Chapter 1 #3
“The chaps are back on. The water bottle’s been tossed out of reach. Crisis averted. Bailey, are you in that dress yet? If you hate it, wear the black whatever-you-got. Let’s be honest, you’ll look amazing in either and both beat whatever sweatsuit you’re probably wearing right now.”
“Deal,” I say, looking down at my powder blue set of sweats.
Simon unzips the back of the purple option and holds it out.
Before trading him my phone for the dress, I switch the call to FaceTime.
Hollis’ flushed face appears on the screen with her red hair piled high, tiny tendrils spiraling out on all sides.
She looks to be climbing a steep incline inside her cramped movie set trailer, and her hair is nearly pushed up against the white-panel ceiling.
I’m pretty sure she’s wearing a weighted vest. Possibly two.
She squints down at us through the screen. “You haven’t done your blowout yet?”
I pat around my head while Simon shakes his somberly, as if a tragedy has just been acknowledged.
“We’re waiting until after she puts this on,” he says, then he shifts the camera lens toward the feathers.
“Oh, relax, you two,” I say, squeezing his shoulder when I walk past him.
“People come for my books, not my hair. Or my clothes. Or these feathers . . .” Before slipping into the bathroom to change, I pause to make an announcement, “Now, prepare yourselves for Big Bird’s uglier cousin to emerge here in just a moment.
You’ll only see this purple parakeet look once, so get your cameras and memory banks ready. ”
Hollis scoffs before yelling from her treadmill, “It’s Oscar de la Renta, for fuck’s sake, Bailey!” Then she repeats it so loudly that I can still hear it after I close the door and over my own laughter. “Oscar de la Renta!” followed by, “Goddammit, Titus, put your chaps back on!”
Still laughing, I turn to catch my reflection in the mirror, searching for any sign that I’ve aged since Rhett last saw me.
I lean in.
My eyes are the same light blue-green color with a collection of stubborn freckles scattered across the bridge of my nose, but despite my best efforts with retinol and microneedling, I have more tiny lines near each eye than I ever have before.
They come out even more when I smile. My hair is shorter than it used to be, but still dark auburn with highlights, reaching down to my bra line.
It used to graze my waist when we were teenagers.
If I close my eyes, I can still feel it floating out behind me while swimming through the cold lake water, forming a halo around my head whenever I tilted onto my back to catch my breath, sun heating my face. Rhett probably somewhere beside me.
Those days feel like another lifetime, but also like they could have happened just yesterday.
I trace one finger along the longest line that crosses my temple up toward my hairline when I smile.
What will Rhett think of me now?
We exchange a few casual texts every couple of months or so, mostly if I see something that reminds me of him, or on holidays when I remember to send him a greeting.
The last text I’d sent before the invitation to this party was a photo I’d snapped of an old, classic wooden speedboat like the one his parents kept in their boathouse at the lake next to ours.
It was sitting on the filmset of my last book-turned-movie, Tipping Point.
Seeing the classic wooden lines had caused this unexpected tidal wave of longing to twist up inside me, then stay lodged right there in my throat the rest of the day while I watched the filming.
Nostalgia for Cedar Shores, the tiny lake town where we spent our summers, is sometimes so strong that it feels physical. Like a time machine trying to suck my body back into a memory while my feet stay planted wherever I’m standing in present time.
The boat I took the picture of even had the same red and white vinyl seats and underwater mufflers sticking out the back.
Just like the one Rhett used to rev up early in the mornings to take out fishing with both our dads and Axel, my brother.
I’d have to wrap a pillow around my ears until they were far enough across the lake to muffle the sound before even attempting to go back to sleep.
The text I’d sent Rhett with the photo of the boat had said, Standing next to this thing, I can almost smell the lake water up my nose.
He’d written back, Gorgeous.
And even that had the power to make me blush somehow, pretending he’d written the word gorgeous to be for me, and not that old boat in the photograph I’d sent.
According to Hollis, he hasn’t been the same since what happened right before he had to leave the SEALs — the reason why he had that sling on his arm.
Which, if I’m being honest, is only half of why I’m so nervous to see him here tonight. What else has changed about him that I haven’t seen yet?
In the mirror, the dress sparkles even more under the bathroom lights, but as I go to set it down on the countertop to free up my hands to change, I stop short when I see what’s already there.
It’s not entirely out of place — the lone tube of lipstick sitting on end between the two sinks — but I certainly didn’t leave it there. I flip it over to check the bottom of the tube and startle at the name.
Peony Sunrise.
My favorite. The one I usually keep in my purse, and the one I thought I’d lost last week. Maybe it dropped out and Simon put it back here while I was getting my makeup done earlier.
I pop it open to add a topcoat over what I already have on, but freeze when I see what’s happened to the inside.
The tube has been deeply cleaned out without a single drop of color left in it. Like someone had scrubbed the case out after stealing every last drop.
“Bailey!” Hollis calls my name through the door. “I’m going to have to go rescue Titus again in a second. The chaps are off again. Do you have it on?”
“In a minute!” I call back, dropping the empty lipstick tube in the top drawer, making a mental note to ask Simon about it when I have more time.
I shimmy into the dress and spin around, shocked by how it’s instantly transformed now that my body has filled it out.
“Gosh,” I admit, checking out the front, then I twist my neck to see the back in the floor-length mirror near the door. “Simon was right. This baby just needed a body,” I whisper. My smile turns into a laugh at my own reflection. “Damn. Okay, Bay. You were wrong.”
This somehow beats the backup option.
Simon gasps when I open the door with a hand pressed to his heart.
“This is the one.” He sighs, like I’ve just emerged in a wedding gown. “Tell me you’re going to say yes to this dress.”
I grin. “I love it,” I tell him.
“You’re going to have to say yes,” Hollis interrupts, still slogging uphill. “The reporter from the magazine just texted that they’re nearly at the venue. You need to head over earlier than planned.”
My nerves shoot off like a rocket.
“Right,” I say, spinning around toward my reflection. I start twisting my hair up and pulling pieces down in the front, since there’s no time for that blowout, taking the whole effect of it in.
Still better than that ugly cat sweater, I remind myself.
Which leaves only one thing keeping my stomach in this perpetual nosedive: The possibility of Rhett cracking my new book open tonight to read it. Because the second he does, he’s going to realize that the entire thing was written about him.