26. Stevens

TWENTY-SIX

Stevens

So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard;

we're gonna have to work at this every day,

but I wanna do that because I want you.

I want all of you, forever, every day.

You and me. Every day.

~ The Notebook

W e clear our dishes together.

Alana leans her forearms on the island counter. “So, do you want to grab your book and read out on the patio with me?”

“Are you trying to get me to put on my reading glasses?” I ask.

“Who me?”

I walk around the island and pull her into my arms. I’m pushing my luck, but also too keenly aware we’ll be apart for the next few days and then it sounds like we’ll be borrowing time with her upcoming hectic work schedule. And who knows if my job will conflict with her free days.

“Yes, you,” I tug her in toward me.

“I can’t help myself. You in those glasses. It’s like my kryptonite.”

I close my eyes and shake my head. In what universe am I Alana Graves’ kryptonite?

When I open my eyes, she’s smiling up at me, still caged in my embrace.

“Are you going to kiss me, Stevens? Or do I have to do all the heavy lifting around here?”

I chuckle. “What the lady wants …”

I raise one of my hands and run my fingertips along the curls resting on her forehead and down her cheek.

“I love when you do that,” she nearly purrs.

“Do this?” I run my hand along her curls again.

“Mm hmm.” Her head tilts up and our eyes meet.

I bend down and brush my lips over hers. She grips the back of my shirt and kisses me like I’ve never been kissed before. I lean back on the island, pulling her in toward me. She runs her fingers through my hair. I’m dizzy from the connection. Weightless. Suspended. Her hands move over my back and then grip my biceps. I lace my fingers through her hair and hold her to me. Her lips go soft and she smiles into our kiss. I pull back and place one last kiss on her mouth. She drops her hands, running them down my arm one inch at a time as if she’s practicing topography, mapping out the dips and rises of my muscles. When she reaches my hands she grasps them, looks up at me, and smiles.

She lets out a contented sigh. We stand there gazing at one another. How did we get here? Alana’s such an unexpected development in my life. I wasn’t even looking for her—and to think, I had her all along. It’s mind boggling.

“What are you thinking?” she asks in a sated voice.

“I’m thinking how amazing it is … you and me.”

“I still feel like I’m imagining you,” she says.

She reaches up and runs her hand down my jawline. I bend my head and kiss her palm.

“You’re imagining me? How is that even possible? You’re … ”

“Alana Graves. I know.” She sounds slightly deflated.

I take her chin between my thumb and pointer and tip her face up toward mine. “When I’m kissing you … When I’m sitting out on a balcony eating tacos with you … When you make me laugh? You’re just Alana. My SaturdayIslandGirl. I’m not here because of Alana Graves.”

She smiles softly at me. “I know. That’s what’s so amazing. You really aren’t. And it means the world to me.”

I drop my hand, trailing my knuckles along her cheek, collarbone, shoulder, arm.

I need to be open with her—I sense how much she needs my candor.

“Sometimes it hits me—your fame. And then I have to recalibrate. It’s not like I don’t get overwhelmed by your status. I do. But that’s not who you are to me. It’s only a fraction, and it’s the least important of all the pieces. Plus, I’m still adjusting to the fact that you’re my SaturdayIslandGirl, and you're Alana who needed a water taxi, and … you’re a household name.”

“So is Clorox.”

I chuckle. “I’ll take you over Clorox any day.”

“And I’m your SaturdayIslandGirl? Yours?”

I smile down at her. “Mm hmm. You are.”

“I like that a lot,” she tells me. “I like being your SaturdayIslandGirl.”

“Does it feel odd to you too, putting all the pieces of me together into one person?” I ask.

“A little. But I have a solution.” She pushes away from me.

“What’s that?” I follow after her like a shameless puppy.

“I had something delivered up here this morning.”

“You and your deliveries,” I tease her.

She looks at me over her shoulder. “Hey. I’d go shopping if I could.”

Then she bends down and opens a cabinet under the big screen and pulls out a board game.

Scrabble .

“I thought this would help us consolidate all the pieces of ourselves into two whole people if we played in person.”

“I love that. Just so long as you don’t mind losing in person.”

“Oh, I have no intention of losing in person. So, as long as you don’t mind being humiliated while I watch you go down in flames, we’re good.” She smirks at me as she hands the box over.

“What about a wager?” I ask.

“Depends. What are we betting?”

“If I lose, I have to kiss you.”

She smiles. “Done. And if I lose—which I will not …?”

“You have to kiss me.”

She laughs. “Those are some stakes. You drive a hard bargain for a merman. And, you’ve got a deal. Here’s to one of us losing!”

We’re smiling like two people who have nothing better to do with their afternoon than sit out in the treetops on an island, playing a board game together while they fall deeper into something that feels pretty promising.

We set up the board out on the coffee table on the deck.

“So, the guys asked me about our date last night,” I tell her.

Alana lays down LAXER with the X on double. Eighteen Points.

“Oh? What did you tell them?”

I lay down FELSIC.

‘Is that a word?” she asks. “Or was that the boss of young Ebenezer Scrooge?”

“Ebenezer’s boss was Fezziwig. Felsic is a word in geology.”

“No fair using scientific terms.” She smiles over at me.

“I’m playing to lose here, don’t distract me.”

“You’re playing to lose now?” Alana asks.

“Think of what I get if I lose …”

She just grins and I smile back.

“We’re obnoxious,” I tell her. “It’s good we don’t have any witnesses.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been obnoxious like this before.”

