Page 56 of Prince of the Palisades

His other hand squeezes my hip. Lightning strikes in my veins. I squeeze my thighs together, praying to whatever god that presides over this damn pier to keep my body in check.

“Smile!”

“Wha—”

The first shutter catches me off guard. Recovering, I prepare myself for the next one, watching the countdown on the screen. Reiss holds up his hand, his thumb pointed downward with his index finger curled forward. I snort, then mirror him. We grin widely as our fingers form a heart.

For the third photo, I make a joke, and the shutter goes off as Reiss’s head tips back in laughter, my own head resting on his shoulder.

“Last one,” he whispers.

I angle my head to look at him. His soft smile. The flecks of hickory in his dark eyes. His slow breaths. My hand slips up to cradle the back of his neck.

“Three…two…one.”

We don’t blink. Our eyes never leave each other. The shutter clicks.

“Here.” Outside, Reiss passes me the photo strip. “You keep it.”

The final shot at the bottom is hard to rip my gaze from. We’re almost kissing.

A very, very close almost.

“Thank you.” I slip the photos into the kangaroo pocket of my—Reiss’s—hoodie. “Let’s go see the park.”

Reiss rejects getting on the Pacific Wheel, the solar-powered Ferris wheel. “I don’t do heights,” he says. Instead, we walk around the rides before he coaxes me to the end of the pier for carne asada tacos at Mariasol.

There, we eat and watch the sunset streak the sky a heavy pink from a patio overlooking the Pacific.

“What was it like”—I squeeze lime over my taco—“being raised here?”

His index finger raises in a “one moment” fashion. He’s already halfway through his third taco. After swallowing, he launches into life in Santa Monica.

As a kid, he fell for the laid-back culture. He hates visiting his cousins in Seattle, because it never rains in Southern California like it does there. Growing up, his passions jumped from animals to surfing, then finally film.

“Dom came along when I was six,” he says, crunching on nachos. He talks about adjusting to life as a big brother. The coffee shop came a little later, his hardworking parents quitting their respective jobs to open the business.

“It was their dream. Since college, I think.”

I wonder if Mom’s ever had thoughts like that. Abdicate her queenship. Return to her other passions. I’m too nervous to ask her. Too scared she’ll say this is who we’re supposed to be, period.

Reiss talks about primary school. Never having a real friend group until Karan and Lo. Getting into Willow Wood.

“At first, it sucked,” he admits after stealing my last taco.

“You mean, life as a social outcast?”

He tosses a used lime at my chest. “No.” A frown tightens his features. “Being one of the very few Black kids there.”

I nod. It’s one of the most painfully apparent things about Willow Wood. Other than the oversaturated, pretentious content. There’s just enough visible melanin to check all the diversity boxes. I’ve never experienced that in Réverie.

We go quiet as we eat. At the table next to ours, two college-aged boys share enchiladas. One has tan skin and dark hair, wearing a Stanford sweatshirt and black-rimmed glasses. The other’s wild curly hair stands out against his fair brown complexion. His T-shirt readsStaff of Once Upon a Page.

Without staring, I can tell they’re in love.

It’s in their smiles. Their easiness. The way the curly-haired boy feeds his boyfriend.

Something shifts in my belly as I turn my gaze back to Reiss.

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