This wasn’t the worst Saturday of my life, but it might have been the most tedious. I wasn’t in the best mood either since Scout dropped the Declan Stone bomb on me. And then I was annoyed I allowed it to affect my mood. I’d known I wouldn’t be seeing Presley James again, so what did it matter that she kisses men who aren’t her boyfriend for fun? Nothing was going to happen between us anyway.
And Declan is her boyfriend, at least according to the internet and the many, many pictures and sightings of the two of them together—laughing at dinner, holding hands as they walk into a movie premiere, sitting together on a beach. I’m not sure how I missed it in my initial search about her. Maybe I didn’t want to see it at a subconscious level.
Even despite knowing all that, despite feeling like a total idiot for giving any of my mental bandwidth to Thursday’s events, I kept up the ruse that she is not really on the island. I don’t know why I did. But a promise is a promise.
Not that it worked. People filtered in and out of the bookshop all day, eyes peeled and bright as they searched the store and kept an eye on the door anytime the bells chimed, no matter what I said. The patrons did taper off toward closing time, but that’s probably because they all have homes to go to and dinners to eat.
The bookshop is closed tomorrow since it’s Sunday, thank goodness. I don’t know if I could have endured another day like this. Keeping up the lie on my end and dealing with dumb questions about books we don’t have in the shop (I’m talking to you, Carl, and your refrigerator-repair manuals that we still don’t carry). I’m looking forward to cleaning up and going back to my princess-decorated apartment, where I can sleep this day away and try not to think about a certain star.
A tap on the glass door behind me makes me jump, and I turn around quickly to see who it might be.
It’s someone in a dark-colored sweatshirt, the hood pulled up over their head, the strings drawn so tight over dark sunglasses, I can’t tell who they are.
Am I . . . Am I being robbed? On Sunset Harbor? Has that ever happened here? I don’t think it has, even during peak tourist season. We don’t have any cars to make a getaway, and our one part-time police officer, Beau Palmer, drives a golf cart, so it’s hard to run away from him. Plus, you have to take a ferry to get on and off the island. Robbing someone here would require a lot of effort with not a lot of ways to get away fast.
“Briggs,” the person says, and even though it’s muffled, I can definitely hear the high tones of a woman’s voice.
I look closer, my face so near the glass that my breath fogs up a small spot on the door. “Presley?”
She holds a finger up to her mouth—or at least I’m guessing that’s where her mouth is since the drawstrings of the hoodie are pulled so tight, she looks like a minion. What a terrible disguise. Isn’t learning to hide from fans and the paparazzi part of Famous Actor 101?
I look around me, making sure I didn’t accidentally miss someone still in the shop, and quickly unlock the door. I open it, and she slips inside. I grab her lightly by the arm and guide her over between the shelves of books, just in case someone walking by might see us through the windows.
I let go, and she removes her hood. Her hair springs out with static cling, while some of it stays plastered to her face.
“Hey,” she says, her tone bright, a smile on her face.
“Hey,” I say, confused. “What are you doing here?”
She lets out a breath. “I’m bored.”
“You’re . . . bored?”
“I know,” she says, running her fingers through her hair, calming the static and fluffing the rest up. “I’m so bad at this.”
My hands are being weird appendages again, and I fold them in front of me. “I’m not sure this is the best place to escape to,” I say. “I spent the entire day telling people you aren’t really here.”
Her head falls to the side. “Did you?” She reaches up and grabs some of my T-shirt in her fist, pulling herself closer to me. It’s flirtatious and I don’t appreciate it.
“You’re the best,” she says.
I shake my head. “No one believed me, and word has spread. We’ve had people in and out all day hoping you might come back.”
“Crap,” she mutters, letting go of my shirt. Then she lets out an exhale that’s a whole upper body effort, shoulders and head drooping. “Thanks for trying.”
“No problem,” I say. “But you probably shouldn’t be seen around the island if you don’t want to feed that rumor.”
She nods. “You’re right. But . . . I just needed to get out of there, you know? I needed some air. I was stuck in my room yesterday because of a wedding at the resort, and then I couldn’t even sit on my veranda today because there were a bunch of teenagers that kept sneaking onto the private beach. They were persistent. Every time I called the front desk, I’d see them asking them to leave, but they’d find a way to sneak back in.”
I guess I’ll be needing to have a conversation with Scout about breaking and entering in the near future. Like tomorrow.
“I borrowed a bicycle from the resort and came straight here.” She looks down at the floor, and swallows. “I needed to get out, and also, I wanted to say sorry . . . uh . . . about the whole kissing thing the other night. It was like Notting Hill, you know? And I got caught up, and . . . I’m . . . just . . . sorry.” She looks up at me, her expression soft, her eyes searching.
I give her a single nod. Is she sorry because she was cheating on Declan Stone? Or sorry that it was me she kissed? I don’t want to know the answer because either one sucks.
“No worries,” I say, even though I do have some concerns. But why bother bringing it up? What will it even change?
“What are you doing now?” she asks, with a very obvious upbeat change to her tone.
I look around the store. “Closing up here, and then I was going to go home.”
“To the princess apartment?”
“That’s where I live.” I give her a nod.
“Well, I’m already here. Do you . . . want some company?”
I tap the side of my glasses with a finger. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say.
“Oh,” she says, her eyebrows moving quickly up her face. “Right. Of course. Sorry.” She grabs hold of the drawstrings on her hoodie and pulls on them.
“It’s been a long day.”
“Is that all that’s wrong?” she asks, her brows lowered.
“I mean, yeah,” I say.
She lets out a long, sad-sounding sigh. “You saw the video, didn’t you?”
