“Well, you were wrong with that one.”
“Damn,” she says, her lips pushing out in an adorable pout. Yep, and I want to kiss her again. Get yourself together, man. It would be one thing if I’d never felt her lips on mine—I could delude myself into thinking she might be a terrible kisser, or that her lips are rough. But I know how they feel. Soft and giving.
Crap. I’m staring now. I’m staring at her lips.
“So, what’s this favor?” I ask, forcing my eyes up toward hers.
She lets out a breath. “I need you to look online and see if they’ve said anything about the movie I’m supposed to be doing. If they’ve . . . replaced me.”
“Oh, okay, sure,” I say, taking my phone out of my pocket and pulling up the internet. “You know, they do have Wi-Fi at the Belacourt Resort.”
She gives me a scowl. “I know that. I’m staying offline right now. Maybe forever.”
The internet must be hard for people like Presley. It can be hard for anyone, really. Someone could post something they thought was benign and wake up the next morning canceled. Everyone has an opinion these days, and they have a way to share it with the world now.
“Okay, so what am I looking up exactly?” I say, fingers at the ready to type in the search bar.
“Just Presley James and Cosmic Fury,” she says. “They were supposed to announce casting today.” She nibbles on the side of her thumb, nervous energy oozing from her.
“No problem.” I quickly type in the words, and a headline pops up almost immediately: Cosmic Fury Now in Preproduction, but Will Presley James Still Play the Lead?
“What does it say?” she asks, looking from me to the phone.
“Hold on,” I say, quickly skimming the article.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“It’s not bad,” I say, my eyes quickly catching on to key words. It’s not ideal either. I feel a little whooshing sensation in my stomach.
“Tell me,” she says.
“So, you still have the role.”
She lets out a breath.
“But apparently, there’s still a lot of backlash.”
According to the article, because of the outcry to cancel her after the viral video, the producers have gone quiet about the role, but as far as the author of the piece can tell, she’s still cast as the lead.
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.”
