Chapter 5
LYSSA
Nothing was going to plan.
In my head, I was going to arrive in New Zealand like America’s sweetheart in a Hallmark Christmas movie, and enliven the small town with my effervescence.
There would be a few comical mishaps—involving a dog or the local bakery—before I was enfolded into the tight-knit community.
I would show them how to be quirkier and more open-minded, and they’d show me how to enjoy life at a slower pace…
In reality, Tanya had laughed at me—not unkindly, but she still clearly thought I was weird—and the party princess had glared daggers when Mike was in the kitchen.
Not to mention, the man with the beer had watched me move around the room like I was something dead and delicious on a sushi train.
So far, the only person I’d met who I actually had something in common with lived by herself in a crumbling house, like a leper shunned from society.
Meeting Cilla had felt like looking into my future, and while she was undeniably fabulous, I wasn’t ready to be like her, with only memories of my glory days. I had time for more glory first.
Some people said I was too much...but they were always the ones who lived tiny lives. I wasn’t going to dull my shine to appease the unimaginative.
Later that afternoon, Mike drove me and my suitcase a few blocks to his home, situated on the fringes of town. He said it was fine to leave my rental car where it was and I didn’t argue. I was still humiliated from booking an unfinished hotel.
Mike’s house was...unusual.
It had a decidedly 70’s flavor, and each room had a color theme, which the past owner (whom Mike pinned this on with an unconcerned shrug) had rigidly stuck to, making each room feel like a dream in a medically induced sleep.
The kitchen was turquoise, my room was purple, and the main bathroom was orange—not just the walls: the enamel sink and the bath— everything was orange.
I’d asked Mike if the clashing colors bothered him. He frowned and asked what I meant.
It was weird to be getting ready for bed when my body was ready to wake up. Fumbling through my suitcase for my pajamas, I took comfort feeling my precious clothes with their varied textures and weights. This grounded me, and I gave myself a pep talk.
Just because the script I’d drafted in my mind wasn’t currently playing out, that didn’t mean I couldn’t pretend it was.
Telling the truth online was what had gotten me into this mess in the first place, so if I had to romanticize my content to the point it was pure fiction now, then so what?
I wouldn’t be the first influencer to do it.
I had everything unpacked and was peeling back the covers of Mike’s spare bed when I realized my water bottle was empty.
I’d forgotten to refill it when I got off the plane.
This was bad for skin-care reasons but also because I’d had a video series called Hydrate with Me where I filmed myself drinking water throughout my day to remind my followers to hydrate.
It was a flippant series with a serious goal: build a subliminal association between me and my followers’ daily routines.
And Mike thought I just talked about toast.
Over the past few days of travel, I’d managed my channels by using premade content and turning off comments and limiting DMs. But that wouldn’t work for much longer, not if I wanted to salvage a commercially viable engagement rate.
Which I did. Paul had ensured that I would never get a job in fashion again, so I would need more brand deals to pay my bills.
Tomorrow I would get the last shot I needed for my “Come to New Zealand with Me!” travel vlog and thus launch a new era of content.
I just needed my car keys back from Mike so I could get around places to film—this country wasn’t very walkable, and I’d yet to catch sight of anything resembling public transport.
Mike had way overreacted to my driving. I’d listened to everything the rental car person had said at the airport and driven the whole hour and a bit to get here from the airport without incident, a fact which Mike seemed to be ignoring.
Caroline was right—her brother was overbearing.
His mustache was overbearing too. So was his symmetrical, tanned face.
It was just past ten p.m. when I grabbed my water bottle and padded down the hallway.
After Mike had shown me to the (viciously purple) guest room, he excused himself, saying he had to be up at five a.m. to go to work on a neighboring farm.
Then he’d given me a weird little salute and taken himself to bed at eight thirty.
This was why I wasn’t expecting to find him in the kitchen now.
Half naked.
Mike was bent over the faucet, drinking from the stream. I never thought the inability to use a glass would be sexy, but when I got an eyeful of Mike’s biceps, bunched up as he leaned over the sink, I froze in the doorway.
He was only wearing jeans, no shirt, so his massive shoulders and bare back were right there .
I couldn’t stop staring.
Mike turned the water off and straightened, doing a double take when he saw me.
