14. Chapter 14
Briggs
It’s been a week since I kissed Presley on Dax’s boat, and even though it’s been packed full of working and doing summer things with her, it’s been possibly the most difficult week of my life.
Not really, but having to restrain myself, knowing how good it felt to kiss her and have her in my arms, it’s been hard not to want to do that again.
I’ve tried not to touch her as much, just because it feels like it would be too hard not to take things further if I did. We’ve gone back to the friend zone, and I’ve confirmed my suspicions: The friend zone sucks.
“Give it your all!” Scout yells at our mom, who’s currently on the other side of a volleyball net from us, getting ready to serve. We’re playing two on two at the beach resort. I was more than eager to set up a volleyball net when Presley asked. Presley, in a white tank and running shorts, and my mom, wearing some sort of sweatband like she’s from the eighties, are on one team, with Scout and I on the other. And it’s possible we should have done this differently because for my mom and Presley, it’s like the blind leading the blind.
My mom, with a very focused look on her face, holds the ball up with one hand, and with an underhanded punch from the other, sends the ball sailing, but it hits the net and falls back on their side of the court.
“Oh, come on,” Scout yells, stomping her bare foot in the sand.
“Scout,” I say, my voice chastising. The kid is competitive. I blame myself for that. I was always telling her winning was the best when she was younger.
“This is the lamest game in history,” she whines.
“Go switch sides with Mom,” I tell her.
“Yes!” she says, drawing out the word excitedly. “I’m playing with you now, Presley.” She jogs over to the other side of the net, her feet kicking up sand as she goes.
My mom comes over to my side of the court, her face red from the late-afternoon heat. We closed the bookshop early when I invited my mom and Scout to come play with us. No one seems to mind around here about the hours we keep, especially during the summer. Off-season hours are always changing for the businesses that stay open during this time of the year .
I serve the ball and it goes over the net, and Scout is right there to send it back to me. It becomes evident pretty quickly that this is turning into a one-on-one game between Scout and me. But my mom gets a few hits in, and so does Presley.
After I’ve won a game and then let Scout win one (at least that’s what I told myself—the kid is really good at volleyball), Presley orders drinks from the resort, and they bring them to us as we sit at a small table in one of the cabanas.
“I’ve never seen this part of the resort,” Scout says as she takes a sip of some kind of frozen drink, a small umbrella hanging out the top.
“I don’t think I have either,” my mom says.
“Like, this is the most time I’ve ever spent on this beach,” Scout says.
“Me too,” mom replies.
I’d spent very little time at this resort growing up because it was mainly for the wealthier people on the island and the tourists. Not for us regular islanders.
But it feels like a regular thing to do now, having spent so much time here these past few weeks with Presley. And now Scout has gotten to spend some time here as well, since I’ve been bringing her along from time to time, mostly to save me from myself. I’d much rather be alone with Presley, but it’s for the best.
We went snorkeling, where Presley panicked about sharks, but we barely even saw any fish. We walked around the small nature preserve, where she spotted a baby alligator and screamed like a little girl. Scout loves to bring this up. We’ve watched a movie under the stars, using a screen and a projector from the resort, Scout sitting between us. She got to pick the movie and chose Notting Hill , but only after some coercion from Presley. We’ve even flown a kite, which is something I hadn’t ever done. And it ended up being a great time. All times with Presley are great times, though, even when Scout is there to babysit us.
Presley is amazing with Scout--answering all her prodding questions and asking her about boys she likes and the things she does with her friends. I sometimes wonder if she’s trying to find out what she missed out on, since Scout is the same age Presley was when she started acting.
I turn to Scout, a half-smug, half-teasing expression on my face. “But you have been to this beach before,” I say to her.
The apples of her cheeks turn the lightest shade of pink.
Presley looks to me and then to Scout. “What’s going on?” she asks suspiciously.
“Remember the teens that—”
“Don’t!” Scout yells.
It’s too late and Presley is too smart because she easily puts it together. “So, it was you and your friends sneaking onto the beach that day,” she says, giving fake-looking accusatory eyes to Scout .
Scout does have the decency to look ashamed. “We were trying to see you and maybe Declan Stone.”
“Scout,” my mom says, her name sounding like a reprimand, but I don’t remember her caring all that much when I told her about it the first time. I believe she said something like kids will be kids.
Presley leans toward Scout, a pi?a colada in her hand. “You know, if you tell me Briggs’s middle name, I’ll forget about the beach thing and get you an autograph from Declan.”
“No way. Are you serious?” Scout asks, her eyes wide as she looks to me. “I’m gonna have to tell her.”
“That’s cheating,” I say to Presley. I’d made my mom and Scout promise they wouldn’t tell her, but now it seems Presley is bringing out the big guns. The woman is relentless. She’s already offered Scout a hundred dollars to tell her, but luckily money doesn’t work on Scout. But an autograph from Declan Stone?
