured images of whales majestically breaching the waves, of waves so tall and breakwater-white that they didn't seem to be of Earth. He'd traveled through valleys and mountains, shooting everything from entire landscapes devastated from drought to crumbling ruins that attested to the impermanence of humanity's efforts to tame their surroundings. Hell, he'd won his first major critical acclaim for a close-up shot of a ladybug battling an aphid, a photo that evoked palpable tension and drama on a micro level.

But put a baby in front of him and all his shots would be flat and lifeless. He just couldn't connect emotionally.

So, well, while making his home base in one of the biggest tourist destinations in the country, why not use the opportunity to practice? Most people were too busy gawking all around them to even notice he was photographing them and not the sights, and it wasn't like he was going to do anything with these shots.

Like now, for instance, seated at a cafe table in front of an indie coffeehouse, it was nothing to casually pick up his camera—he always had it on hand, because you never knew what you might stumble across—and snap a photo of an interesting-looking tourist with snowy hair. Or was he photographing two pigeons fighting over a cruller, just on the other side of the street? The world would never know!