A Pizza My Heart Cover Reveal!

As some of you might know, I was commissioned back in February to create a book cover for the anthology A Pizza My Heart, compiled by Jolene Haley. Well today, after many months and lots of (fun!) hard work, I get to show the cover to the world! *EEP* Jolene agreed once we had finished this cover that I could make this post, showing my step by step process on how the cover was made. I'm so excited to share it with all of you!

First, I'm going to tell you a little about my tools of the trade! I use a lovely Wacom Bamboo Create drawing tablet that was actually gifted to me by my friends a little over a year ago. As for software, I use Paint Tool SAI with an add-on software that allows me to edit text. Whenever you see me with a pencil and paper, it's probably a generic mechanical pencil and Bienfang paper.

The very first step was to get a rough idea of what Jolene wanted. She told me the genre, target audience, and general aesthetic she wanted to get from the cover. Her words were "Fun, bright colors, and some type of pizza on the front.". She also included a super-mega-helpful inspiration board that can be viewed here.

From her first email, I created four thumbnails of possible cover images.

At the time, my favorites were the top right corner, and the bottom left corner

This took roughly an hour, maybe less, and were done traditionally in a sketchbook. Each of these is about the size of my thumb. At the time, we thought the cover was going to be traditional media (pencils, inks, and watercolor), otherwise I might have done this on my computer.

At this point, we decided the first thumbnail was the one we'd go with. Jolene was worried the image might be too plain, so she suggested a splash of color be placed behind the pizza. So based on the images on her pinterest board and the feedback given thus far, I whipped up a few more concepts!

Jolene was very pleased with these mock ups. And I mean very. We were on the fence about the splatter at this point. The anthology didn't yet have a title, so I was improvising here.

In this phase of the project, I was experimenting with fonts and colors for the background. I widened the splatter and tweaked the colors to make it all more vibrant and generally appealing. Jolene made a great call on the splatter! The central image was enlarged to make it all more readable in a thumbnail format.

However, we still had some concerns. The fonts and the colors were troubling us. Jolene felt that the cover was too yellow, and I went a little overboard with the splatter. She also suggested a different pastel, such as blue or purple.

In Jolene's next correspondence, she had a stroke of pure brilliance and put together a color scheme for this cover that really brought it all together! She also included the list of authors for me to add to the cover, and sent me some fonts to play with.

There's a HUGE leap from the last image to this one, because we got down to crunch time. Between this batch of images and the next, I lined the piece from scratch, re-did all the colors according to Jolene's brilliance, and drew out the title. Yes, that's my handwriting all over this cover!

Can you hear that? Is it just me? I could have sworn I heard ANGELS SINGING. I can also still hear my hand cramping because wow, lots of words.

From this point, all Jolene wanted changed was the colors of the words on the cover. Which was a great call. I picked us this handsome blue for the author's names, and the dark red for the title, which leads us to...

TAH DAAAAAH

The final cover!

This cover was a real joy to make, and Jolene is a dream to work with! I love this cover, and I can't wait to see the success I know this book will achieve. Here's to you, Jolene, and to all fifteen other authors who are making this possible!

A Pizza My Heart will be available November 12th, 2016. You can check out all the cheesy details here. I hope to work with Jolene again in the future, but in the meantime...I gotta go get some pizza.

Composure

Zach paused and pulled his right hand from the keys, scribbling down notes before continuing. His fingers trailed over the black and white gracefully, arching and extending and moving as if they had a mind of their own. His eyes closed as he played the piece through, and when he came to the end, he stopped again to pick up the pencil.

He couldn't get the end right. It was always the part he had the most trouble with. He plunked a few keys experimentally, then slammed his hands onto the keys in frustration. The following dissonance resonated through the apartment's vaulted ceilings, echoing until it faded and left only the sound of the pouring rain.

He sighed and pulled the cover over the keys, then bent over until his forehead touched it.

"Zach?"

