Highland Hideaway

Chapter 1 Summer

ONE

SUMMER

Somewhere, an alarm is beeping, and it’s making me want to die. I groan, roll over, and bury my face into my pillow.

“Summer. Wake up.” A hand shakes my shoulder.

“Gimme five minutes,” I mumble, trying to suffocate myself with my pillowcase.

The alarm is turned off, but the hand keeps shaking me. “Babe, listen. Don’t panic, but you’re going viral.”

I jolt awake, immediately panicking.

I’m in my pink bedroom. Morning sunlight filters through my curtains. My social-media-manager-slash-best-friend Lulu Dey is perched on the end of my puffy quilt. She’s rocking a red lip and a Chanel minidress, even though the clock on my bedside table says it’s just turned eight a.m.

“What?” I croak at her, wiping dried drool off my cheek. My head is banging.

Lulu passes me a frappuccino, her thick black braid swinging. “Here,” she says soothingly. “Take this. It’ll help.”

“What do you mean I’m going viral?” I scoot back against my pillows and chug straight whipped cream. “One of my posts did well?”

Lulu bites her lip. “How much do you remember from Bryce’s party last night?” she asks carefully.

Right. I was at a party last night. Lots of other influencers. Lots of jelly shots. Lots of people forcing me to shoot viral dances with them.

Ugh.

The memories come back through a fog. It wasn’t a good party. The music was unbearably loud, shaking the walls, and the disco strobes were blinding. And everywhere I looked, other influencers were filming.

That’s the problem with influencer parties. You’re always being recorded, so you have to be on all the time. And last night I felt…off. I did my best, downing shots to pep myself up, trying to be nice and happy and bubbly, but it didn’t work.

I remember the rising feeling of overstimulation in my chest. I remember stumbling to the bathroom for a second of peace. And then…

“Oh,” I whisper. “Oh no.”

Lulu passes me my phone. As soon as I switch it on, I’m bombarded with message notifications.

OMFG

Girl, what happened last night??

Lmao you are so messy

I wince and open my Picturegram. The very first video that pops up is of me crying on the floor of the bathroom. My face is red. My chest is heaving. I’m snotty and disgusting. There’s a toilet in the background of the shot.

“What’s wrong, Summer?” a girl asks from behind the camera. I’m not sure who she is, but I can hear muffled laughter, like there’s a crowd of other influencers in the bathroom watching me.

“My lipstick!” drunk me cries out, lifting a golden tube. The lipstick has snapped off.

I gasp, and Lulu pats my back soothingly.

“Oh, babe,” the girl behind the camera coos. “It’s okay! I know it’s so sad, but you can totally get a new one.”

Drunk me looks up at the camera, my eyes shimmery with tears. Mascara is dripping down my cheeks. My bottom lip wobbles dramatically.

“But it was limited edition!” I wail, dissolving into tears. The video mercifully ends, and I’m left staring at a frozen shot of me sprawled out on the bathroom floor sobbing.

“Oh my God,” I whisper, scrolling down to the comments. They’re worse than I imagined.

This is the most embarrassing thing I’ve seen in my life

How spoiled can you get??

Imagine being so shallow that breaking your lippie is your biggest life problem.

This is honestly disgusting.

My cheeks heat. Yes, it’s embarrassing that I drunkenly cried, but it’s not disgusting, is it?

Plus, it was a really nice lipstick. My perfect my-lips-but-better shade.

Suddenly, my phone is pulled out of my hands. “Nope,” Lulu says. “No reading comments.” She hands me a paper bag. I peek inside. It’s full of cake pops. “Eat these and let me handle this.”

“We can bury this, right?” I say hopefully, shoving a cake pop in my mouth.

If anyone can help me recover from this, it’s Lulu. We met at a brand party two and a half years ago, right at the beginning of my influencer career. I was working two retail jobs at the time, and I was reeling from the attention my silly little outfit videos were getting online.

One minute, I was recording myself altering thrifted clothes. The next, I had video after video going viral, and an inbox full of brand offers. That brand party was the first sponsored event I’d ever been invited to. I wore a pink flapper dress I’d sewn myself and a pair of cowboy boots.

Lulu spotted me hiding in the corner and dragged me around, introducing me to people. By the end of the night, my contact list was twice as long. When I thanked her, she’d just shrugged.

I’ll do that and more if you hire me as your manager. You’ve got potential. Might need to tweak how you dress, though. The outfit is literally adorable, I want twenty—but it’s not what’s trending. You need clicks if you’re going to make this a career.

