13. Chapter 13
Presley
Napping on the beach might be my new favorite thing.
And yes, this is the first time I’ve done it. Ever. You learn to not fall asleep at the beach when there are cameras around, waiting to catch a picture of you with double chins, mouth sagged open, and drool coming out the side of your mouth.
Not that I look like that right now. I’m actually awake, or rather just woke up, and am currently lying under an umbrella on a padded lounger, Briggs on the one next to me. He’s on his side, turned toward me, glasses off, no drool coming out of his mouth. He’s just soundly sleeping, his light-brown eyelashes looking like feathery fringes resting against his skin.
I’m loving this little bubble I feel like I’m in with Briggs. My life feels so normal right now. Well, as normal as it can be, staying at a posh resort with people who are here to cater to my every whim, and with an entire world out there that sort of hates me right now .
But there are no paparazzi, no agent or publicist telling me what to do. My mom’s not here, trying to micromanage. I’m just lying on a beach, hot and a little sticky, clad in a yellow bikini, next to a man that I really, really like.
I’m not sure I’ve ever in my life liked someone as much as I do Briggs. I’d say it’s more than like. It’s a crush. I have a crush on Briggs Ulysses Dalton.
That’s not his actual middle name—I tried it on him earlier.
I’ve had crushes on guys before, and I’ve dated of course—my dating pool mostly consisting of men I’ve been on set with. Because how else would someone who hasn’t even taken a real vacation in fourteen years meet someone? Online? No thank you. Not in my profession.
And relationships? Yeah, no. Unless you count whatever that was with Declan Stone, which I don’t really. I think he was in proximity and I was lonely, and we were already faking it, so why not try for real? And now he’s dating my mom. So, that’s a fun thing I kind of hate.
Mostly I’ve just had showmances . . . which are short, on-set flings that fizzle out when filming is over. It might carry over to a press tour, but it’s never serious, and my agent likes them because she uses them to her advantage in some way or another. Planned sightings leaked to the paparazzi. Quotes from “reliable sources” about our chemistry or whatever .
Why do I play this game? I’ve never liked it. When I get back after this break, if and when people forget about my mistake, I want to do things differently. I want to be more real, but also keep some things private.
I wouldn’t mind keeping the man asleep in the lounge chair next to me. Could I? When the summer is over and I have to go back to my real life, will Briggs be part of it? Or is this just another showmance? Or maybe an islandmance? A summermance?
Not that there’s any mance happening, although I feel like things could move in that direction. There’s definitely been more touching. And that hug in the bookstore earlier today was everything. Exactly what I needed.
Yes. I’ve only known Briggs—whose middle name is a mystery—Dalton for a little over a week, and I’d like to keep him.
I shouldn’t be thinking like this. It feels too soon to be crushing this hard. All I know is, I should be more worried about the news circulating around, the possibility that I might lose the role of Callis, and right now all I can think about is the man lying next to me, the slow rise and fall of his chest.
He stirs and slowly opens his eyes, blinking away the sleep, to find me staring at him like a weirdo.
“Hey,” I say .
“Hey,” he says back, his voice sounding groggy, reaching a hand up and rubbing his eyes. “How long have you been awake and staring at me?”
“I have not been staring,” I say. “And I woke up only a few minutes before you.” This is sort of a lie. I have been staring. I’ve also been thinking about foolish things, wondering about preposterous possibilities.
Presley James, you silly, silly woman.
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Briggs says through a yawn.
“I didn’t either, but it was exactly what I needed,” I tell him.
He sighs. “Me too.”
Briggs has a smattering of hair on his chest, and I like that it’s a real chest. It’s a great one. Not one chiseled out of stone, acquired from many hours a day working out, or covered in spray tan.
Yeah. I’m still staring.
I very purposefully look away, toward the ocean, where small waves are breaking against the sand.
“What plans did I ruin today?” I ask him.
“Hmm?” he asks, not following.
I look back at him. “I mean, instead of coming here, what summer activity did you have planned?”
“Oh,” he says. “I was going to take you boating.”
“You were?”
“Yes,” he says. “Tubing, actually. ”
“Like where a boat drags you on a tube thingy?”
“That’s not the technical terminology, but yes,” he says, giving me a smirk.
“I’ve never done that,” I tell him. Mostly because my film contracts specifically say no water sports. Including the one I recently signed for Cosmic Fury .
“I figured,” Briggs says.
Maybe it’s for the best we didn’t do that. I’ve already violated my contract with the trampoline. I probably shouldn’t do it again. Except . . . except what if I don’t end up getting the part and I miss out on this? I could do it again, sure. And if I don’t end up getting the part, I may be taking an even longer hiatus than planned and have a lot more opportunities to do things I haven’t done. But when will I get the chance to go with Briggs? My summermance.
I sit up then, resolution on my face. “Do you think we can still go?”
He smiles. “I’m sure we can, if you want to.”
“I do,” I say, feeling suddenly exhilarated, and to be honest, kind of rebellious.
“Okay,” he says. “Let me make a call.”
