“You’re probably right,” I say.
She takes another step toward me, and I stay still, standing by the counter.
“So, do you think maybe we could try?”
I stare at her for a beat before looking away, toward the bookshelves. I picture her standing there wearing her glasses, in that tank top and shorts all those days ago, smiling at my stupid jokes.
I look back at her. “You’re amazing, Presley, and I loved spending time with you.”
“Loved?” she says, shaking her head.
In the movie Notting Hill, I was annoyed with Hugh Grant’s character when he turned Julia Roberts away. But now that I’m having my own version of that moment, Presley with me in a bookstore, telling me she wants to be with me, I sort of get it. It feels . . . hard. Like too many insurmountable things in our way. And like Hugh Grant, I, too, feel like my heart couldn’t take another round of breaking from Presley James.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” I finally reply, running a hand through my hair. “But . . . maybe it’s not a good idea.”
“Oh,” she says, her eyebrows moving up her forehead. She wasn’t expecting that answer from me.
“No, I mean—” I let out a breath. “The company I started, AssistGen, we have some investors and we’ve just started things back up. I’m going to be really busy with that for the foreseeable future, and you, well, you’ve got to get back to your big, career-making movie. Callis the warrior.”
“Ye-yeah,” she stumbles, her eyes brimming with tears again. “You’re right. But you know, Briggs, those are just details.”
“They’re kind of big ones,” I say. “You’re a big movie star, and I’m a software engineer.”
She takes another step toward me. “Don’t forget, though, I’m just a girl, standing in front a boy, asking him to love her.”
I cock my head to the side. “Did . . . did you just use the line from Notting Hill on me?”
“I’m sorry,” she says on a sob, more tears falling down her face. “I didn’t know what to say. I don’t like your answer, Briggs. I don’t want to accept it.”
“I don’t like it either,” I say. “But I think we have to.”
The next morning, it’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop as I sit at the dining room table at my mom’s house, Scout and my mom sitting with me. I’ve just told them what Presley said yesterday evening after they left the shop, and how I turned her down. I still can’t believe I did. And I wish I had some settled feelings in my gut, like I made the right decision, but I don’t feel them at all.
I didn’t feel them after I told her it wouldn’t work, and I didn’t feel them when, before she left, she walked over to me and lifted up on her tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek, and I definitely didn’t feel them when she walked out the door, the bells jingling as she did. Nor did I feel them as I tried to sleep last night and failed.
Which is why I came here this morning before the shop opened to have my mom and Scout confirm that I made the right choice.
“Briggs, you moron,” Scout says loudly, as if she couldn’t take the silence any longer. “You should have said yes.”
“You only want me to so you can meet Declan Stone,” I say.
“No,” she says. “He’s gross, remember? Well, I’d still meet him if I could. But you can’t say no to Presley James.”
“But I did say no,” I remind her, those feelings of unease swimming around again in my stomach.
“Well take it back,” she says. “That was a mistake.”
“Was it, though?” I ask my mom.
“Do you think it was?” she asks, doing that mom thing where you answer a question with a question.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“You do know, you moron,” Scout says.
“Scout,” my mom chides.
Scout looks to my mom, holding a hand out toward me. “Well, he is. He’s clearly in love with her.”
“What do you know about love?” I ask. “You’re fourteen.” But then I think back to her group of friends asking me questions at the dance. Maybe she knows more than I think.
“Do you love her?” my mom asks.
I put a hand through my hair. “I think I do.”
“See?” Scout says. “And then he went and messed it all up.”
I stare at her and then my eyes move to my mom as my brain begins to process what I’ve done.
“I think Scout’s right. I messed it up,” I finally say.
My mom shakes her head. “Briggsy, you can fix this.”
“How?” I ask her.
“Don’t you have her number? Call her,” she says.
