Page 47 of One Happy Summer

Presley closes her eyes, placing her hands on her face. I put my phone in my pocket and wait for her to talk because there’s nothing I can say to her right now that might help the situation. First of all, I don’t understand the ins and outs of how things in her industry work. Secondly, for all I know about Presley, there’s so much I still don’t know. She might be one of those people who needs to process things inwardly before she wants to talk about them.

Presley moves her hands away from her face and takes a big breath, as if she’s trying to clear out whatever she’s feeling right now.

“Okay, that’s not horrible,” she says, and I nod. “If the producers aren’t saying anything right now and I still have the role, chances are they are also waiting to see if this dies down.”

“That makes sense,” I say. It’s so awkward not to offer some sort of platitude right now. It’s my instinct to try to fix things or offer solutions. It’s what I do for a living . . . or what I did. Searching for bugs in a system and creating ways to fix them. It’s hard for me to just stand here and let her process without offering her something.

But I do have one thing. I take a step closer to her, putting a hand on her shoulder, and when she leans in, I gather her into my arms and hold her. Her head falls onto my chest and her arms wrap around my waist. I rest my face on the top of her head and rub comforting circles on her back.

She feels warm, her body melding with mine, and she smells like vanilla and coconut.

“Thank you,” she says, so quietly I almost miss it.

“You okay?” I ask after a minute of holding her. Honestly, if she wanted to stay like this for the rest of the day, I’d be okay with it. I don’t have a lot to offer her, but I can give her this.

I feel her nodding under my head. And then she pulls back and looks at me, a sad sort of resigned smile on her face.

“Whatever you had planned today, can we . . . maybe do it another time?”

“Of course,” I tell her. I can’t help the disappointed feeling that lands on my shoulders. It feels selfish to feel this way. Stupid viral video. Of course, if it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t get to hold this woman like I am right now.

“I think I just need to lie on the beach or something.”

“Read a book?”

She smiles then. “Yes. There are lots of hypotheses and rules to learn about.”

“Exactly,” I say, returning the grin. But then I let it drop. “I’ll . . . be here whenever you want to do something.”

She pulls her head back, tucking in her chin. “No, I was . . . I hoped . . .” She stops and takes a deep breath. “Would you come with me? Would you sit on the beach with me?”

I search her face. “Yeah, absolutely.”

“Okay, perfect.” She pulls out of the hug, grabbing on to the hem of my T-shirt like she’s not ready to let go. “You’re kind of my emotional support human.”

I chuckle. “Glad to be of service.”

Presley

Napping on the beachmight be my new favorite thing.

And yes, this is the first time I’ve done it. Ever. You learn to not fall asleep at the beach when there are cameras around, waiting to catch a picture of you with double chins, mouth sagged open, and drool coming out the side of your mouth.

Not that I look like that right now. I’m actually awake, or rather just woke up, and am currently lying under an umbrella on a padded lounger, Briggs on the one next to me. He’s on his side, turned toward me, glasses off, no drool coming out of his mouth. He’s just soundly sleeping, his light-brown eyelashes looking like feathery fringes resting against his skin.

I’m loving this little bubble I feel like I’m in with Briggs. My life feels so normal right now. Well, as normal as it can be, staying at a posh resort with people who are here to cater to my every whim, and with an entire world out there that sort of hates me right now.

But there are no paparazzi, no agent or publicist telling me what to do. My mom’s not here, trying to micromanage. I’m just lying on a beach, hot and a little sticky, clad in a yellow bikini, next to a man that I really, really like.

I’m not sure I’ve ever in my life liked someone as much as I do Briggs. I’d say it’s more than like. It’s a crush. I have a crush on Briggs Ulysses Dalton.

That’s not his actual middle name—I tried it on him earlier.

I’ve had crushes on guys before, and I’ve dated of course—my dating pool mostly consisting of men I’ve been on set with. Because how else would someone who hasn’t even taken a real vacation in fourteen years meet someone? Online? No thank you. Not in my profession.

And relationships? Yeah, no. Unless you count whatever that was with Declan Stone, which I don’t really. I think he was in proximity and I was lonely, and we were already faking it, so why not try for real? And now he’s dating my mom. So, that’s a fun thing I kind of hate.

Mostly I’ve just had showmances . . . which are short, on-set flings that fizzle out when filming is over. It might carry over to a press tour, but it’s never serious, and my agent likes them because she uses them to her advantage in some way or another. Planned sightings leaked to the paparazzi. Quotes from “reliable sources” about our chemistry or whatever.

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