He jumped off of the piano bench in a vain attempt to pretend he hadn’t been playing. His knees hit the piano, causing it to make a hollow sound as the strings trembled inside. "Nora," he said too quickly. "What are you…” His voice broke a little. “Uh, I woke you up?"

She glanced toward the piano as she approached. “You never told me you play."

"I—I don't really, it's just a hobby. I play when I can't sleep."

She laughed sleepily as she shuffled toward him. Her hair was in a messy bun at the nape of her neck, and she was wearing one of his long sleeve shirts.He was so tall, and she was so short, it really looked like a dress on her. Her bare legs were covered in goosebumps.

He sat back down as she pulled her fingers through a thick blanket of dust on the piano. She leaned into him, and he put his arm around her waist. She was warm from being in bed. "It doesn't look like you play it often."

"Well I sleep better when you're around."

She ducked her head just a little, smiling, then she put her hand around his. Half asleep, he knew she couldn't keep out anything he was feeling. He felt like he was naked in a hurricane as she absorbed everything.

"Nightmares." It was all she had to say. He marveled at her gift again.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

She sat on the bench beside him and pushed the cover away from the keys. She wiggled her fingers above them, then used her index finger to haltingly play "twinkle twinkle".

He laughed, and put his hands on hers. "Please stop."

She pulled her hands away and put them on top of his stained, crumpled, scribbled upon music. "Oh," she said softly. "You compose too?"

His cheeks turned red. "Sort of. None of it is any good."

"I want to hear it."

She turned and stuck her lip out. Her half-asleep brown eyes won him over, and he let out a groan of defeat. "Fine."

He glanced over his sheet music, though he didn't need to, and took a deep breath before striking the first chord.

It was a deep, haunting sound that was hit sharply and drawn out, meant to rattle your bones. He carried on into a lightly played melody that made his heart soar high to play. Sometimes the higher notes in it made Finley, his Great Dane, hide in the back room.

He lost himself in the music, completely forgetting that he was playing for somebody. When he came to the end, the melody slowed, and he struck the same haunting chord again. His fingers hovered over the keys as it played out, wanting to play more, but unsure how.

Nora took her hand off his arm. He wasn't sure when she put it there, but he felt a little exposed that she'd just seen everything he felt as he played. He didn't let anyone see that.

"Zach," she breathed.

"I know, it doesn't have an ending yet. It's always the part that trips me up. I can never get anything that sounds good enough. Like, I'd rather never end the song and play forever."

"Zach," she repeated. “That was amazing. You wrote that?”

He blinked. “Yeah, um...yeah.”

“How long did it take you?”

He felt himself starting to get red in the cheeks. “I dunno, I just work on it when I can’t sleep. I guess it’s been a few months.”

Nora rested her head on his shoulder. “It’s amazing. I liked the ending just the way it was.”

Zach smiled. He knew the opinion was biased, and he definitely wouldn’t leave it like that, but still...he wasn’t sure if any of his girlfriends past had cared enough to hear him play, let alone ask questions like that. It was just another reminder of how lucky he was to have Nora.

The thunder rolled outside, and a flash of lightning left stars in their eyes. Nora didn't jump, but Zach did.

“Come on,” she said, laughing softly. "Let's go back to bed."

Loss & Gain

Close your eyes for a moment and picture the person dearest to you. Yes, you have to pick one person. Is it your mom, your dad, your sibling? Now take a moment to picture the person second dearest to you. Maybe a best friend, or another family member.

Now imagine those people have to interact all the time, and they don't like each other very much. But for your sake, they're cordial and polite, interacting as little as possible and only on a surface level. These people are those dearest to you. The two people in the world that the thought of losing is somewhat akin to the thought of the sun no longer shining. They're more important to you than oxygen itself.

And they talk about each other to you. Never in the other's presence, of course. Behind closed doors, after swearing you to secrecy. One person is embellishing the truth with just enough of a lie to make it seem believable, but you don't know which one it is. They tell stories about their history together that don't match up. They tell you to be wary of the other, and one is genuine, but you don't know which one. You begin to think you can't trust either of them, but that doesn't sit well with you. They're the two most important people in your life. So you become two people. You move between them like a double agent, pretending to be two different people until you lose yourself completely. Which opinion is your own? Which of them do you really trust? Which one of you is actually you?