Two hours later, I’m wrapped in a towel, sitting in the front of a speedboat on a padded bench, a can of Diet Coke in my hand, and Briggs is sitting across from me in the captain’s chair. He killed the engine after my second round of tubing, and now we’re just drifting, rocking slowly with the current, the only sound in the background the rhythmic gentle lapping of water against the side of the boat.
“This is nice,” I say, leaning my head back, feeling the sun on my face, the soft ocean breeze moving across my body.
“It is,” he agrees. “I haven’t been out on the water like this in a long time.”
“I feel bad that I’m the only one who got to go tubing,” I say. I’d offered to drive while he took a turn but then remembered I’ve never actually driven a boat, except the one time I played a Bond girl and was involved in a very intense boat-chase scene. But all the driving I did was on a green screen, and we both agreed that doesn’t really count.
“It’s fine,” he says. “I can do this anytime.”
“Do you . . . do this anytime?”
“Actually, no,” he says with a chuckle. The kind that makes my insides feel mushy.
“Briggs Albus Dalton, have you been working so hard you’ve forgotten to take time to have fun? ”
“That’s not my middle name,” he says, pinching his brows together in a very adorable way. “Also, Harry Potter came out after I was born.”
“Whatever,” I say, doing a sulking thing with my shoulders. I looked up a bunch of literary names last night and committed them to memory. I will figure it out if it’s the last thing I do.
He smiles. “And anyway, you’re one to talk about working so hard.”
“Yeah, but it’s different because I didn’t know any better. I hadn’t done any of this before. You have, and you still don’t make time for it.”
“You’re right,” he says. “Thank goodness you’re here to make me do fun things.”
“What would you do without me?”
I watch as the smile disappears, his gaze moving toward the water. “I’d be working in a bookstore and probably spending the rest of my time in an apartment decorated for a ten-year-old.”
I snicker. “It’s not a bad life.”
He shakes his head, looking back at me. “No, it could definitely be worse.”
“Yes, you could have cameras and stalkers and people following you around all the time,” I say. My gosh, it’s going to suck to go back to that. I haven’t even been away from it long enough for my new life to feel like a normal routine, and yet I’m already so used to not having to deal with all the unwanted attention.
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound fun,” Briggs says.
We sit in silence for a bit, my gaze dropping down to the blue-and-white-striped beach towel wrapped around me.
“Oh wow,” I hear Briggs say, and I look up.
“What?” I ask.
“Shhhh,” Briggs says, slowly making his way over to my side of the boat.
“Look,” he says, kneeling on the bench next to me, pointing out in the water.
I turn and look in the direction he’s pointing. I stare out for a moment, wondering if I missed whatever he was pointing at until I see three fins appear above the water.
“Sharks?” I say in a loud whisper, a little tremble of panic racing down my spine.
“No,” he says, laughter in his voice. “Dolphins.”
“Shut up.” I let my towel fall and get on my knees, facing outside the boat, so I can have a better look.
We stay there in silence, and I wonder if that’s all I’ll see of them, just three grayish-blue-colored fins. But then they bob up again, this time two of them surfacing a little more above the water. I spot an eye, and misty air sprays out of one’s blowhole before they submerge below the ocean’s surface .
“Oh my gosh,” I say quietly, even though I kind of want to squeal right now. I’ve seen dolphins in captivity, but I’ve never seen them in the wild.
They surface again, and one flips its tail up before going back under.
I look over at Briggs, watching him look out at the water, and I’m not sure why I do it, but I scoot across the foot or so between us, up against the side of him. And like we’ve been doing this the whole time, like it’s natural, he puts his arm around my waist, his hand resting on my hip. I lean into him and turn back toward the water just in time to see two dolphins breach the surface before going under again.
“This is the coolest,” I say, my face next to Briggs’s, his hand on me feeling warm and comforting.
“I wasn’t sure we’d be able to check this one off the list,” he says.
I turn to him, my brows pinched. “You put dolphins on our summer activities?”
He turns his head toward me. “I didn’t think it would actually happen. I’ve seen them plenty because I basically grew up here, but . . . it’s still always . . . exciting.”
His words have slowed, his eyes are searching my face, and there’s an intensity in them, like a fire has been lit there. He’s so close, I can feel his breath on my face, the way every part of my body touching his feels like it’s on fire .
I feel his hand on my hip squeeze me, and ever so slightly, his fingers press into the bare skin just above my bikini bottoms. Something warm grows in my belly, my senses immediately heightened. He smells like sunscreen and salt water. In the distance a seagull squawks.
He leans his face toward mine, erasing some of the small space that’s between us. I lean in as well, hovering there, just millimeters away, wanting—no, needing—him to erase all of it.
And then he does.
His lips land on mine, softly and tenderly. My eyes flutter shut and he increases the pressure, the hand not at my hip coming up to my chin as he cups my face, and our bodies instinctively turn toward each other like magnets, drawn together by some irresistible force.