She’s managed me ever since. She’s the reason I was able to do social media full time. She’ll be able to fix this.

“To be honest, it’s barely big enough to bury,” Lulu says, busily typing a message on her phone. “I mean, the optics aren’t great, but you’re not actually doing anything wrong. We’ll play it off as a ‘real moment.’”

I mournfully suck some more whipped cream off my frappuccino.

The clack of Lulu’s manicure on her phone screen pauses.

“Summer.” Her brown eyes are serious. “Are you, like, okay? Is this a sign of an impending breakdown? Strategically, it’s not a great time to take a break.

We’ve got the Icons Only dress line collaboration set up and ready to go as soon as you hit five million followers, and you’re so close.

I know that’s, like, your big career dream…

” She trails off, chewing her lip as she thinks.

I blink a lot. “No! Not a breakdown at all! I’m a bit tired, but—”

Lulu relaxes. “Well, it’s a good thing you’re about to go on a paid holiday,” she says. “You need to get moving, by the way. Your car leaves in thirty.”

It takes a few seconds for the words to sink in. Then my eyes widen, and I jump out of bed. Scotland.

I’d almost forgotten. I’m scheduled for a week-long sponsored stay at a luxury spa in the Highlands. The brand reached out a few months ago to ask if I’d be interested in a free VIP package in exchange for a few posts. I’ve never said yes to a brand deal faster.

“Yes,” Lulu says as I stumble across the room and plop down in front of my dresser.

“Somehow, I thought the promise of men in kilts would get you up. You can relax in Scotland. Eat some shortbread. Drink some…mineral water? I bet their water is full of minerals.” She thinks.

“Oh, and try to get some dick. This dry spell has gone on long enough.”

“I’ve been busy with work,” I protest, grimacing at my face.

I have makeup smeared all over me. “God. I’m a mess.

” I scrub at my skin with cotton rounds and quickly get dressed in the outfit I laid out last night.

It’s adorable—a matching pink skirt and blazer, a vintage cream blouse, and knee-high socks with little bows on them.

I slip my feet into my fave pink Chanel slingbacks and do a twirl for Lulu. “Too much?”

She looks me up and down. “It’s cute, but you won’t get good engagement in that,” she says bluntly. “You didn’t only pack pastel miniskirts and hair ribbons, did you?”

“Nope.” I smooth down the skirt. “This is just for the train. My suitcase is full of boring trendy clothes, I promise.” Hopefully I don’t freeze.

Since I’m scheduled to take dozens of fashion shots while I’m in Scotland, my case is bursting with skimpy photoshoot outfits.

I tried to pack some more weather-appropriate clothes, but I couldn’t squeeze many in.

I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’m going to a spa. It’s not like I’m planning on tramping around the countryside.

“Good. You know I love your inner Elle Woods, but right now, neutrals are in. I only want to see brown, taupe, and black on your feed, okay? No pink.”

I salute her and cast around for anything I’ve missed. My sketchbook peeks out from under my bed. On a whim, I grab it, stuff it into my open suitcase, shut the lid, and sit on it. “I’ve made a whole content timetable. Do you want to look over it?”

“Huh?” She squints at her phone. “No need. Just get the pool boy to snap some pics of you looking hot and then get a massage.”

I’m horrified. “What? No! I’m getting paid for this trip. What if the pictures don’t do well, and I disappoint the brand? I can’t let them down.”

Lulu snorts. “You try way too hard.”

She’s probably right, but I’ve always been a trier.

I yank the suitcase zip around, but it won’t budge.

“Who gets this opportunity, Lulu? Three years ago, I was living off ramen noodles, and now I’m literally getting paid to go on holiday.

It’s like, lightning-strike lucky. I can’t half-ass it.

” I tug at the zip with all my weight and fall off the case. “Um. Help?”

Lulu sighs. “God, I never get over how earnest you are.” She kneels next to me.

“You’re due a PR delivery while you’re out there, by the way.

I’ll have it forwarded to the resort.” As she tugs the zip around my case, a horn blares in the street.

“That’ll be your Uber. You have your phone charger? Ring light? Meds?”

I heave my huge bag onto my shoulder. “I packed extra.”

“Good. Don’t let this video spoil your holiday, okay? By the time you’re back, it’ll have all blown over.”

I nod and pull her into a hug. She’s right. This trip is going to be amazing.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Faye,” the resort’s manager tells me many hours later, smiling serenely. “It seems there’s been some miscommunication.”

“Miscommunication?” I lean tiredly on the handle of my suitcase, forcing myself to keep my smile bright.