This is what it's like to have a narcissist in your life. It's only a taste, really, but you can begin to imagine how crazy it could make a person feel. Now, some of you are reading the word narcissist and trying to wrap your head around the concept. Isn't that what Tony Stark is? Maybe you're thinking of its correlation with Greek mythology in the god Narcissus, known for his beauty.

I can tell you for certain that Tony Stark isn't anywhere near a real narcissist, and while I don't know much about Narcissus, he's not our guy either. Mayo Clinic describes it as "[a] mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others".

And this is only breaking the surface.

Narcissists rarely display true emotion. They may come off as fakey or put on because, well, they are. They are the center of their own universe, and they think only of themselves. They only keep people around to the extent they can be used to. They suck you for money and time, they make you think they're very important, and they stroke your ego (only if you stroke their's back, and more often). I know it's a terrible thing to accuse of a person. I know the magnitude of these charges, and I know it's hard to believe that a person could really have no empathy for others. I know because I've seen it firsthand for my entire life, and I'm only just starting to wrap my head around it.

My grandmother is a narcissist, and her son is a narcissist, and her husband, we believe, is borderline personality disorder. (Which is a fancy way of saying he's a little bit of a dirtbag, and he's a perfect narcissistic supply.) But her daughter (my mom) made it out unscathed. See, my mom is what's called a scapegoat. All of the blame and hurt and shame of her family was put on her. She was the least important of them all while simultaneously being the most important, because it was her job to settle all the conflicts. Are you confused yet?

She, my grandmother, built me up to believe I was the most important thing on earth. She constantly told me I was their favorite grandchild out of the six of us. And she boldly displayed that favoritism, too. I was the favorite because I was born before any of my uncle's children. But as soon as they, children of her favorite child, were born, I was on equal ground with them.

My siblings never made it up, though. The second of my mom's children was on a second-place pedestal below me and our two cousins. Then came my second sibling. For her, it was like standing at the bottom of Mt. Everest while I was on top with my grandparents. Their love was completely out of reach for her, and it was obvious. My mom's fourth child had more love than the third, because he was a boy. He was special out of all of their granddaughters. So he stood at the base camp of Everest with the second-eldest of us, just close enough to taste it.

Meanwhile, life on the top was great. I was treated like a princess for the first fourteen years of my life. I was showered in stuff and compliments and my grandmother always made sure I knew she was behind it. She constantly said things like "you'll care for me when I'm older, won't you?", insinuating that my parents wouldn't. "Don't you ever stop loving your [grandmother] and [grandfather]." As I got older, made friends, got a job, they passive-aggressively reminded me that they should always be more important than these things. Turning them down to hang out because I had to work would get me an earful of "oooooh she doesn't love us anymore!" I wasn't allowed to put anything above them, or even on equal ground. Not my job. Not my siblings. Not my parents. Not even myself.

I can't even type out what I called them growing up. It makes me want to throw up in my mouth because it was all a game. A sick game of 'Keep Haley Happy to Get at Her Mom". They literally never cared about me in the ways they promised. I believe they're incapable of real, human love. So to whatever sick, twisted degree they were capable of, maybe they did love me. But not in the way my mom did. Not in the way they made me believe they did. They were gods in my eyes. People that I NEEDED to stay alive. This time last year the thought of one of them dying would make my heart seize up. I couldn't think of it--but now it's like they're already dead to me.

I live my life by an unspoken rule. If you hurt me, then whatever, I'm a big girl. But if you hurt anyone I love, anyone I even remotely care about, you had better be prepared because I am going to knock your teeth out. I have physically threatened boys and girls older and stronger than me my entire life, all in defense of my siblings. I've threatened more times than I can count, and followed through with it more times than I have fingers. I once hurled a basketball at a boy's head for threatening his sister. I didn't even LIKE his sister, and I attacked him for a verbal threat. I'm crazy.

