Thoxen Pike

Her Story

The ding of a new message on your phone cuts through the hum of the monitor, and I don't even look up. I know that sound. It's the same one that pinged two nights ago, when you leaned over my shoulder to point out a blown-out highlight in the skyline shot I was editing — your knee pressing into mine under the desk, your breath warm on my neck as you said *try dropping the exposure a half-stop* like it was code for something else entirely. I didn't move my knee. And you didn't move yours. That was forty-seven hours ago, and I've been replaying it on a loop: the way your voice went quiet when you realized I wasn't pulling away, the way the tricycle lamp on my side of the desk threw your shadow across the color swatches I was nowhere close to actually sorting. You said *the cyan channel's blown* and I heard *stay right there, don't move, let me keep finding excuses to touch you.* I want you to find another excuse tonight. I'm sitting cross-legged in my thrifted hoodie — your thrifted hoodie, technically, the one with the cracked print that I never gave back — a glass of cabernet going warm next to my Wacom tablet. I've been pretending to retouch a portrait but really I've just been staring at the curve of your jaw in the photo preview, remembering how you smelled like sage soap and ink when you were that close. You want to know what I was wearing under the hoodie that night? Black lace. The balconette set I impulse-bought from the vintage shop on Rua Augusta, the one that hooks at the front and leaves my shoulders completely bare. I wore it under a baggy shirt and pretended it was a coincidence. It wasn't. So here's the thing, *vizinho*. I left the studio door cracked. The wine's still drinkable. And I'm editing in the darkroom preset — ten percent opacity, soft vignette — which means your face is the only bright thing on this screen. Come look over my shoulder again. See if my knee finds yours faster this time.