Someone wild, and precious, and alive.
13
“SO LET ME SEE IFI’VE GOT THIS STRAIGHT—”
Seb is sprawled across my hotel bed, his golden-blond head propped up on one hand, blue eyes dancing with amusement.
“You’re getting way too much enjoyment out of this,” I tell him, pacing my room.
“—your ex-fiancé, the guy you left at the altar a year ago, randomly pops up at the same resort where you are covering a once-in-a-lifetime eclipse, and now you need me to pretend to be your fake boyfriend so you can save face in front of Jamie and his hot new girlfriend? Do I have that right?” Seb says, pushing himself into a sitting position, his back against the headboard, legs crossed at the ankle.
After our run-in with Jamie and Genevieve in the lobby, where I introduced Seb as my previously absent, Very Important Marine Biologist Who Used to Be a Photographer boyfriend, I dragged him into the elevator and up to my room to fill him in on the whole ridiculous story.
A move I am regretting more with each passing minute.
I’ve explained it all to him three times already. I amnothumiliating myself for a fourth. I stop pacing and come to sit beside him on the bed. For a moment, we just sit like that in silence, both of us staring at the black TV screen on the wall opposite the bed.
“Go ahead,” I finally say. “Let’s hear it.”
“Hear what?”
“That I’m a chaos bunny who creates her own disasters for reasons that surpass human, machine, or extraterrestrial understanding.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“You wouldn’t?” I turn to look at him, but Seb is still looking at the blank TV.
“No. Never thought you were a chaos bunny. Just a free spirit.”
I snort and roll my eyes. “Same thing. Anyway, thank you for playing along in the lobby.”
“No problem. It was kind of fun. I think I missed my calling as an actor.”
“Well, you have always loved the spotlight,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“Oh yes, and I know how much youloatheto be the center of attention.” Seb nudges my shoulder with his own.
“‘I swear I don’t love the drama, it loves me,’” I quote, lifting my hands in a helpless gesture.
“Shakespeare?”
“Taylor Swift.”
“Same difference.”
My lips curve into a genuine smile. This part was alwayseasy with Seb. The back and forth, the banter. When things got real—that was the hard part. But I know I have to be real with him now.
“So… as grateful as I am that you played along with my stupid lie, I have to ask…”
“Yes?”
“Why are you really here?”
“I told you, had to check out these beaches.”
“Seb.”
“I’m serious!” Seb twists his torso to look me in the eye. “Look, I was about to start making my way back to the States after the shoot, and I remembered you messaging me that you were going to be here, and I don’t know…” He shrugs. “It just seemed like it’d be something fun to do, and it’s pretty cheap to island hop once you’re over here. So I caught the next flight to Maui.” He says it so casually. Like he really just decided to come here on a whim, the way a person might decide last minute to take in a movie or a visitor to New York might hop the subway out to Coney Island.