But for my siblings' entire lives, for my mom's entire life, that woman was abusing them. Verbally and emotionally. She made my seven year old little sister cry every time they saw her, back when she was four and five. They refused to let her come over to their house with me because they just didn't like her, and they didn't feel like pretending they did. They constantly trash talked my parents. They made me believe my mom was an emotionally unavailable jerk because they wanted to hurt her through me. They made me think my dad is the spawn of satan himself. (And of course, they also made me believe that they loved me more than my parents were even capable of.) They put me in a position where I had to lie over and over again. And perhaps the worst, they made me ostracize my sisters and brother. The three little people in this world whom I have sworn to protect by whatever means necessary, they made me treat like dirt. They were unimportant compared to the gods my grandparents made themselves out to be. My sisters were hurt and left out by how I treated them under the influence of my grandparents. That one still hurts, and my mom still has to remind me that it isn't my fault.

But their temple has been torn down. Me and my mom--my beautiful, strong, compassionate mother-- have clawed it down brick by brick with help from my dad and other family. We broke the curse. We escaped from prison. Now we, or, more specifically, I, am doing what I was supposed to be doing all along. I'm defending my siblings from them and fighting off their pathetic attempts at connection. They've told us their last lies. I've cried my last tears over them. These people are dead to me, and now they can't hurt us any more.

I've mourned, and I've felt the loss. I've had my anger and I've had my bad days and I've had my regret, but I feel like I can move past it now. I'm healing, and I'm learning how to forget them. Not to say that I won't have more bad days, but knowing what we've accomplished, how God has carried us through this storm, I feel like I can do anything. My family is tighter and happier than ever now that we don't have to deal with them. We are stronger than them. And no matter how many times they lie and claw at our walls, we will not let them in. They lost.

We survived, and now we're going to live like we never have before. 2016, here's to you, and here's to my family's freedom.

Collywobbles

This story was originally written for a blog project that has since been cancelled, but I worked too hard on it to not share! The challenge presented to me with this project was to take a single word and use it as inspiration for my story. I've done what I do best and used the word "collywobbles" to make a fluffy little piece of romance fiction. I hope you enjoy!

                                                                                                          

Collywobbles

(noun) informal or humorous

butterflies in the stomach

“Got the collywobbles?”

Charlie’s knee ceased bouncing as she startled and looked up, putting on her best irritated face. “The what?”

“Collywobbles?” He paused. “No? Mind if I sit?”

Charlie gave the stranger a good look-over. He was probably her age, with dark eyes and hair to match. It was pushed away from his face, but there were curls peeking out from behind his neck, which led her to notice the neatly kept stubble on his chin. He looked entirely too put together to be flying, that’s for sure. Tall, young, smiling, and that’s all she was able to take in before she realized she was staring.

“Oh—uh, yeah. That’s fine.” She pushed her brown hair over her shoulder so that she wouldn’t tug at the ends anymore.

The mystery man wheeled his suitcase closer as he sat in the seat across from her. His coffee cup sounded hollow as he put it down on the airport cafe table. “I’m Callum.”

“Charlie.”

“Short for Charlotte?”

She shook her head, leaning back in her chair. As he spoke more, she realized he had a strong accent. “Nope.”

“Mum wanted a boy?”

She snickered. “No. There’s no story, just my name.” She glanced down at her backpack, then back up to him. He was…still watching her. “So, uh, cobbly-wiggles?”

He laughed, and his whole face lit up with it. “Collywobbles. It’s the word for when you have butterflies in your stomach.”

Charlie felt her eyes go a little wide as she nodded. She wanted him to say butterflies again, or maybe a million times. With a silent prayer that he wasn't a creep, she allowed herself to be drawn into conversation. “That’s, um, not exactly a pick-up line.”

“Are you suggesting I sat down with the intention of flirting?”

“Well, yes.” Her eyebrows furrowed down. “Why else would you come over?”

His lower lip popped out ever so slightly, as if he was giving her that puppy dog face without even thinking about it. “I enjoy making friends, and my flight has been delayed.”

