15. Chapter 15
Presley
“How dare you disrespect me, Falgon. I’m the leader of this team, and you will do as I say,” I recite the line to Briggs, who’s leaning against the counter, a screenplay in front of him, as I pace around the front part of the bookshop.
It’s the next Monday and Briggs had to work all day, so I came over an hour before closing to keep him company. It was a slow day, so he closed the store after I got here and now he’s running lines with me, something he offered to do yesterday when we took a bike ride up to the lighthouse on the opposite side of the island. The bike ride was fun and the lighthouse was . . . just a lighthouse. But I was with Briggs, so we could have been looking at a random palm tree or counting blades of grass and I’d have been happy. Okay, maybe not counting blades of grass. Or maybe even that? Briggs can find a way to make me laugh no matter what we’re doing .
“But what do you even know of the Syndarians, Callis? They will trample all over us with this plan.” Briggs says his line with a strange alien voice that sounds a little like he’s sucked on some helium.
“Stop,” I say through a laugh. “Falgon is this like massively huge battle warrior.”
“Who’s playing him?”
“Landon West,” I say, picturing the popular Australian actor, with his dark-blond hair and light-blue eyes. He’s mainly done superhero movies up until this point. Not that an intergalactic warrior is all that different.
“Oh, right,” he says, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Of course. He’ll make a great battle warrior.”
“And Callis’s love interest.”
“So, like an enemies-to-lovers sort of thing?”
I cock my head to the side. “Well done, knowing your tropes.”
“You can thank Marianne McMannus for that.”
“I suppose growing up with a mom who owns a bookstore, it would be a shame if you didn’t know at least some literary themes.”
“It would,” he agrees.
“Impressive, Briggs Cyrano Dalton,”
He snorts out a laugh. “Nope.”
“Drat,” I say, stomping a foot for added emphasis .
“Okay, let me try the line again,” he says, clearing his throat and saying it once more with a deeper baritone this time around.
“Better?” he asks after he’s read it.
“Much better,” I say.
I’m not even sure why I’m running lines with Briggs right now. I usually do it when I get a script so I can familiarize myself with the character and figure out how much time I’ll need to memorize it. But I haven’t done it yet, because when I first got this script I was busy shooting another film, and then I went and had a breakdown for all the world to see. So, trying to work on this script right now may be completely pointless.
Briggs looked online for any news when I first arrived at the bookshop, just in case. There was nothing new. No articles saying I’d been dropped. For all the general public knows, I’m still playing Callis Astron. No matter how many petitions have been sent in hopes of that changing.
Not that I know about any petitions in particular, but I can safely assume there are some. There would be, even if I didn’t have a viral video of me losing it out there. People always have opinions, especially about such a well-loved story. No one could possibly measure up to how they pictured it in their head.
“Okay,” Briggs says. “Next line.”
“Give me a hint,” I say, giving him my best sheepish grin. I guess it’s good I’m prepping now, just in case.
“Listen here, Falgon— ”
“Got it,” I say, cutting him off before he gives too much away. I take in a big inhale. “Listen here, Falgon. We don’t need to know anything about the Syndarians. All we need to do is go in there and obliterate them. And if you don’t think I can lead this team, then you can get back on your lunastrider and go back to Arcturus.”
“Nailed it,” Briggs says, with a sort of proud-looking dip of his chin. Then he scrunches his nose, before pushing his glasses up. “What’s a lunastrider?”
“It’s like a horse, but bigger and scarier,” I say.
“That sounds cool. Do you get to ride one?”
“Of course. But for me it will be riding a mechanical rig against a green screen, and my lunastrider will be done with CGI in postproduction.”
“You ruin all the magic.”
“You’re welcome.”
We’re smiling at each other now. We’ve been doing that a lot lately. Especially since we’ve been on our own the past few days because Scout hasn’t been able to babysit us since our afternoon of beach volleyball. So, we had to do the bike ride to the lighthouse and the boogie boarding the day before on our own.
I knew that’s why Briggs invited Scout along, even though he didn’t tell me so. But after we kissed that last time, suddenly Scout was joining us on our summer activities. I don’t mind— she’s a great kid. But I’ve also enjoyed these past couple of days without her.
Briggs snaps out of our unintentional staring contest first. He looks down at the script.
“Okay,” he says. “Where were we?” He scans down the document with a finger until he finds it, tapping on the dialogue where we left off.
He clears his throat. “I don’t like your ways, Callis.”
I think for a second before the line comes to me. “You don’t have to like them; you just have to let me lead.”
“Good. Okay, so it says that next Callis takes a step forward and puts her hand on Falgon’s chest,” Briggs says, reading the direction.
“Right. And then the next line is . . . hold on, don’t tell me,” I say, holding out a hand and closing my eyes, trying to remember. I open them when the words come to me, and I start pacing again as I recite them.
“I need you to trust me, Falgon. You’re second in command, but the team looks to you before me. If you show them you trust me, then they will also trust me.”
“I want to trust you,” Briggs says, reading Falgon’s line, attempting to use the deep baritone voice as he reads.
“I . . .” I stop talking, trying to think of what’s next. I only studied it a bit when I first arrived here, so I should cut myself some slack. Still, this is something I’m usually good at .
“What’s next?” I ask him.
He looks down at the script. “Then . . . Falgon leans in and kisses Callis.”
“Right,” I say, with a nod. “And then the next line is . . .” I stop to try to remember what happens after the kiss.
“Do you . . . need to practice that part?” Briggs asks.
“What part?” I say, pinching my brows together.
“The . . . kiss?” He lifts a shoulder, briefly. “I mean, if you need to practice that, we could . . . I could . . .” He stops talking.
“Yes,” I say, quickly. “I could definitely use some help with that.”
Presley James, you naughty woman.
