This is the best practice kiss ever, even though the one we shoot will be nothing like this. Not the way Briggs is running his tongue over my bottom lip, because that’s considered bad etiquette when filming. No tongues allowed. But right now, it’s good etiquette. The very best kind of etiquette.
His hand has moved from my hair to my neck and he’s left my mouth to kiss a path down my jaw, to a spot just below my ear, and I feel like I might melt. My legs feel like JELL-O. I’m barely standing.
A knock on the glass door of the bookstore has us pulling apart from each other like we’ve just been caught doing something criminal. It takes a second for me on my newborn-calf-like legs to right myself.
We both look over to see who just ruined the second-best kiss of my life (the first being on the boat), and I instantly recognize the bratty Betty lady, her hands on the glass, cupping her face as she looks inside. That massive sun visor is still on her head, even though the sun is setting now.
She yells something through the glass that neither of us can decipher, and Briggs walks over to the door, unlocking it before opening it up.
“You’re not supposed to be closed yet,” she says, pointing to the open hours sign on the door.
“We had to close early,” Briggs tells her.
“Why, so you could lock lips with that gal?” She points to me, and I’m torn between trying not to laugh and also glaring at the woman because she ruined my moment with Briggs. Forget bratty—she’s freaking moment-ruining Betty.
“You can come back tomorrow,” Briggs offers.
“You can’t sell me a book tonight?” She scowls at him.
Briggs looks to me, and I give him a why-not shrug. I kind of hate the woman for interrupting our practice kissing, but she’s stubborn, and the sooner he helps her out, the sooner she’ll leave.
He opens the door and ushers her in with a wave of his hand. She walks in, her nose lifted upward, like she hates the smell of the place.
“I need some book by Sunny Palmer,” she says. “What kind of name is that? I hope it’s a pen name, because if it’s real, she should change it.”
“Let me show you where it is,” Briggs says, walking her over to the fiction section where I bantered with him that first day I’d escaped from the resort. What a whirlwind it’s been. It feels like so long ago. But it really wasn’t. Three weeks, that’s all.
And it’s only taken me three weeks to realize that I want to keep him. I’ve had the thought before, but more along the lines that I don’t want to lose him when the summer is over. But now I want him for keeps. I know how that sounds, like how I take souvenirs from the set of a movie I worked on.
But he wouldn’t be a souvenir—he’d be mine. All mine.
This isn’t just a crush, or a summermance; it’s full-blown, I’d-like-to-see-where-this-goes, possible feelings of love happening right now.
It could be full-blown love for all I know, since I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before. I thought I was with Zac Efron, but then I got stuck in his trailer window and realized it was totally one sided.
What I’m feeling is very different. It’s brain consuming and body snatching. Is that love? I think it might be. And I could be wrong, but I think Briggs feels the same.
I should tell him how I feel. I should just lay it all out there. I know we come from different worlds, and I know Briggs has no desire to be part of what I have to offer, but we could figure it out . . . Couldn’t we?
They locate the book, and then mean Betty talks Briggs’s ear off as they walk toward the register, saying something about an air freshener, but I’m only half listening because my attention is on Briggs, the half-smile on his face as he helps the crotchety woman, and how handsome he is when he fidgets with his glasses.
Rude Betty pays for her book, and then he walks her to the door.
She turns back to look at me. “Stop slouching,” she says, pointing a bony finger at me.
“Yes, ma’am.” I say, doing just as she commands. Honestly, I never thought I had bad posture until I met this surly woman.
She makes some sort of harrumph sound as she leaves, and Briggs shuts the door and locks it behind her.
“Well, she’s gone,” he says when he turns back toward me.
“Yes,” I say, weaving my hands behind my back and rocking on my heels. And thank goodness for that because I would very much like to get back to the kissing practice.
Briggs clears his throat. “So, should we run more lines?”
“Yes,” I say, a little too quickly. “I was kind of hoping to go over that last scene, just one more time.”
He gives me a knowing smile and walks toward me, my body beginning to hum just in anticipation of his nearness.
“Hello! I’m here,” Scout yells from the back entrance of the shop, and like we planned it, both Briggs’s and my shoulders drop at the same time.
Foiled again.
“We’re up front,” Briggs calls out. He gives me a disappointed-looking smile, probably mirroring the one on my face.
“Oh good,” Scout says as she comes in through the back of the store, her ponytail swishing behind her. “Mom wants to know if you two want to come play games with us tonight.”
Briggs sighs, and it’s long-suffering, like this is the hardest task he’s ever been asked to do.
“Sounds good,” I answer for the both of us.
Thank goodness we have so much more summer to go. There’s plenty of time for me to explore these feelings for Briggs and see if he feels them back. Plenty of time to take this summermance to a full-blown romance. I just hope Briggs feels the same way.
Briggs
“This is incredible,” Presley says, holding binoculars up to her eyes as she looks up at the starry night sky.