Her head tipped to the side as she tried not to smile. “Alright, go on with your cobwebs then.”

“Ah, now you’re just making fun of me. I saw that you looked rather nervous, and I know that first time flyers often get a bad case of the co-lly-wob-bles.” He put emphasis on each syllable of the word.

“So you were watching me?

There was a pause. He squinted his eyes for a moment, then they popped wide open and he leaned into the table. He spread his hands, palms up, as he spoke. “I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I just saw you from across the way...” He sighed and dropped his hands. “I swear I’m not a stalker.”

She laughed it off. “It's okay, I believe you. Except one thing.”

“Yes?”

She leaned forward and bit on her lip before speaking, like it caused her great pain to give him the news. “Your deductions are off, Sherlock. I’m not really a first time flyer, and I wouldn’t really call this collywhatevers.”

His eyebrows rose a notch. “Oh?”

“It’s more of a sinking, all consuming dread in the pit of my stomach.”

“Well your deductions aren’t quite on the nose either, miss Charlie. I’m not British, I’m Australian.” He topped the statement off with a cheeky grin.

She grimaced. “At least I was close?”

His nose and eyes crinkled as he scrunched his face up. “Mmm, not really.”

They both sat back in their chairs once more, falling into silence. Charlie took a drink of her coffee. Callum removed the lid from his, and mourned its emptiness. Travelers bustled past the little airport cafe, constantly coming and going to the acoustic soundtrack playing over the speakers of the little cafe.

Charlie drummed her fingers on the table. “So what’s an Australian doing in San Francisco?”

“Would you believe I came to see the Golden Gate Bridge?”

She laughed, surprised. “I wouldn’t believe it at all!” She grasped the edge of the table as she leaned forward. “You came all the way from Australia for that?”

“No. Though, to be fair, I would have. It was the grand finale to my tour of the sights in America. I’m a bit of an architecture enthusiast.

Enthusiast? What kind of enthusiast pays thousands of dollars in travel expenses just to see buildings and bridges? Charlie almost voiced these questions out loud, but who was she to judge when her dream vacation was to eat her own weight in exotic food?

Callum carried on in her silence. “I’m homeward bound, now. But what about you—do you live here?”

Charlie shook her head. “Oh, no, I’m visiting my brother. I live in South Carolina.” She pushed her hair behind her ears and checked the time on the cellphone in her lap.

There were still forty minutes until she needed to be at her gate. Now she was feeling an entirely different breed of collywobbles with this random Australian sitting across from her. She didn’t know his last name, but she had just told him the state she lived in. Charlie wasn’t really a social person. Of course, she could make conversation when the situation demanded, but she didn’t seek it out. She didn’t know how to fill silences.

“Can I buy you another coffee?”

She snapped her head up and waited for the question to compute. “Uh, what?”

“Another coffee?"

“I—uh, I thought we weren’t flirting.” Charlie twirled a piece of hair in her fingers.

“Oh.” He paused, and his cheeks flushed. “Assuming you don’t have any reservations…”

Her heart melted. She reached across the table and splayed a hand on it as she laughed. It came out much breathier than she expected. “No, I’m more single than Kraft cheese.”

His lips parted in confusion.

Charlie’s forehead hit the table. “That wasn’t funny at all. And you have probably never heard of Kraft Singles.”

Callum’s hand touched hers, and she startled again. His fingers were a little clammy, and Charlie began to wonder if he was feeling his own collywobbles. His touch was gentle, though, and she felt bad when he pulled away.

“Uh, sorry. I can’t say I know what Kraft Singles are, but I understand your point.” He ducked his head to meet her eyes, and smiled. “Is that a yes to coffee, then?”

She sighed and rested her face in her hands. “Yes.”

Charlie pulled out her phone out the second Callum had his back turned. She had a text from her brother, letting her know she’d forgotten her toothbrush at his place. Oh well. She opened up the app and furiously typed, knowing she didn’t have a whole lot of time.

