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.”
“I’m having a hard time picturing you sleeping in a frilly pink bed, to be honest,” she says, and I try not to read into the fact that she’s even picturing me at all.
“You know, it’s a very comfortable bed, actually.”
She lets out a lilting laugh. Melodious and light. I kind of like it . . . a lot.
“So, about that T-shirt,” she says.
I nod my head in little rapid movements. “Yes, sorry. I’ll go grab that for you. I’ll . . . be right back.”
I quickly walk through the living area while grabbing my boxers off the arm of the couch, hoping I was stealthy enough she didn’t notice. I really should keep this apartment clean for guests. In my defense, I haven’t had anyone up here since I moved back, save my mom and Scout.
I walk into the bedroom, which has a window with a view of the ocean, but right now it’s dark in here, since I never opened the light-blocking curtains this morning—they’re floral pink and match the drapery hanging from the bed, of course. I quickly go to my laundry basket and rifle through it, praying I find something usable. I throw each piece of clothing out in a sort of panicked rage and do a full-body sag of relief when, at the bottom, I find a clean white athletic tee. I grab it and exit the room, finding Presley waiting at the door when I open it.
“Here,” I say, holding out the shirt.
“Thanks.” She grabs it and gives me a soft smile.
I point at the closed door just behind her. “The bathroom is right there.”
“Great,” she says, turning to her left to grab the handle. “I’m excited to see the fairies.”
“I hope you enjoy them,” I say and give her my best pained look because that was a weird thing to say. “There are some clean washcloths under the sink.”
I briefly wonder if I should go in first, just to double-check that everything is okay in there. I may leave clothes around the place, but my mom taught me to always keep a clean bathroom, and I just cleaned it yesterday, thank goodness.
I hear the water turn on, and I stand there by the closed bathroom door for a bit before realizing I’m being unintentionally creepy right now. Like, what if she opens the door and finds me loitering here like some lost puppy? I should make myself scarce, and probably have a chat with myself about being cool.
If that’s even possible.
Presley
“Presley James, what are you doing?”
I say this to myself after I’ve splashed cool water on my face, because even though it feels like sticky iced coffee is on all parts of my body, I don’t think it made its way to my cheeks. Still, I’m in need of a good slap in the face right now, and this was the best I could do.
Not only am I not back at the resort prison, I’m in a stranger’s apartment. One that’s decorated in a princess motif, which is neither here nor there, but being here was not part of the plan.
But, okay. Wow. This bathroom is so much cleaner than I was expecting. I honestly didn’t know what to think when I was invited here. I suppose I wasn’t thinking at all.
Too bad Tinker Bell is just a painting on this wall and not real, or maybe she could offer me some pixie dust to magically transport me back to the Belacourt Resort.
Of course, being doused with a cold, caffeinated beverage was also not part of my plan when I set out to go back to my room, but I certainly didn’t need to come to the apartment of a guy I barely know. What has gotten into me? Am I losing my mind from the time I’ve spent alone? Two and a half days in solitude should not an unhinged person make. Yet here we are.
Unhinged might be a tad over the mark, but that’s how I’m feeling. I don’t do things like this. Unless you count the time I tried to break into Zac Efron’s trailer. I was a dumb teenager back then. Fun fact: I could have just knocked on the door since we were filming the same movie. Which is what he nicely told me as he helped pull my stuck body out of the tiny window. So embarrassing. At least we can laugh about it now. Still, that was the only time I’d done something that crazy.
Oh, right . . . I’ve been crazier. I guess my big faux pas that brought me to this island might be more proof. Maybe I am unhinged. Maybe it’s always been a thing I’ve done and I’m just now learning this about myself.
I look in the mirror. Am I a nutjob? I don’t look like one. Right now, I look like a kid in her dad’s shirt with how this one hangs on me. I’ve tied it in a knot at the front, my cross-body bag sort of helping it stay in place, but it’s not working that well. At least it’s clean and not soaking wet.
I wring out the coffee-drenched tank I was wearing in the sink, and then, grabbing it, I make my way out of the fairy-decorated bathroom and into the princess-themed living room to find cute-bookstore-boy sitting on the out-of-place plain gray couch—shouldn’t it be some kind of regal purple with a high back and gold detailing?
“Everything okay?” cute-bookstore-boy asks as he jumps out of his seat. Then he moves his hands around awkwardly before he tucks them in the back pockets of the jeans he’s wearing, as if he doesn’t know what to do with them. He’s wearing his glasses again, and although he’s handsome without them, the rectangular frames take him to a whole other level.
“Yes, thank you,” I say. I hold out my wet tank top. “Do you have a bag I could put this in?”
“Sure,” he says, walking over to the small kitchen. I stifle a giggle as he walks over there with his hands still in his back pockets. It just looks ridiculous. He’s kind of adorable.
He disappears behind the lower cabinets, and I hear him rifling around them until he pops back up, a grocery sack in hand.
He walks over to me and offers me the bag. “Here you go,” he says.