We’re knee to knee now, our torsos smashed together, our arms around each other. His kisses go from soft and gentle to heated and needy, and I meet him with equal intensity. His hands are everywhere, at my back, on my neck, tangled in my hair.
One finds the base of my head, just like that first time we kissed outside his apartment, and he angles me back just slightly, giving him more access to my mouth. His tongue sweeps in and touches mine.
Our first kiss was a good one. But like in Notting Hill , it was sort of stilted and unexpected. This kiss right now is planned, thought out, desired .
The way Briggs holds me, how he tenderly explores my mouth with his, tells me he’s been thinking about doing this just as much as I have.
Kissing scenes in movies are never what they seem when you watch them on a screen. There are repeated takes and a whole room of people watching, making sure the lighting is perfect and that makeup hasn’t been removed or smeared. No kissing scene I’ve ever done has had any feeling behind it except that of a job, a role I was hired to play.
But this kiss with Briggs, out on the ocean with no one watching, no show to put on for cameras, and very much wanted, might just be the best kiss I’ve ever had.
We spend the next hour on the boat, intermittently talking and laughing and kissing and holding on to each other.
When Briggs fires up the boat to head back to Sunset Harbor, I briefly wonder if maybe we should go in the other direction, just leave and see where life takes us. It’s not really an option, even though I wish it were.
It’s dark by the time we get to the resort after docking the boat on the other side of the island and taking a leisurely walk back, hand in hand.
He stops us just before the entrance to the resort, our hands swinging between us, a beach bag full of our wet towels and other summer things slung over his shoulder. He looks at me and smiles and I give him one back .
A debate begins in my head. I could invite him up to my room. We just spent the late afternoon making out on a boat, and I would very much like to continue in my suite. To order room service and wear big fluffy white robes and just be together. I don’t want this day to be over.
“Do you . . . want to come up?” I ask, my voice sounding a lot like Julia Roberts’s character when she asks Hugh Grant’s character up to her room.
I know immediately as I say it, as soon as the words exit my mouth, that we shouldn’t. It’s too much. This is too new, whatever this is. But I want to. Who puts a time constraint on these things anyway? If I were going by what’s in the movies, we’d have already hopped into bed together, probably after that very first kiss. But this isn’t the movies and I’ve never been the type to do something like that. I like moving slowly; I always have.
Briggs lets out a breath. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s probably not a good idea.”
“Yeah.” I shake my head. “Totally. You’re totally right.”
Some hurt feelings settle into my gut, and it’s kind of unfounded because I’d just thought the same thing myself.
Briggs pulls me toward him. “You’re leaving at the end of the summer, and I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, and if I go up there”—he looks up at the resort before looking down at me—“that makes things more complicated.”
“I only wanted to kiss you,” I say, giving him a little pout .
“And I’d like that, very much.” He reaches up and fusses with his hair. I’ve noticed he does that when he doesn’t have his glasses on to fidget with when he gets nervous.
“Yeah,” I say. “But it’s probably not the best idea.”
Briggs stares at me now, and I can see his mind racing with thoughts. “I . . . maybe . . .” He stops and runs his fingers through his hair again. “Maybe not.”
“Briggs Barnaby Dalton,” I say, leaning toward him, grabbing ahold of the white T-shirt he’s wearing. “Why do you have to be so sensible?”
“It’s a curse,” he says. “Also, Barnaby is not it.”
“Crap,” I say.
He chuckles as he pulls me into a hug, wrapping his arms around me. I lean fully into him, my face against his chest.
I pull back and look up at him. “Maybe just one more kiss, like one last one.”
His answer is to lean in and kiss me softly, our lips locking together.
“Hmm,” I say, pretending to ponder after we pull away. “I think I might need one more.”
This time I go up on my tiptoes and touch my lips to his a little longer than before.
I pull out of his embrace and take a step back. “Today gets a nine point five. ”
“Ouch,” he says, mimicking being stabbed in the heart. “That hurts.”
I smile. “It was a perfect ten until you went and got all sensible on me.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “Can I take it back?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s too late.”
He hangs his head in mock shame.
“Okay.” I turn toward the entrance to the resort, begrudgingly. “I’m going to actually leave now.”
“Okay,” he says. “Good night, Presley.”
“Good night, Briggs Augustus Dalton.” I give him hopeful eyes.
He shakes his head. “Nope.”
I make a growling sound. “I’m going to figure it out.”
“I believe you.”
I turn and walk toward the resort on a lighted pathway beneath my flip-flop-clad feet, looking back over my shoulder at Briggs every few steps.
Just as I’m nearing the entrance, I hear footsteps behind me, getting closer.
“Presley, wait,” Briggs says, and I turn to see him drop his bag, and then, wrapping his arms around me, he lifts me off the ground and kisses me again. I hold on to his shoulders and let him, our lips moving over each other’s like they were always meant to .
He sets me back down and inhales deeply.
“Okay. That’s it, then.”
“Okay,” I say, a little breathless. I almost want to ask him if he’s absolutely positive about this, but then he says goodbye and walks away for real this time.