‘Waiting for gate to open-- hot Australian is talking to me for no reason???’

Her brother only took ten seconds to type out and send a reply. ‘GIRL.’

‘What do I do??’

‘Do he got the booty?’

She rolled her eyes as an image of Andrew cackling at his own joke crossed her mind. But… A quick check couldn’t hurt, right? As discreetly as she could, she took a peek. Callum had his hands resting in the front pockets of his jeans. They were wide, almost baggy jeans, probably comfortable pants for traveling. Underneath the denim, though, she saw potential for a “booty”.

Callum turned and gave her a smile, and she ducked her head. Her cheeks were definitely turning red. She’d realized a split second too late that she’d absently grabbed her bottom lip between her teeth.

She grit her teeth and replied, ‘he do.’

‘Then get digits.’

That’s all? That was his sage older-brother advice? Great. Cool.

“Alright, two coffees.” Callum sat and carefully placed each of them on the table.

Charlie picked up her coffee and removed the lid, blowing steam away from the surface of it. Their eyes met over the rim of the paper cup as she took a sip. His were, open, honest, and nervous. She knew hers were only a shade of brown lighter, and probably just as nervous as his as they darted back down to her cup.

He cleared his throat, and she felt it again: a flutter in her stomach that grew into her chest, only to get caught on the lump in her throat. What came next? Andrew’s advice flashed through her mind. Did she really want to pursue a connection with this man that had greeted her with the word collywobbles?

“So,” she coughed out nervously, “what do you do?”

He leaned forward, looking excited to answer and happy that she’d asked. “I’m a structural engineer. Well, sort of. I got my degree for it last year, and I’ve been doing apprentice work mostly. My job is to make sure weight will be evenly distributed. I make sure the right materials are used for the right jobs, sometimes I work on the actual design of the building with the architects.”

“So your job is to make it safe.”

“Yes, exactly. Here, I’ll show you this hospital we just finished.” He pulled a phone from his pocket and swiped through a few pictures before finding the right one. “I got to help a little on the design of this one.”

She smiled as she leaned closer to look at the picture on the small screen. It had been taken at the height of the day, with the full afternoon sun falling on the building. It looked more or less like a normal hospital, but she was pressed to look closer by the hopeful face behind the phone.

“I see some detail above the door there, that looks nice.” She leaned in a touch closer. “Oh.” The way the three buildings sat, all at different heights, looked very nice. That juxtaposition of big, bigger, biggest was one of the first things she learned as a young photographer. “The three buildings look nice together. Very balanced.”

He smiled brightly as he put the phone away. “Thank you. It was my idea to scale them like that.”

“Yeah, because if they were all uniform, or even two of them, they would look more boring. Having a tall one in the center and the two surrounding buildings be different heights help them all to stand out on their own.”

“Exactly. And it was practical, too.” He paused, taking a look at the picture himself. After a moment, he put down the phone and tapped his temple with the palm of his hand. “I’m sorry. I get excited and I’ll just talk all day to whomever will listen.”

“No, it’s okay. I enjoy listening.” She really did. Being the observer rather than the observed, if only for a moment, put her at ease. She found herself making him want to smile again like he had before.

“What do you do for a living, then?”

“Oh!” Charlie’s hands fluttered uselessly in the air for a moment, then she bent and reached for her backpack. “I’m a photographer,” she said as she plopped the bag in her lap. “I do things like weddings, or private family photography sometimes.”

She drew a camera bag out of the largest pocket of the blue backpack. She’d had the bag since her first year of highschool, so it was faded and beaten up in places, but it was familiar and reliable.

“I couldn’t trust this guy in my suitcase. You know they say that the people who load the luggage onto the plane don’t treat anything at all as fragile.”

He patted his hard sided suitcase that stood beside him. “Trust me, I’ve learned that the hard way.”

After getting the camera out of the bag, she turned it on and opened the picture album. She put the camera in his hands, but she kept a hold of the strap. “You can flip through them.”

