I felt sort of dumb for even offering it. Who do I think I am, anyway? I’m just some penniless island dweller at the moment, living in an apartment that’s been decorated by the inner child of a fifty-two-year-old woman. If my college professors could see me now. Especially after all the you’re going places, kid accolades they gave me at graduation.
Yes. I’m really going places right now. So many places.
I hope what Presley is doing works for her. I hope the rumors about her staying here on the island will die down and she can move on with her life. I told her that as I walked her back to the resort late Saturday night. There was no spontaneous kiss when I left her at the entrance to the Belacourt Resort. It’s not like I wanted one anyway. Okay, that’s a total lie. I almost went for it when she went up on her tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek before walking away.
The rumors will settle here, and the islanders will move on to something else, like they always do, and Presley will become a blip in my life. A blip I’m not going to tell anyone about because no one would believe me anyway. I still don’t fully believe it myself.
“Closing up?” Carl asks, looking up from a book he’s been reading for the past two hours. I just turned off half the lights in the store, the universal sign for please leave this establishment.
“Yep,” I reply. “Off to have dinner with my mom and Scout.”
“Oh?” His bushy eyebrows shoot up.
I think he might be fishing for an invite, and heaven knows there will be plenty of food because Marianne McMannus doesn’t know how to cook for only three people. But since I never told my mom about him digging for info on her dating status, I’m not sure inviting him would be the best idea. Plus, let’s be honest here: Carl is annoying.
“Yep,” I answer him. “And I’m running late, so I’ll see you around, Carl.”
I go to the door and hold it open for him.
“I’ll be in later this week,” he says, giving me a single nod as he walks out the door.
“Sounds good,” I tell him. He’s after the refrigerator-repair manuals I did finally order for him. Apparently, YouTube was too confusing. There was too much information.
I lock the door behind him, turning the sign over to closed, and then start closing up the shop, doing a checklist of things I have memorized: shutting the shades on the windows, putting any misplaced books back where they belong, and organizing all the things on the checkout counter. My mom comes in and deep cleans the place on Sundays, so there’s not much to do cleaning-wise, but I pick a few things up off the floor and move a few chairs back into place.
I’m just about to turn off the lights when I hear it. A knock on the door of the shop. Unexpectedly, my heart does a little speeding-up thing.
I shake my head as I walk to the door, seeing someone in a pair of shorts and that same black hoodie and sunglasses, the hood covering her head and pulled tightly, just like Saturday night.
I quickly unlock the door and open it, letting Presley James inside.
“Hey,” she says, removing her hood and then messing with her hair so it’s no longer flat to her head.
“What are you doing here?” I can’t help the smile that’s evident in my tone.
She smiles back. “It’s my thing,” she says, in that lower raspy voice of hers. “I stay inside for two days and then I can’t take it anymore and I come here to bother you.”
“Were the teenagers bugging you again?”
I talked to Scout yesterday when I took her to get ice cream at the shop on the other side of the square from the bookstore. She acted like she had no idea what I was talking about, and I couldn’t tell her that it was Presley who told me she saw a bunch of teens sneaking in, or she’d have been back with her friends attempting it again today. I just reiterated the lie I’ve been telling that Presley James isn’t here and not to waste her time or get in trouble for doing something dumb like that.
“No teenagers today,” Presley says, shaking her head.
“Bored?”
“Always.”
“So . . . what are you doing?”
She sighs. “Being stupid, I guess.”
“You really can’t take more than two days by yourself,” I say.
She shakes her head. “I know. That seems to be my limit.”
I lift my shoulder briefly, wondering if I should say what my mouth wants to say right now. I decide to just go for it.
“You know, you could just come here at night, and we could hang out, sometimes . . . when you’re bored, that is. If you want to, or you know . . . whatever.”
Right. Really smooth, Briggs. I mess with my glasses, pushing the bottom of the frames up with the back of my finger.
“Actually,” she says. “I was thinking that . . . I mean if you’re still up for it, that maybe . . . we could do your summer plan?”
I rear my head back, confused. “But what about—”
“I know,” she says, holding up a hand. “I know what I said, and it’s probably a very bad idea, but I can’t do it. I can’t stay in that room. I feel like I’d rather risk it than lose my mind at the resort. And I am . . . losing my mind. We can be careful, right?”
“Of course,” I tell her, having already worked out some ideas, even though at the time it felt fruitless. I give her a grin that she returns. “Let’s do all the summer stuff.”
“Really?” she asks, her eyes doing a sort of twinkling thing.
Did she really think I’d turn her down?
I grab my phone out of my back pocket and pull up my notes app. I was bored myself yesterday, what with not working at the bookshop and also not having a five-foot-nothing famous actress keeping me company.
“What’s that?” Her eyes go from my phone to me.
“I made a list of things to do.”
