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screen as Aleksandra finished her work and walked back to them.
    “His are just as good as mine. I keep telling him to stop wasting all his time doing stupid corporate website graphics, but he does not listen,” Aleksandra said, tilting the camera to look at few herself. “ Takoy glupynik. ”
    “Was that offensive?” Sean looked from Aleksandra to Jaime.
    “Probably. Dirty generally has a different tone,” Jaime said as he started to get up and gather the equipment together.
    “Well, I don’t know if I can recognize how good you are. I’m not a photographer. But if you’re good, and you love it, I think you should go for it. I couldn’t stop dancing because it wasn’t practical.”
    “It’s different.” Jaime shook his head and handed Sean an assortment of equipment.
    “Because you are too scared of failure,” Aleksandra said, picking up the same bag she’d carried before and turning to face Sean. “Teach him that passion is worth something, and maybe you will actually stay.”
     
     
    S EAN SQUINTED at the dim light as he woke up and adjusted to his surroundings. He turned to his right side to check the time before he remembered he wasn’t home, and Jaime kept his alarm clock turned to the wall where the light wouldn’t bother him.
    “Hey. Sorry. Did I wake you up?” Jaime asked as he swiveled his desk chair around to face the bed. Only his desk lamp was on to supplement the glow from his computer, where he had one of the pictures from Thursday’s shoot pulled up.
    “Maybe. Time?” Sean stretched and sat up.
    “Three-thirty. Sorry. I couldn’t sleep, and I need to get these retouched and sent back early. Lexi showed them to the studio with some of hers, and they picked mine for the ads they’re putting out.”
    “Is she mad?” Sean asked. The last he’d heard, it was her job she’d just conned Jaime into helping with.
    “No.” Jaime chuckled and shook his head. “She’s using it as an argument that I shouldn’t take the web design job I already have lined up after graduation. She’s trying to convince me that photography is practical if I apply to ad agencies or magazines or something. It’s her new angle.”
    “But you don’t agree?” Sean inched to the edge of the bed, taking the blankets with him.
    “Breaking into magazines and ad agencies means interning. Usually for credit and not money. The internship I did last summer for the web design company actually paid enough that I could fill out the rest of the rent bartending on weekends. Magazine internships are for the kids whose parents can pay their rent while they work for free.”
    “But Lupe’s managing hers. We’re not exactly paying her.” He was pretty sure they weren’t—though Travis might have tried if she’d started to turn it down.
    “I’m helping her with food money.” Jaime shook his head when Sean opened his mouth to answer. “I shouldn’t have told you that. She doesn’t want you guys to know.”
    “Why?” Sean was sure if Travis knew he’d probably feed her as often as he did Alana.
    “She wants him to offer her a spot in the company because he wants her, not because if she doesn’t get something from a company right after she graduates, she’ll have to go back home. But she’s willing to hope and risk it. I can’t do that. I can’t start focusing on some hope I’ll get a job in an industry I haven’t interned for, and then go home if I fail.”
    “If I ask why again, are you going get annoyed with me? Because there isn’t another train back to New York until tomorrow, and I’m kind of afraid of what Aleksandra will do to me if I’m on the couch.” Sean added the small smile that could usually keep Alana from sighing and declaring him a total lost cause to whatever she thought he was wrong about.
    “No. Maybe annoyed, but I’m too selfish to send you to the couch, and if I did and you explained why, she’d just bring you to her side even more. Not a risk worth taking. I’m