Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Deacon
Our bird release redo was much less eventful than the toucan one, thank God. We even managed to get some nice B-roll footage of Dove and me talking and smiling to each other. After everything that had happened with the helicopter the week before, Dove and I had fallen into friendlier terms. I knew she was still trying to keep me at arm’s length, but she couldn’t seem to summon quite the same level of vitriol as before, which for me was a huge victory.
After the shorebird release, Dove and I decided to walk back to the zoo since it was only twenty minutes up the beach. Cody disappeared, leaving us in blissful privacy. It was a strange feeling—not having to be on my best behavior, no cameras pointed in my direction.
Apparently, in the off-season, after the last ferry had left for the afternoon, there was barely fifty residents on Prickle Island, which meant no paparazzi or fans or anyone who cared about my IMDB page, just some peace and quiet at the beach.
Dove stretched her arms up to the sun and let out a deep sigh. For once, her shoulders weren’t bunched up around her ears.
That night in the prep kitchens replayed in my mind more times than I cared to admit. The way she’d folded into my arms, had cried while I’d held her . . . something had irreversibly shifted in that moment, if not for her then at least for me.
“How’s Hannah doing?” I asked as I walked barefoot across the wet sand, the ocean water lapping at my feet.
“Good.” Dove let out a sleepy, little hum as if relishing the feeling of the springtime sun on her skin. “Tired, I can imagine, but great. The way they look at Simon . . . I never thought my brother would let anyone in, and now he’s got two people who’ve completely captured his heart.” Her smile was infectious as she squinted across the water at the light glinting across the waves. “They’re coming home tomorrow. I can’t wait to hold him.”
“Hawk?”
“No, Simon,” she said with a laugh. “But I’ll give my brother a hug too.”
“It’s the best feeling,” I said with a grin. “I have three nephews and I cried the first time I held each of them,” I admitted. “You know, ‘cuz I’m the sensitive, artistic type.”
“Uh-huh,” she snarked, elbowing me. “Of course you are. Thank you again, by the way.” She stole a glance at me and then looked back to the hypnotic horizon. “I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if we didn’t have your helicopter. I guess you’re a hero on and off screen.”
“Nothing heroic about it. I’m glad I could help,” I replied. “Sometimes it’s just fate, I guess. Maybe I was meant to be here.”
With you , I wanted to add, but I held my tongue. There I go, being the sensitive, artistic type again. There were probably song lyrics buried in that sentiment somewhere. Maybe it was time I picked up my songbook and pen again . . .
“It felt pretty lucky that you were about to film a zookeeper movie right when our family needed the money,” Dove hedged. “Maybe that was fate too?”
I only hummed in agreement, not wanting to admit that that particular situation hadn’t been the same kind of serendipity.
“Why did you decide to do a zookeeper rom-com?” she asked skeptically. “Is there even an audience for that kind of sappy stuff? It seems so unlike you.”
I laughed and shrugged. “I wanted to show a softer side of myself, I guess,” I admitted. “People know me for fight scenes and big stunts. The tone of my last show was so serious. I wanted people to know I could be funny and romantic sometimes too.”
“If they listened to your music they’d know.”
That comment caught me off guard. I wondered how much of my music Dove had listened to. Did she listen to it still? Acting felt a lot less personal than singing. It was easier to fade into someone else’s story than share my own, but the music always felt more meaningful to me in that regard too.
“It’s true,” I mused. “My music was mostly love songs.”
“ Lots of yearning,” Dove added, making me laugh.
“I was nineteen,” I lamented. “Cut me some slack.” I let out a wistful sigh. “Lucky Role feels like a lifetime ago. A lot of people don’t even know I’m the same guy. I want them to think Deacon has depth too, you know?”
“I think your hundreds of thousands of die hard Harrow Head fans already know you can be funny and romantic,” she said. “You crack one bad joke on a press tour and they think you’re the world’s greatest comedian. There’s like a million fan edits of you on TikTok.”
“Oh really?”
“I mean, I just stumbled across them. I wasn’t seeking them out,” she added defensively.
“Uh-huh,” I teased. “Oh well. I guess I just wanted people to know I had more versatility in me.”
“You were a model and a rock star before you started acting,” Dove pointed out. “You’ve always been a triple threat. You can’t suddenly develop comedy chops too or that would just be plain cruel to every other performer out there.”
“I suppose so.”
“But I know that you’re funny,” she added.
And I really wanted to reply that’s all that matters like the sentimental fool I was, but instead, I said, “A comedy fandom of one, excellent.”
I’d once been the goofy, funny one, the clown of my family. Many actors started off that way—nerdy theater kids who ended up having the good looks to carry them further than others. It had always been my goal whenever Dove and I had been together to make her laugh because I’d known that if I could make Dove Lachlan laugh, I could make anyone. Her smiles were hard-won and therefore that much sweeter.
Dove stopped, spying a piece of blue sea glass and picking it up. She held it to the sun with a smile before pocketing it.