“I know I haven’t. ”

She’s the only woman who’s ever drawn out this side of me to this degree. I reach across the board and lift her hand to kiss her knuckles. Just because I can.

“Now look at who’s being distracting,” she teases, and then she lays down DIETERS on my I.

“I told the guys about my epic home tour,” I wink over at her.

She giggles. “One of my favorite parts of the night.”

“One of your favorite parts? There was more than one?”

“It was a great night.”

“Unbelievable,” I agree.

I fill her in on the guys and their ridiculous questions and the way Ben taunted me this morning. She laughs all the way through my story.

“I didn’t tell them it was you. They just knew I was finally meeting SaturdayIslandGirl.”

“You didn’t tell them it was me?”

“I didn’t know if you would want me to. And, I guess I don’t want the complication. They already know you better than I do. They’ll have a lot to say when they find out—aspects of our relationship I don’t want to have their input on yet, if ever. If I want it, I’ll ask for it. Usually Kai’s the one I go to if I want to have a man to man. And more often than not, Ben jumps in uninvited. Ben’s not always a jokester. He’s got a huge heart. But at times he teases when I need things to be more serious. Anyway, that’s why. I just want the two of us to establish what we’re doing here before we invite the rest of the world in to spectate and make commentary.”

“I agree. And,” she pauses and looks over at me. Then she places her hand over mine. “There is a complication. It’s temporary, but you need to know about it.”

I’m quiet, waiting for whatever changed her mood to something more serious.

“I have a co-star, Rex.”

“Rex Fordham. ”

“Yes.” She rubs her thumb across my hand. “Rex Fordham.” She sighs.

“Weren’t you two dating in the past?”

“We were not.” Her voice has a finality to it. “I hope you don’t think less of me when I tell you this.”

“Pretty sure that’s not possible,” I assure her.

“Well, he and I pretended to be in a relationship. It was a publicity thing our people worked up. It made fans happy and boosted interest in our movies.”

I nod. I only barely knew about the purported romance between Alana and Rex because of my mother’s obsession with movies, Hollywood, and all things Alana Graves. I don’t track with the media and who’s who. If they pulled off a fake romance, I’m sure that’s par for the course in the industry.

She’s got a look in her eyes that tells me there’s obviously more she needs to say.

“Well, this time around, with Blasted coming out in less than two months, my Mother and my publicist cooked up a reunion of sorts—to make it seem like we’re back together.”

Her eyes plead with me, so I flip our hands over and cup hers in mine, brushing my thumb back and forth in what I hope is a gesture of assurance.

“Thanks to you, I told my mother I won’t pull off any charade with Rex past the premier of Blasted . But that means nearly seven weeks of me appearing to be Rex’s girlfriend again.”

“Thanks to me?”

“You encouraged me to set boundaries. When we were chatting on Play on Words .”

I smile, remembering that chat. The longstanding connection we’ve shared matters. It made a mark on both of us. It’s why we’re so familiar even though being together is also brand new.

“I’m sorry, Stevens. I wish this weren’t going on right when we started seeing one another.”

“Why would you need to apologize? For one thing, you and I weren’t doing whatever we’re doing now when you set up this recent publicity stunt. I don’t know much about Hollywood, but I’m guessing this sort of thing happens a lot.”

She nods. “It does. Fake news. Twisting the truth to help sell something. It’s all part of the business.”

“The bottom line is that your relationship with him is not real. It’s a part of your job. A publicity stunt. We all have things we have to do for our jobs that we don’t like, or that test our morals and convictions.”

“My morals have been tested, and I failed. I’m lying to my fans—again.”

“And it eats at you. Which shows your true character. We grow forward, not in reverse. You don’t like faking, don’t do it again in the future—if that’s an option. I don’t mean to overstep.”

“I won’t have to fake. I’ll have you.”

Her declaration sounds like a foregone conclusion, as if it’s not a question as to whether we’ll be together. I’m not a passing fancy or temporary diversion. She wants to see where this will go as much as I do. And I want her to know I’m right there with her.

“You will.”

It should feel odd to be declaring something so permanent when we only shared our first kiss last night, but that kiss was months in the making.

She stares into my eyes and squeezes my hand. “I don’t want the press near you.”

“I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to eliminate the inevitable. If I’m with you long term, they’ll find out. And when they do, they’ll want to know about me. And that could get a bit hairy for a while. But we can ride it out. If that’s what you want.”

“I do. I want this—to give us a chance.”

“I do too.”

Her tone shifts back to something more relaxed. “What have you ever had to do that tested your morals?”

“You say that as if you don’t think I have.”

“Sorry. I just can’t imagine how saving sea turtles challenges your morals. You are true to who you are. I admire that about you.”

“In most things, I am able to maintain my integrity. But I work for industries and the government. They constantly want to encroach on the ocean. Is that beneficial for humans? They sometimes think so. Profit-driven companies don’t care. But in the long run, the ocean is part of a whole series of interconnected ecosystems. And when we damage the ocean or demand too much from it, we throw off the balance of nature. The ocean suffers first, but we will suffer next. So, I delay or mitigate that impact by keeping big business from killing off endangered species. But I don’t stop them from depleting resources. I actually help industries expand. It’s not what I wanted to do with my degree, but it pays the bills. And it allows me to do what I want to do.”

“Saving sea turtles,” she giggles as if she’s remembering ten-year-old me and my idealistic dreams.

“Among other things. Come with me the next time you have a whole day free and I’ll show you.”