They were all photographs she had taken during her week in San Francisco. She’d visited the flower market, the zoo, and other local sights. One series of photos were nothing but her brother trying to eat his three-scoop cone of chocolate ice cream before it melted in the heat. She liked those ones especially.

“I presume this man is the brother you spoke of?”

“Yeah, that’s Andrew. He’s a dork, but he’s my dork.”

Callum smiled as he scrolled through them. “These are all impressive, Charlie. I like this set from the zoo. It almost makes me wish I had followed your tour of the city, rather than my mine.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything. She bit down on her lip and waited for him to get tired of going through the photographs. Most of the people she met didn’t make it past the first ten photos before they got bored; she tended to take multiples in case one came out blurry, or in the wrong light. She liked to have options.

As Callum continued to scroll, she continued to hold the strap of the camera in her fist. She didn’t think he would steal it really, but she didn’t know him, and she wasn’t risking it. That camera was her baby.

“I suppose this makes my cellphone camera work look rather shoddy,” he said with a laugh, handing the camera back. “Some of those are incredible.”

“Thank you.” She paused to turn the camera off. “But really, I thought you made a good use of light and shadows in that one picture,” she said, half joking. “Maybe you should take a class.”

He laughed. “Oh no, I’ll leave the photography to you.”

“Photography is really easy, I swear. You just need the right equipment and something to aim the lens at.”

Turning the camera back on, she screwed a lens onto the end of it and held it up to her eye, focusing Callum’s face right in the center. He was smiling again. She leaned back, favoring his left side, and rapidly snapped a few shots. She took a look at each of them, and showed him her pick of the best.

He ran a hand over his head as he looked at the photo. He must have noticed his curls slowly taking over his head, rebelling having been pushed back.

“May I?”

She hesitated, camera and strap tight in her hands. This camera cost her what she made filming and photographing not one all-day wedding, but two. If it was broken or stolen, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself.

“Promise you’ll be careful with it?"

“Cross my heart.”

So she wrapped the strap around her hand, and gently passed it off with the other. He closed one eye and looked through the lens of the camera, even though most people would have used the screen display. He mimicked her exactly, down to the way she positioned herself, as he focused the picture.

She laughed at his face, scrunched up and partially hidden by the camera. He snapped the shutter at that moment, then held the camera away to see the picture on the screen.

She took it and looked at the photo. She wasn’t as much of a mess as she thought she must have looked like, and he’d caught her mid-laugh. “Not bad.”

“I think the subject matter has more to do with it than my skill”

A grin spread across her face. “Flattery gets you nowhere.” She flipped back to look at the picture of him. The clock behind him caught her attention, its white face having stood out on the brown background. She looked up, panicked, and found the clock telling her that she was only fifteen minutes from time to board the plane.

“Oh my gosh, is that really the time?” She confirmed it on her phone, then scrambled to put her camera back in the bag. “I’m so sorry Callum, I have to run. Literally, run. My gate is on the other side of the airport.”

He stood and loosely held the handle of his suitcase as he waited for her to do the same. “I’m afraid I’ll be leaving soon, too.”

Charlie stood and tossed her backpack over her shoulder. They awkwardly stood face to face in silence. Her anxiety returned.

“I’m sorry to rush off. It was really nice to meet you.”

“And you as well, Charlie.” He smiled brightly. He shuffled a step forward, halted, and hesitated. Finally, he held his hand out.

For the second time, Charlie took his hand. It was warmer than before, from holding his coffee, but just as gentle. She saw her Andrew’s text dance before her eyes again. Get digits.

“Callum,” she said slowly, still holding his hand. Her mouth remained open, eyes on their hands, but she couldn’t find words. She started to sweat, and her head spun. She’d given her number away a handful of times, but she’d never asked for one, certainly not from a stranger. She could always give him her number rather than asking...but what if he didn't want it? Would be laugh at her?

“Yes?”

She looked up, closed her mouth, and tried to smile. “I-It was really nice to meet you,” she stammered.

Callum withdrew his hand and laughed lightly, a little wistfully. “You said that already.”

“I…I did. Yeah.”

