Free Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult

looked so far away she could hardly believe she had been there minutes before. Cassie sighed. The problem with absolutely perfect summer days was that they were bright bull’s-eye targets for something to go outright wrong.
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    S HE WOKE UP TO THE COOL STING OF ALOE BEING RUBBED ALONG her calves. “You’re going to pay for this later,” Alex said. “You’re so red it hurts me to look at you.”
    Cassie jerked her leg away and tried to roll over, feeling uncomfortable with the intimate slip of Alex’s palms over her own skin. She winced at the pain when she tried to bend her knee. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
    Alex glanced at his watch. “I didn’t mean to let you sleep for six hours, either,” he said. “After Herb left, I sort of got tied up on the phone.”
    Cassie sat up and shifted degrees away from Alex. She watched the sun cut a ribbon across the ocean. An older woman came strolling down the beach with two weimaraners. “Alex!” she called, waving. “Cassie! Are you feeling all right?”
    Alex smiled at her. “She’s fine,” he yelled. “Have a nice walk, Ella.”
    â€œElla?” Cassie murmured. “Ella Whittaker?” Her eyes widened, trying to catch a glimpse of the statuesque woman who, fifty years back, had been a pinup girl and a screen legend. “The Ella Whittaker who starred in—”
    â€œThe Ella Whittaker who lives two doors down,” Alex said, grinning. “God, you’ve got to get your memory back soon, or you’re going to scour the Colony asking for autographs.”
    For several minutes he did not speak, and Cassie could feel the quiet settle around them. She wanted to say something to Alex, anything, but she didn’t know what sorts of things they talked about.
    As she turned toward the violet line of the horizon, Alex’s voice curled over her, light as silk. “I was going to tell you about UCLA. God, I never would have met you if you weren’t working there, so I owe them a lot. I really didn’t do it deliberately. I just forgot.” He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. His eyes were the sloe-black of smoke. “Forgive me?”
    He’s acting . The thought rushed through Cassie’s mind so violently she pulled her hand free and turned away, shaking. How do I know when he’s acting ?
    â€œCassie?”
    She blinked at him, held in his gaze, and by bits and degrees she softened. She couldn’t think about UCLA, about who was wrong and who was right, not just now. He was hypnotizing her; she knew this as well as she knew that she had been made for him, as well as she knew that any doubts she had about Alex would mirror her own faulty judgment.
    Cassie began to hear and feel the unexpected: a tangle of sweet Mexican violins, a wet wind from an everglade, the song of one hundred hearts beating. She thought to run, some instinct telling her this was the beginning of the end, but she could no sooner move than turn back time. The world as she knew it was falling away, and the only place left for her to go was toward Alex.
    â€œForgive me?” he repeated.
    Cassie heard the sound of her own voice, heard the words she couldn’t remember thinking. “Of course,” she said. “Don’t I always?”
    A wave rolled over Cassie’s ankles, frigid and authentic. The magic broke, and then it was just the two of them, she and Alex, and that was starting to seem all right. “I came prepared with a bribe,” Alex said. “I made it myself.” He was smiling at her, and she smiled back hesitantly, thinking, He understands. He knows he has me in the palm of his hand . He pulled up the front of his shirt to reveal a neatly wrapped square package tucked into the waist of his jeans. “Here.”
    Cassie reached for the tinfoil, trying not to look at the smooth, sculptured muscles of his chest. She