Fourth of July 2009. Robin. Barney. Lily's handwriting spools, in permanent marker, across the back of the photograph, the address of Ted's old building printed beneath it. Robin doesn't know how this picture made it into the folder of notes she brought for an assignment half the world and a handful of years away from that night on Ted's roof, but she knows what picture this is, even without looking at the image itself. It's burned into her consciousness. They'd been careful, so very careful, that whole secret summer, to keep what they had between them quiet, keep it only theirs, and the one time -the one time- Barney's hand rested on the curve of her hip, for half a second, Lily caught it on camera.
Not that it shows, not much. There's a table borrowed from LIly's classroom between Lily and them, with a whole watermelon in the way, a bottle of Captain Morgan, Lily's three-tiered red, white, and blue cupcake tower with the sparkly foil star cluster on top. Nobody would have been looking at Barney's hands, anyway, not with the fireworks that burst over the city skyline. They'd all been looking at the fireworks, the star-shaped explosions of red and blue, with the plumes of white, brilliant against the dark sky above city lights. Anybody could have slippped under those conditions.
Ted stands to the right of the frame, arms crossed over his chest, jaw clenched. No Stella, no Lucy; they're somewhere else, with Tony, but he's Ted, and it's a holiday, and he's going to do this. Marshall, fully in the moment, has a rocket pop in one hand, red plastic cup full of punch in the other, his newly-invented splashdown cocktail. Take one rocket pop, and one plastic cup filled with punch consisiting of random fruit juices and rum. Dip pop in punch. Lick pop. Repeat until pop and/or punch are gone. Rocket ship noises optional. The debate over whether said rocket ship noises are entertaining or annoying is now a Fourth of July tradition.
Lily had warned them all in advance to act as though she wasn't even there. They should act natural. If she and Barney were going to act natural around each other that night, they would have ended up using one of the reclining lawn chairs for an activity the manufacturers never intended. That's how it was with them that summer, blissful and undefined, no labels, no expectations, only the exploration of what the two of them were when they were together. More than sex, not yet love, but something entirely theirs, contained in a bubble of something she still can't define.
The memory of that summer tastes like spiked lemonade and ballpark hot dogs, smells like sunblock, and blows through her consciousness like the wind through her hair as they drove to Far Rockaway in a rented convertible on a Thursday afternoon. That's how it was, then. A phone call, an email, an invitation to play hooky, find someplace where nobody knew either of them, no plans, no agendas, only her and him and whatever fun, stupid thing happened next.
Robin. Barney. No and. No ampersand linking them together. Only their names, only two friends, two bros, celebrating the birth of America. They'd agreed, ahead of time, that they weren't going to touch each other, that day, not even in passing. Touching would have been too much of a risk, like waving a lit match around dry kindling, and so they hadn't, to such an extent that she'd started to wonder if that wasn't too suspicious. Who doesn't touch, ever? People trying to make a point of how little they touch, because they're touching all the damn time, that's who. She turns the picture over.
She can't see Barney's hand, but she can feel it, even now, for that split second it rested on her hip, that sliver of time he drew her next to him before they both remembered and sprang apart. His head is tilted back here, mouth open, eyes wide and rounded because he's a little kid around fireworks, even with an open bottle of beer in his other hand. She remembers the catch of breath in his throat when the first colors bloomed in the sky, a second before he reached for her, out of pure instinct, no thought involved.
His shirt is red, white and blue check, small enough to be subtle, to count as solid, even though it isn't. It's clothing subterfuge, and it fits him. Fits them, that summer. He has two buttons open at the throat, sleeves rolled back to the elbows, as close to casual wear as he's going to get. She has a thing for watching him roll back his sleeves; unbutton cuff, fold sleeve halfway back, halfway again, small sliver of cuff visible because he isn't an animal. She thinks she first saw him -first noticed him- doing the sleeve thing on a park bench in Brooklyn, not even looking at what he was doing, because he was too involved in the story he was telling her. Something about work. She doesn't remember now, becuse all her memory went into the sleeve thing, the gold hair on his forearms, the flex of muscle beneath. There's no picture of that, because she didn't know she wanted one, but it's burned into her, lurking beneath the surface of this one.
Robin hasn't seen that look, that man, for longer than she cares to admit. It was another life, she tries to convince herself, that summer, before they grew up. Before they defined the relationship. Before they broke up. Before Don and Nora and Kevin and Quinn. Before engagement stuff and wedding stuff and marriage stuff and dead grandparents and conflicting career paths and strained silences and heated arguments and her taking this assignment so they can each have time to think. She's done thinking. She sets down the photograph and picks up her phone, jabs one finger on his contact button, even though they weren't going to talk for a couple of days.
Barney picks up so fast that he had to have the phone on him, even at this hour. "Robin?" His voice slurs, from sleep, not drink.
"Did I wake you?"
"Yeah?" A question, not a statement, as though he's not sure of the answer even as he gives it. He clears his throat. "Are you okay?" His words are slow, measured cautious.
She fixes her sights on Secret Summer Barney's arm , wrapped around her waist, behind watermelon and Captain Morgan and the tower of cupcakes. On the pure, infectious wonderment on his face, all the constraints of adult life stripped away. Her heart clenches. She needs that. Needs him. "Did you," she forces the next words past the fear that would hold them back. "Did you put any pictures in my research folder?"
There's a pause before he answers, and she imagines him sitting up in bed, turning on the lamp next to the -his? their?- bed, adjusting the pillows as he shifts from laying to sitting. "Um, no? Did you," he pauses, as though he's trying to wrap his mind around where the hell she's going with this, "want pictures?" Of what, he doesn't ask, and she isn't about to answer, because she doesn't know how.
"Can you come out here?" she asks at last, before she can ruin it all by thinking. "Fly out. I'll rent a car. We can drive back."
Barney is quiet, at first. Breath whooshes out of his lungs. There's a cough. The mattress creaks. One foot hits the floor, then the other. "Why?"
Her heart pounds. They'll talk. Of course they'll talk. Later. They'll talk and they'll yell, and she'd bet money that, at least once, one of them is going to leave the other on the side of the road, maybe at some creepy gas station, then turn around and come back. They'll talk about that, probably sitting on the hood of their rental car, him watching the sunset, her watching him roll his sleeves, but first they have to not-talk. They have to put the top down and crank the radio, sing along when they don't know the words. Stop for roadside soft-serve. Miss the exit. Find a detour. Find each other again, no outside influence, no outside opinion. "Road trip," is all she says.
"Okay."