He glanced behind him toward the clock. “You should definitely get going, I don’t want you to miss your flight.”

“Oh, yeah.”

They exited the little coffee shop together, back into the stream of people in the main hall.

“Do you know where to go?”

“Ah, yes.” She pulled her flight information out of her pocket and flashed it at him. “Gate two-twelve. Thank you.”

He nodded, and she walked away.

She told herself not to look back. She was already regretting not having the guts to get his number, she didn’t need to have the image of him standing there sadly stuck in her head forever. Besides, she told herself, it wasn’t that big of a deal. People from different countries don’t just meet in the airport and live happily ever after. She obviously needed to get out more.

But she did it anyway. She looked back, and he wasn’t there. Great. Now she’d have that sad image stuck in her head forever. He hadn’t even waited to watch her go, so he wouldn’t have given her his number anyway. Right? Right.

She made it to the gate with eight minutes to spare, after jogging and weaving through the crowd. That, at least, was a convenient aspect of being so small.

After finding a plug-in for her phone, she sat herself down on the floor beside the wall.

‘No digits’, she sadly reported to Andrew.

‘Wuss’

Oh man. She knew he was teasing, but that kinda hurt. She had always been anxious around people and airplanes and crowds. The three of those things had just been put together on a time limit, and she had totally shut down. It might be a little dramatic to say that she would regret that for the rest of her life, but she would definitely wonder ‘what if?’ for the next few weeks.

The stewardess beside the gate announced that boarding for first class passengers was open, and instructed the coach travelers to line up on the other side of the gate. Charlie was one of the last to get around to lining up, wanting to let her phone get as much charge as it could before the flight.

Turning to scan the airport one last time, vainly hoping Callum’s gate was nearby, she sighed and took her place in line. She turned her attention toward managing her anxiety as the time to take off grew ever closer.

The line started moving as stewardesses checked tickets and ushered passengers through, and Charlie took a deep breath.

“Charlie!”

She turned and looked around her, having sworn she heard her name called. “There’s probably a lot of other Charlies here,” she mumbled to herself.

“Charlie!”

Okay, that time, she definitely heard it. She pivoted on her heel and leaned out of the line to look for the source.

Callum was running across the airport, waving something in his hand as he did. His small suitcase was tucked under his arm, and he looked as though he was going to drop it at any moment.

Charlie tried to wrestle her way out of the line, finally lifting the belt and ducking under it. Callum skidded to a stop, meeting her right on the edge of the carpeted gate area.

He paused for a moment, hands resting on his knees as he caught his breath.

“Hey, are you okay?”

He shook his head breathlessly as he straightened up. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. I just didn’t want you to leave before I could… give you this. If you’ll take it.”

He opened his fist and put a white paper napkin in her hand, one from the coffee shop. Scribbled across the napkin in bold, hurried writing were ten numbers. It took Charlie a moment to recognize it as a phone number.

“Text me when you land,” he said. The way he said it, it was almost a question.

She gave him a stunned look. His hair had completely come loose as he ran, and now the curls hung on his forehead and around his ears. His cheeks were pink, too, though she wasn’t sure if it was because of the running, or something else altogether.

“I wasn’t sure if you would want to, and I didn’t want to seem forward, but I couldn’t let you leave without having a chance to reach you again.”

She laughed a little, carefully folding the napkin and pocketing it. “I was going to ask you as well, but I was too scared.”

He grinned. “You’ll text me then, won’t you?”

“Yes. I definitely will. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” He glanced behind her at the rapidly moving line. “You’d better get going.”

She nodded. “Yes, I should. I will…uh, I’ll talk to you later.”

He winked as he began to turn and walk away, and nearly ran right into a baggage cart.

Charlie put a hand over her mouth, stifling a laugh, and waited for him to give her a thumbs up before she turned to the line again. This time, she watched him walk away, and there was no more ‘what if’.

Her grin faded into a nervous smile as she stepped onto the passenger boarding bridge, tightly gripping the straps of her backpack. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. “Collywobbles,” she said to herself.