I’m lying. This is a lie. I’ve never needed to practice a kiss while running lines in my entire career. But if Briggs is putting a kiss on the table under the guise of practicing for this movie with me, then I’m not passing it up.
He takes a step toward me, and I do the same, until we’re standing in front of each other.
“So . . . I guess you should say your line again,” he says.
I nod. “Okay. Um . . . If you show them you trust me, then they will also trust me.” My voice comes out soft this time, nothing like the warrior I’m supposed to be playing in this movie.
“I want to trust you,” Briggs says Falgon’s line, his voice also not the one he was doing before. It’s just him now .
We stare at each other for just an instant, and then his arms are around me, his hands at my back, and I barely can take in a breath before his lips are on mine and my hands instinctively move up to his face, my fingers curving around his jaw.
It’s not soft, it’s not timid. It’s straight-up passion in lip form as he holds me against him, his mouth moving in time with mine. This kiss is feverish and desperate. His hand moves up my back and into my hair and I feel like I’m on fire, heat moving from my head to my toes.
This is the best practice kiss ever, even though the one we shoot will be nothing like this. Not the way Briggs is running his tongue over my bottom lip, because that’s considered bad etiquette when filming. No tongues allowed. But right now, it’s good etiquette. The very best kind of etiquette.
His hand has moved from my hair to my neck and he’s left my mouth to kiss a path down my jaw, to a spot just below my ear, and I feel like I might melt. My legs feel like JELL-O. I’m barely standing.
A knock on the glass door of the bookstore has us pulling apart from each other like we’ve just been caught doing something criminal. It takes a second for me on my newborn-calf-like legs to right myself.
We both look over to see who just ruined the second-best kiss of my life (the first being on the boat), and I instantly recognize the bratty Betty lady, her hands on the glass, cupping her face as she looks inside. That massive sun visor is still on her head, even though the sun is setting now.
She yells something through the glass that neither of us can decipher, and Briggs walks over to the door, unlocking it before opening it up.
“You’re not supposed to be closed yet,” she says, pointing to the open hours sign on the door.
“We had to close early,” Briggs tells her.
“Why, so you could lock lips with that gal?” She points to me, and I’m torn between trying not to laugh and also glaring at the woman because she ruined my moment with Briggs. Forget bratty—she’s freaking moment-ruining Betty.
“You can come back tomorrow,” Briggs offers.
“You can’t sell me a book tonight?” She scowls at him.
Briggs looks to me, and I give him a why-not shrug. I kind of hate the woman for interrupting our practice kissing, but she’s stubborn, and the sooner he helps her out, the sooner she’ll leave.
He opens the door and ushers her in with a wave of his hand. She walks in, her nose lifted upward, like she hates the smell of the place.
“I need some book by Sunny Palmer,” she says. “What kind of name is that? I hope it’s a pen name, because if it’s real, she should change it.”
“Let me show you where it is,” Briggs says, walking her over to the fiction section where I bantered with him that first day I’d escaped from the resort. What a whirlwind it’s been. It feels like so long ago. But it really wasn’t. Three weeks, that’s all.
And it’s only taken me three weeks to realize that I want to keep him. I’ve had the thought before, but more along the lines that I don’t want to lose him when the summer is over. But now I want him for keeps. I know how that sounds, like how I take souvenirs from the set of a movie I worked on.
But he wouldn’t be a souvenir—he’d be mine. All mine.
This isn’t just a crush, or a summermance; it’s full-blown, I’d-like-to-see-where-this-goes, possible feelings of love happening right now.
It could be full-blown love for all I know, since I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before. I thought I was with Zac Efron, but then I got stuck in his trailer window and realized it was totally one sided.
What I’m feeling is very different. It’s brain consuming and body snatching. Is that love? I think it might be. And I could be wrong, but I think Briggs feels the same.
I should tell him how I feel. I should just lay it all out there. I know we come from different worlds, and I know Briggs has no desire to be part of what I have to offer, but we could figure it out . . . Couldn’t we?
They locate the book, and then mean Betty talks Briggs’s ear off as they walk toward the register, saying something about an air freshener, but I’m only half listening because my attention is on Briggs, the half-smile on his face as he helps the crotchety woman, and how handsome he is when he fidgets with his glasses.
Rude Betty pays for her book, and then he walks her to the door.
She turns back to look at me. “Stop slouching,” she says, pointing a bony finger at me.
“Yes, ma’am.” I say, doing just as she commands. Honestly, I never thought I had bad posture until I met this surly woman.
She makes some sort of harrumph sound as she leaves, and Briggs shuts the door and locks it behind her.
“Well, she’s gone,” he says when he turns back toward me.
“Yes,” I say, weaving my hands behind my back and rocking on my heels. And thank goodness for that because I would very much like to get back to the kissing practice.
Briggs clears his throat. “So, should we run more lines?”
“Yes,” I say, a little too quickly. “I was kind of hoping to go over that last scene, just one more time.”
He gives me a knowing smile and walks toward me, my body beginning to hum just in anticipation of his nearness.
“Hello! I’m here,” Scout yells from the back entrance of the shop, and like we planned it, both Briggs’s and my shoulders drop at the same time.
Foiled again .
“We’re up front,” Briggs calls out. He gives me a disappointed-looking smile, probably mirroring the one on my face.
“Oh good,” Scout says as she comes in through the back of the store, her ponytail swishing behind her. “Mom wants to know if you two want to come play games with us tonight.”
Briggs sighs, and it’s long-suffering, like this is the hardest task he’ s ever been asked to do.
“Sounds good,” I answer for the both of us.
Thank goodness we have so much more summer to go. There’s plenty of time for me to explore these feelings for Briggs and see if he feels them back. Plenty of time to take this summermance to a full-blown romance. I just hope Briggs feels the same way.