Dark hair curled and swirled over his pectorals and down his gently rounded belly before disappearing into his waistband.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t notice the details of what a man was wearing—like the style or the cut of his jeans. I had only one thought in my head.
Holy dad bod.
“Hi,” I said awkwardly.
He dragged the back of his hand over his mouth, and I swear, my knees nearly buckled.
All of the many thoughts that rolled around my head making endless and constant noise stilled then, and one lone thought pushed to the forefront of my brain: I want to lick him like a popsicle.
Sometimes it felt like my brain was my own personal troll that I carried around with me, one that I couldn’t get rid of by silencing notifications or logging off.
I would be living my life, existing happily, and then a terrible and negative thought would intrude and ruin everything.
When I was younger, these thoughts came to me in my mother’s voice.
Now, they were mine. I didn’t know when that had changed—I tried not to think about it.
As I was staring at Mike, thinking about licking him from navel to clavicle, my brain chose to make space for a second thought, this one loud, and not in my voice. In Mike’s.
She’s not my type. Too much banana for one milkshake.
It wasn’t new to hear myself be described this way. It wasn’t even the meanest thing someone had said about me this week. But it was the first time I’d fantasized about licking the culprit.
“Alyssa. Stop staring at me.”
Guiltily, I jerked my eyes up to his face.
Then his words permeated through all the mental images of licking.
“My name isn’t Alyssa.”
He frowned, skin collecting in creases over his nose. He was only in his late twenties, too early for frown lines, and they didn’t suit him. The man was made to smile, not frown. A frown looked like an ill-fitted suit on him.
“Is Lyssa your full name?”
Maybe it was the shirtlessness, maybe it was the fact that his feet were bare on the parquet floor—it was low-key surreal that a man with such a huge personality had something as mundane and human as toes—but I told him the truth.
“My full name is Lysander.”
The grooves over his nose deepened. “Ly-what?”
“Lysander. You know, the bland-but-intense gentleman in love with Hermia but bewitched to fall in love with Helena? He eventually marries Hermia and they live boringly ever after.”
“What?” he repeated.
“It’s Midsummer Night’s Dream .”
“Oh. I think I saw that once. Worst three hours of my life.”
I nodded. “A lot of live productions get caught up in being overly faithful to the text. Shakespeare was writing for an audience of bored Elizabethans who didn’t have heat or whatever, so they wanted to stand in the warm theater for as long as possible.
If he were writing for today’s attention spans, you bet he’d have punched things up.
” I leaned against the doorframe and added lightly, “My mom thinks that’s a sacrilegious thing to say. ”
“Of course she does.” He studied me. “She named you Lysander.”
“It’s also Greek for liberator.”
“Cool,” he said, with a thumbs-up that felt sarcastic.
“Don’t tell anyone my name is Lysander. It’s weird.”
“You don’t say.” Mike tugged my water bottle from my hands and began filling it. “Well, rest easy, Princess. You’re not at risk of anyone here saying a full name.”
I’d forgotten I’d come into the kitchen for water. I’d gotten distracted by a lovely drum-shaped chest I wanted to lay my head on and rise up and down as he breathed. I wanted his ribs in between my thighs as I stretched out over him and he kissed the indents of my clavicle. I wanted?—
“Water,” I remarked uselessly, as he passed me the refilled bottle. “Cool.”
“Everyone in Woodville shortens things,” Mike said. “You may have noticed.”
It took me three whole heartbeats to remember what we were talking about.
“Kevin is Kev and Priscilla is Cilla,” I listed. “Tanya is Tanz. Everyone’s name is shortened. Is it a rule of living here? Because that would be the line between small-town charm and cult. In my opinion.”
Mike huffed a laugh. “It’s not a rule. It just happens. Who’s got time to be long-winded? A cup of tea is a cuppa. Afternoon is arvo. And why say Oscar when you could say dickhead?”
Something was bugging me. “But it’s important to make sure that people like being called by a shortened name, right? Caroline hates being called Caro.”
“She does.”
Despite the topic, I couldn’t help the warm flush that came from getting something correct, from knowing something. I was hard wired to want to impress people, and impressing Mike made me tingle.
He continued, “My sister hated living in Woodville, and being called Caro just reminds her of that. She’s a Caroline, and she always has been. Some people are full name people.”