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When you walk into the apartment Steven is at the table with his mouth in his hand.
Spread across the table is three thin envelopes. Your confusion turns to excitement turns to concern when you realize what they are.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” You tug off your coat and ask.
“Mn? Oh. Nothing, love, nothing.”
“These the prints?”
“Yeah,” he nods. “There’s the… they really got the sunlight, nice, and your dress, just brilliant.” He pushes a couple more out, absently tapping the table.
“What is it?”
“They look really great. She did amazing, she did.”
“What’s this then with your…?” You gesture to him, all of it.
Steven takes in a long breath and slides one photo to you.
You warm instantly. It’s one you want to frame, for sure. Really simple, elegant, big, genuine smiles, almost laughter, both of you in profile embracing each other.
“Oh, that’s a nice one.”
“It looks like I’m feeling you up!” Steven exclaims, rubbing into his eyes. He adjusts in his seat. “These are all over your and her page and no one said a thing!”
He pulls out, opens, and holds up his phone, and you squint. You tilt the screen up and try to decipher what’s happening with the UI amongst huge text boxes. You have no clue how he navigates apps with it.
“Uh, Steven, the comments are down here.” You say, tapping them open.
“What?” He takes and looks at it, breaths in, then stops. “Hold on does that say 4,6k as in four thousand??”
“Yeah. I told you. People really loved our wedding photos.”
“Four thousand people liked it!?”
“Well, lot are probably bots.”
“Oh my God, how many people noticed—”
You show your teeth. “Looks like a lot?”
Steven shuts off his phone and dumps it on the table. “I’m gonna die. Oh God, that couldn’t possibly be any more embarrassing. Why are that many people following her! I mean great for her, really great…”
You pick up the photo off the table. It really isn’t obvious until you give it a good look. What draws the eye is your faces, the light. The boob grab is tertiary.
You remember why it happened. Steven had been holding you around the waist, a little too close, a little too uptight, continually glancing into the camera.
“I’m ruining the photo.” He murmured, reaching and tugging at the tab at the back of his shoe, tapping his heel in like he had done a hundred times.
“It’s okay.” You said.
“It’s not okay…”
“Just relax.”
“You know the word relax is like designed to stress you out as much as possible.”
You thought a moment, staring at his lapel, lifting your eyes to his and tucking a curl off his face beside his kippah.
“Maybe we should stress you out as much as possible.” You said. “Do you think we could get Marc to object in the middle of the ceremony? Just object, and start a big fight with you, right before it happens, right in front of everyone.”
Some of your friends knew Steven had some sort of disorder, that he was neurodivergent and all around atypical, but not a soul other than you and Layla knew he was more than one person, and he wanted to keep it that way.
The sheer absurdity of what could be the most important day of his life being completely ruined, so irrevocably and spectacularly, by his alter at the altar, punched a nervous laugh from his chest, first pulling away from you, breaking that forced, uncomfortable performance, then moving back in with a fond smile.
It was an instant, just a snapshot, where his hand brushed across the top of your breast, ending up on your shoulder, then cupping your face while he responded discreetly, teasingly, how he would seriously, never in his life forgive Marc if he did such a thing. The prospect he even would was so ridiculous, it stopped his spiral in its tracks.
Disconcerted, sincere, calm.
Unintentionally candid, three clicks.
And it wasn’t only the best one, it was really a perfect photo. Right in that second, all Steven’s anxiety disappeared, knowing he was so loved and his trust was so well placed no such thing could never happen, being with someone who knew him well enough to joke about it and not even feel bad, the rest were fine, right after was a little sappy, before he looked freaked out, but just between, you were smiling wide and confident, and Steven looked just about the absolute happiest he could be.
It was weird to think none of the hundreds of people liking the photo could see or know that, why he was really happy, the joke you were sharing, how his laughter shifted through a Rolodex of emotions as varied as his identities.
It was why you picked it to post. You, him, and Marc had all looked at that smile and said yeah, that’s him, that’s Steven.
“I think it’s sweet.” You say. “It was a complete accident. You were having such a hard time relaxing, and, well, you got very relaxed.”
Steven groans and leans his head back.
You shrug. “It’s not a wardrobe malfunction. It’s not even really inappropriate. Just an accident. Kinda funny.”
“It’s raunchy.” He takes it, gives it a disapproving look and sets it face down. “May as well be up your fanny picking berries out of frame.”
You snort.
“It’s not funny!”
“Sorry,” you drop your smile and yourself into the seat next to him. “What do you want me to do?”
He sighs. “I dunno. I’m just sorry I didn’t notice it sooner.”
“I think it looks fine. And I’m not just saying that.”
“Doesn’t make me look like a pervert?”
“No,”
“You’re sure like, ‘cause I’m only seeing how naughty it looks. People were saying…”
You stop his hand before he can reach to pick his phone back up.
“Steven, we were married like two hours later. You weren’t doing it on purpose. No photo could ever look just right because nothing is that perfect.”
You brush his fingers one at a time till you get to his ring.
You lean in. “But you know, later that night you sure were.” You sneak a kiss under his earlobe and he folds like you’re hot to the touch, practically whining.
“Love!”
“No one saw any of that except Marc, huh?”
He’s fully flushed now, shading his face.
“He helped you lose your virginity.”
He puts a hand up. “No, not directly, he minded his own business during, he did.”
“And his business after.”
“No, stop!” He laughs. “He didn’t. He did not!”
“He can handhold as much as he wants.”
He clears his throat.
“He might’ve, a little,” Steven mutters. “Like we said would be fine.”
“I’d be disappointed if he didn’t. Like, what, he doesn’t want you to do a good job?”
He shakes his head. Your back and forth with Marc was possibly his most favorite thing. It just clicks. “I love you.”
“I love that smile we got in this photo.”
Steven’s eyes lower. “Yeah, all right.”
“All right?”
“Yeah. It’s er… it is really pretty.”
“You sure are.”
You press a kiss to his lips, just a soft peck against his labrum, and he tilts his head to smooth the two of you together, shoulders hunched and pads of his fingers trailing your jaw.
You break apart and Steven’s eyes follow you with affection as you pull your chair up closer and gather up the rest of the photos to start sorting.