I look over to Presley and catch her pointing V fingers at her eyes and nodding before turning them on Scout, like a secret pact between the two.
“Scout,” I say.
“Ugh, fine,” she says.
“Briggs Ishmael Dalton, how dare you,” Presley says to me, and my mom snorts out a laugh.
“It’s definitely not Ishmael,” Mom informs her. My mom isn’t so easy to bribe, and she loves my middle name. I think she’s enjoying this game I’ve been playing with Presley. I don’t think she could be bought, unless Presley were to offer an in-person meeting with Henry Cavill. That would break her, for sure. But so far that hasn’t been on the table. Still, I wouldn’t put it past Presley.
My sister, on the other hand, is a lot easier to sway.
Presley shoots me a dirty look before turning her attention to Scout. “I’ll get you one anyway,” she says.
“Really?” Scout jumps up and down in her seat. “You’re the best.”
“Okay, if you won’t tell me his middle name, then how about an embarrassing story?”
My mom rubs her hands together like she’s been waiting her entire life for this moment. “Where do I begin?”
“Mom,” I say, a mostly fake irritation in my voice. “There aren’t that many.”
She shakes her head and looks to Presley, and a trickle of unease moves down my back.
“He had a massive crush on Candace from Phineas and Ferb .”
I chuckle, nodding my head. That wasn’t so terrible. “I did,” I say.
“He learned how to rewind on the remote and would watch her scenes over and over. ”
Presley smiles. “That’s kind of adorable. Ashley Tisdale, who voiced her, is—”
“Nope,” I say, cutting her off and holding out a hand. “Do not ruin her.”
“I wasn’t,” she protests.
“Oh yeah, he had a huge crush on Ashley Tisdale too,” my mom says.
“Apparently he still does,” Scout says, giggling and pointing at me.
“He made me send an email to her fan club,” my mom tells Presley.
“I was ten,” I say, but I can feel my cheeks getting warm. Maybe I should just tell her my middle name so we can stop this.
“I need something juicier,” Presley says to my mom.
“He slept with a blue stuffed dog until he was thirteen,” my mom says.
“This is not fun,” I say, swiping a hand down my face.
I was actually fourteen, but I’m not about to admit that, or admit that Blue Doggy—not a very creative name—is packed in a box in the closet of my old bedroom at my mom’s house.
“Oh,” Scout says, excitedly. “And didn’t he need a night-light like forever?”
My mom nods, smiling. “He did need a night-light.” She turns to look at me. “Have you ever gotten over that one, Briggsy? ”
I cover my face with my hand. “Of course I have,” I say.
But to be honest, sometimes I still consider leaving the bathroom light on and cracking the door. Only because I want to be able to see the face of my assailant should I ever be in that situation.
“Oooh,” my mom says, dragging out the word, her head cocked to the side, her eyes looking mischievous. “And you used to sometimes play dolls with Scout when she was a toddler.”
“I wasn’t playing dolls,” I tell Presley. “I was sixteen, for crap’s sake.”
“But you used to pretend like they were talking to her and do all those little voices.”
“Should I leave?” I ask the table. “I’d like to leave, or for the two of you to leave.” I point to my mom and sister, who seem to enjoy this too much.
“That is the sweetest,” Presley says, her hands pressed to her chest.
“I’d say probably the most embarrassing Briggs story,” my mom keeps going, “was the time he sleepwalked to the neighbor’s house, went in through their back door and ended up on their couch. They were so confused in the morning, and so was Briggs. He thought he’d been kidnapped.”
“What? It was very jarring,” I say, trying to defend myself over the laughter .
“Poor Briggsy,” Presley says, reaching over and tapping my hand with hers. I’d hold it there if my family wasn’t watching. I miss being able to do that, just hold her hand.
“But you haven’t heard the best part,” Scout says.
“Hey,” I say to Scout. “You weren’t even alive when this happened.”
My mom shakes her head. “No, I was pregnant with Scout, actually. But the best part is that Briggs was in his tighty-whities.”
Presley snorts out a laugh.
“So, imagine our neighbors—the Parkers, who still live next door—waking up to find a sleeping Briggs in his tighty-whities on their formal sitting-room couch.”
“Can we be done now?” I ask.
“No way, Briggs Wilbur Dalton,” Presley says.
My mom and sister both snicker at that.
“I wish I had named him that,” my mom says. “I do love Charlotte’s Web .”
The subject changes from roasting me to favorite childhood books, thankfully, and after another round of drinks, my mom and Scout head home. I stay behind for a bit, chatting with Presley, purposefully sitting across the table from her and not next to her with my hand draped across the back of her seat and fingers playing with the ends of her hair like I’d rather be.
I sort of wish I’d never kissed her, only for the sheer fact that we could be sitting close together right now, holding hands, or back at my place snuggling on my couch. But now that we’ve crossed that line, we can’t go back.