“Still pilfering treasure from the beach, I see.” I tipped my head to a barnacle-covered rock bisecting the beach. “Do you remember that gold coin we found down by the rock pools that one time? You swore it was pirate treasure.”
“How could I forget?” She chuckled, lifting her hand to show me her palm.
“I wondered if it would leave a permanent mark.” I pressed my lips tightly together after that admission. I was already saying too much.
Taking her hand in mine, I swept my thumb over the scar. She’d cut it open when she’d fallen on the slippery rocks trying to retrieve the coin. She’d been so obstinate that she’d kept going until she’d gotten the coin even while she’d been bleeding onto the sand.
“It’s mostly faded,” Dove murmured, her voice getting lost on the wind. I realized I was still touching her, but I couldn’t seem to let her hand go.
The memory of sitting in the urgent care flashed back to me—the smells of the sterile hospital, the bright fluorescent lights, and the sound of Dove’s laughter as her dad had shown us all of his scars and regaled us with stories each more epic and gruesome than the last. Simon Lachlan had been such an incredible storyteller that Dove hadn’t even noticed the stitches going in. It should’ve been a bad day, a bad memory, but I could tell Dove remembered it with the same fondness I did. I hoped the mark never fully disappeared.
Without thinking, I lifted Dove’s palm and kissed her scar. I was surprised that she didn’t pull away as my lips lingered on her warm skin as if I could feel the memory beneath them. That hug from the previous week echoed in my limbs, the desire to wrap Dove back up in another hug overwhelming now that I knew how good she felt pressed against me, like a piece of a puzzle that I hadn’t known was missing.
When I released her, she cleared her throat and kept walking, speeding up a little bit. It had been too much to hope she wouldn’t immediately pull away again.
“Seven stitches,” Dove said with a stilted laugh.
“Your lucky number.”
“You remember that?”
“It was seven because there are seven kids in your family.”
“Wow, I’m impressed.” She paused to study my face before carrying on down the beach. “Do you still have that coin?”
It took me a second to speak. “Probably somewhere.” I didn’t know why I’d lied. But the fact she hadn’t run away from me after I’d kissed her palm was a big deal, and I didn’t want the truth to scare her away. Everything felt so delicate, teetering on this precipice of something I was too afraid to name . . .
I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed having Dove in my life until the last couple of weeks, and I didn’t want to do anything to mess it up now. I’d missed her humor and sarcasm and snark and fun. Maybe the conservation trust would give me an excuse to keep this up, keep her in my life somehow.
“I missed this,” I finally admitted as we reached the end of the beach and climbed the worn wooden steps onto the road.
“Me too.” Her confession made warmth bloom in my chest.
“Why did we lose touch when we were kids?” I asked. “I tried to reach out to you a few times, but you never replied.”
“I don’t know.” Dove sighed. “I guess you were growing into a life that I knew I wouldn’t be a part of.”
“And you were jealous? I mean, that’s understandable?—”
“No,” she hedged. “I just didn’t want the slow distance to pull us apart, fewer messages, fewer hangouts, eventually our friendship just disappearing while your life got too busy for it. I thought I’d just rip the Band-Aid off and give you an out so you didn’t have to feel guilty about it.”
“What if I didn’t want an out?”
“Maybe you didn’t,” she said. “But eventually you would’ve left me behind.”
I stopped walking for a second, emotions tightening my throat. I wanted to tell her I would’ve never done that, but the truth was, I probably would have. She knew me better than I knew myself, saw me in ways I didn’t want to admit. I’d been a teenager who’d suddenly come into a lot of fame and money, and I’d burned through friendships and relationships and good will with just about everyone I’d known for many years back then. I would’ve left her behind, even as I carried her memory with me. Maybe she was just stronger than I was for being able to cut it off before the friendship soured.
“It’s not a big deal,” she added, clearly knowing I hadn’t taken it well. “You’re not meant to stay in touch with the first girl you kiss.”
I laughed. “You know, at the time I thought that was one hell of a kiss,” I murmured, and she laughed in agreement. “But now, looking back . . .”
“It was terrible.”
“It was terrible,” I echoed, and she and I both burst into laughter again. “I wished for a long time that I could travel back and have a redo.”
“It was perfectly terrible,” she added fondly. “It really set up the next guys after you to seem like great kissers.”
“It was a public service,” I said, trying to sound carefree even as the thought of the next guys made me twinge with jealousy. I’d bet anything that kissing Dove now would be amazing.
“And I’m sure your first kiss being a gangly, little zookeeper’s kid really set up all the supermodels and actresses for you in contrast,” she added with a wink.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice fading away as I stared back at the ocean. “Well, I’m going this way.”
“Cool,” she replied, bouncing awkwardly on her toes. “Thanks for the help with the birds.”
“You’re welcome. Thank you for letting Cody film it.”
She shrugged. “It’s what interim directors do.”
I grinned and gave her a half-wave as I turned down the gravel road to the Holloway Estate. I waited until she’d walked out of view before I fished out my necklace from under my T-shirt and inspected the worn golden coin hanging by a magnet from it—the coin a gangly, little zoo kid had split her hand open trying to retrieve for me.