Page 10 of One Happy Summer

I lead her past the bookshop, around the post office, and to the back side of the row of buildings where the shop is situated. The back door is unlocked, and I open it as she follows me in and up the set of narrow, creaky stairs to the entrance of my current place of residence.

I open the painted blue door, but I freeze at the threshold. I didn’t really think this through, did I? She’s going to have so many questions.

I turn around quickly, shutting the door behind me, my hand still on the knob.

“Is there a problem?” she asks, her brown eyes searching my face.

Yes, I can finally see her eyes because she’s pushed her sunglasses up on her head. And now I can admit she is 100 percent Presley James. Presley James, who I made a fool of myself in front of at the bookshop, dumped two cups of iced coffee on, and am now about to show the apartment I’m currently living in.

This is just . . . great.

When Keith died, my mom decided that she would eventually sell the house after Scout moves out and live out her days above the bookshop. She’s been working on it ever since, making it into the bedroom she never had as a child.

I think I’d choose death right now. This might sound dramatic and definitely like something Scout would say, but I believe I’d rather die than have Presley James see this apartment.

“You know what, I’ll just bring you a shirt,” I say with a head bob toward the door. I feel good about this. It’s a solid plan.Good job, Briggs. Way to think on your toes.Relief rushes through my body.

“Oh,” she says. “Um, sure. But . . . I was kind of hoping to use the bathroom so I could maybe wipe off some of the stickiness.” She gives me a sort of sheepish-looking grin.

I give her one back because it’s my fault she’s in this predicament right now. We’re so close on this tiny landing that I can feel her body heat, and it’s giving me enough nervous energy to power this entire island. There’s no air-conditioning in the stairway, and it’s starting to feel stuffy.

“Yeah, of course,” I say, the relief sucking out of me in an instant, as if it were done by one of those high-powered vacuums you find at a car wash. “I should . . . uh . . . warn you about the apartment.”

“Okay,” she says skeptically.

“There’s nothing wrong with it, except it may be a little messy—I wasn’t expecting company and all that. But—” I stop and run a hand through my hair and remember my glasses are still hanging from my collar. “It’s my mom’s, as is the bookshop downstairs. All of this—living here and working here—is temporary for me.”

“No worries,” she says.

“It’s just that it’s, um . . . well, you know what? I’ll let you see for yourself.”

I open the door and walk in, Presley just behind me. She takes in a breath when she sees it.

“Oh . . . wow,” she says.

“Yeah,” I respond, looking around the space as she does, taking it all in like I’m seeing it through her eyes. There’s a small entry space and then directly in front is the galley-style kitchen. Off to the left is a nice-size living room, where there’s a pair of my boxers I pray she doesn’t notice haphazardly just hanging from the arm of the gray couch.

“It’s so . . . pink,” she says.

“Well, I mean, the walls are pink, but the, uh, cabinets are purple, so that’s something,” I say, a hand directed toward the kitchen like I’m her tour guide. “It’s princess themed.”

She nods. “I gathered that, with the castle on the wall over there, and the pink frilly curtains on the windows.”

I reach up and scratch my jaw, feeling quite awkward in this moment. But I’m just rolling with it at this point.

“The, uh, bathroom is fairy inspired, as in Tinker Bell,” I tell her.

“Perfect,” she says, her lips pulled up into a smile.

She seems to be taking this well, so I continue. “And the bedroom—which I’m just telling you for information, not because I’m planning on showing you,” I say, holding out my hands, palms facing toward her to show my innocence, “has a four-poster bed with draped pink ruffles.”

She sucks her lips into her mouth, I’m assuming because she’s trying not to laugh.

“You can laugh,” I tell her. “I get it. This is my mom’s childhood dream come to life, and . . . I get to live in it.”

Her inclination to laugh falls away. “Oh,” she says. “I kind of love that.”

I bobble my head side to side. “I mean, it’s great for my mom, but for me it’s . . . a little strange.”

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