I don’t regret it, though. It was everything I thought kissing Presley James would be. And I’d like to do it again. But it’s for the best we don’t. Even though I catch myself staring at her lips sometimes. Like . . . right now, for instance.
“What are you looking at?” Presley asks, a knowing grin on her face.
Well . . . crap.
“Nothing,” I tell her. “Nothing whatsoever.”
She leans back in her chair, the half-drunk pi?a colada on the table in front of her, the condensation on the glass beading and trickling down, leaving winding trails on the surface.
“I think we learned something today,” she says.
“And that is?”
“I’m terrible at volleyball.”
I chuckle and she smiles. “You’re not so bad.”
“And you’re a terrible liar. Still, I’ll give it a six out of ten.”
“Really?” My brows move up my forehead. “I’d have expected less.”
“I’m feeling generous today,” she says. “I’ll rate it higher if you tell me your middle name.”
I give her a closed-mouth smile, shaking my head. She will never let this go, nor will she probably ever guess it. “I’m honestly surprised you haven’t hired private investigators. ”
She sighs. “I’ve considered it. But then I’d have to go online, and I’m staying out of that realm.”
“Speaking of which, I looked up your name and the movie this morning, and no news.”
She nods, an appreciative expression on her face. “That’s good.”
I weave my fingers together and place them in my lap. “Will it be bad if you lose the role?”
“It won’t be good,” she says. “It will set a precedent. I’ll stand to lose other contracts.”
“How many do you have?”
“Right now, I have three. I had four, but I lost one. Because of . . . the incident ,” she says, leaning in and nearly whispering the last word.
“And they all film when?”
She shrugs. “I only have Cosmic Fury this year. Another shoot starts in January, and the other possibly next summer.”
Next summer. Presley has her whole life mapped out—she already knows what she’ll be doing a year from now. And I don’t even know what I’ll be doing at the end of this summer. I should probably start looking for a job or figuring out my next step. But I sort of feel paralyzed by it. Like I’ll make another wrong move or bad choice. Still, my bank account is pretty much demanding it right now .
She sits up, looking like she’s about to leave. “Walk with me on the beach?”
“Sure,” I say, getting up from my seat.
We walk through the still-hot sand, though the sun is no longer glaring down on it, and onto the wet sand where the waves have been breaking, then farther until our feet touch the water. I tuck my hands into the pockets of the basketball shorts I’m wearing as we start walking along the shore.
“So have there been any more stalkers looking in your room?” I ask as our feet splash in the shallow water, a teasing smile on my face.
A couple of days ago while I was working at the bookshop, Presley called me, frantic because someone was outside her window and she was sure it was paparazzi or a crazed fan. I told her to call the police . . . Well, she called Beau, the one policeman we have on the island. He came over and checked and it happened to be one of the resort’s gardeners.
“Shut up,” she says, pushing me lightly on the arm. “I thought for sure I’d been found.”
“I’m still kind of amazed word hasn’t gotten out.” I think it’s made me realize that word travels fast on this island, but then it just sort of stays here.
“I know,” she says. “It’s been amazing. This has been the most perfect summer.” She does a little spinning thing, hands out toward the sky, water splashing around her ankles .
I want to grab her right now and kiss her perfect pink lips, but I don’t.
I tease her instead. “You know that it’s only June, right? Today is literally the first day of summer, officially.”
“Oh, that’s right. Happy first official day of summer to you,” she says.
“And to you,” I say, with a dip of my head.
She looks out toward the ocean. “Official or not, it’s been summer to me. Is it sad that I’ve been so deprived of the season that only three weeks in and I can already declare this one better than any other summer?”
“No,” I say. “I’ve had regular summers, and I can definitely say this already ranks in the top twenty-eight of them.”
She snorts out a laugh. “Well played.”
“I give it a six point one out of ten,” I say.
“Wow, you’re even tougher than I am.”
I think about all my past summers; most of them are blurry, or not very memorable. This summer could have possibly been listed under one of the worst ever, having had to return to the island with no plan for what to do with my life, and yet, it’s been kind of the best. If I had to base it on the part since meeting Presley, it’s a ten for sure. Or maybe a nine point five since I can no longer kiss her. Why am I so sensible, anyway? What a stupid way to be .
“We’ve packed a lot in already. I’ve never had a summer like this,” I tell her. “In fact, if we keep up this pace, we’ll run out of things to do.”
“We’ll just start the list over again,” she says.
“I like that plan,” I say, feeling something warm settling along my shoulders that’s not from the humid air. It’s just, simply, Presley.
I don’t want to think about the summer ending and us going our separate ways. I want to think about endless summers and infinite possibilities.
But I know that’s not how life works. So, I’ll just take what I can get and try not to fall harder than I already have for the woman smiling next to me as we walk along the beach.