Scene 39

I hadn't arrived at Dillon's apartment expecting to find her and Sam resembling a pair of battered MMA fighters. Dillon had neglected to mention her own involvement in the evening, and it alarmed me when she opened the door looking like she'd been made to sit for a makeup class on special effects.

"That's a little more than a scuffle ." I paused en route to kiss her, surveying the half dozen stitches and darkening bruise creeping across her forehead.

"It looks worse than it is," she assured me, and when I pressed her on it, she told me she hadn't said anything because she didn't want to ruin my night. It upset me, her thinking I wouldn't want to know, and I was still a little mad an hour later after we'd dropped off Sam and pulled onto the highway heading west.

But it was hard to stay mad at someone you'd been counting down the months—the weeks, the days, the hours—to see again. Someone who took care of a friend the way she'd taken care of Sam. Getting her home, setting her up on her couch, insisting she call every few hours so she knew she wasn't dead. Someone who opened my door, carried my bags, and remained entirely unflustered by my backseat driving. Who ignored my growing agitation at the congestion crawling through the city, while all of London appeared to be leaving for the holiday on the same road we were on.

No. My anger was fleeting, and by the time we passed Swindon, I'd reached across the console of the Fiat 500—an amusing contrast to the last four months of luxury SUVs and limousines—and found her hand.

"I'm sorry," she said, interlacing her fingers in mine, "I should have been more forthcoming."

"I'm just glad neither of you were hurt worse." I hesitated, debating my next sentence, uncertain if it was something I should admit. I knew it made me sound insecure, but decided to continue all the same. "When you didn't answer last night, I worried you'd gotten cold feet. That the premiere might have scared you away."

From the tensing of her fingers, I knew she understood what I was asking, without actually framing the question.

"I'm not going to do that to you, Kam."

That , meaning what she'd done to Kelsey. The thing I'd had a lowkey anxiety about for the past few months of the rollercoaster I'd been on.

She glanced at me, giving my hand a squeeze, before turning her eyes back to the road. And with that, the topic was closed.

I must have found more relief in the simple reassurance than I'd realized, because the next thing I knew, I was waking several hours later to the sound of tires grinding across the gravel of a roadside turn-off.

I hadn't even known how exhausted I was, both my mind and body craving rest. Rest from the endless travel, the sleepless nights, the high of endorphins I'd been surviving on, and the inevitable crash after the close of the premieres. For the next month, there was no one dictating my schedule, demanding my time and attention. I was finally in a place where I felt safe, where I felt understood, where I could just be me.

"Where are we?" I blinked sleep from my eyes and looked out the window. We were on an unpaved road parked beside a livestock fence. Grassland pastures swayed with a gentle breeze, before disappearing into a sloping coast of sand. Beyond, a silver sea rolled out toward the horizon, covered by a gossamer blanket of fog.

"Somewhere between Eglwys Nunydd and Kenfig, I should think."

"Oh." I had no idea what she'd said. With names like those, I imagined it was a safe bet to assume we'd crossed into Wales. "It's so foggy." I tried the window, but the car was off, so fumbled with the locked door instead. Flinging it open, I was met with a wintry blast of sea air, heavy on the salt. "Are we near Swansea?"

"Not too far."

My gaze trailed down the desolate coastline until it came to a glow of lights illuminating through the mist. Miles away, a city was hidden beneath the dense cloud cover, but here on the backroad, we were entirely alone.

The sudden realization made my skin tingle.

"Care for a little hike?" she asked, her hand on the handle of the door.

It was cold, but not freezing. I doubted anything would ever feel freezing again after spending three months trudging across the ice sheets of Greenland.

"The last time you asked me that, I came home covered in mud and bug bites and bruises." But I was out of the car before she'd even opened her door. The idea of having a little time together before we got to her mother's house was intensely inviting.

She came around the car, helping me into my jacket. "Luck is in your favor." Her lips were against my ear, raising a row of goosebumps along the nape of my neck. "Not many bugs in winter in Wales." But just as abruptly, she stepped away, turning to stroll down the gravel road until she found a weak wire in the livestock fence loose enough to pry apart, allowing us to slip through.

What were the charges for trespassing in Wales, I wanted to know.

Execution without trial, she said.

I asked her if they would bury us together like the Lovers of Valdaro, united until the end of time.

She told me she thought she could have it arranged.

Then it was definitely worth the risk, I said, stepping onto the other side.

I followed her down an overgrown wildlife path strewn with cow patties and seashells until we reached the knolls of sand built up along the shale-covered shore. The breeze had intensified over the ocean, beginning to blow off the marine layer, revealing white-capped waters that lapped onto the sandbar.

Dillon stopped, taking a moment to survey the view, and then dropped into the willowy reed growing atop the dunes. I took a seat beside her, glad to find the ground dry, and surprised to discover the woven stalks of grass provided a welcome shelter from the wind.

"My mam can come across as standoffish," she said without preface, evidently picking up in the middle of a conversation she'd been holding in her head. "It's just her nature, as a solicitor. She can seem brittle. But I promise, beneath her formal English exterior, she's kind-natured at heart. She'll like you." Still not looking at me, she drew her knees to her chin. "She's a terrible cook. Every Christmas she insists on baking, and promptly burns every item she shoves in the oven to a char. My dad always claimed it was the driving force that made him fall in love with her—her dreadful kitchen talents. He said he worried, if left to her own devices, she'd have withered away and died." Her laugh was hapless. "It's one of the reasons Seren moved back home. To uphold Dad's promise to keep her fed."

Continuing to stare through the curtain of seagrass, Dillon absently ran her palm across the feathery seed blooms listing atop the reeds. "They both love Christmas carols, my mam and Seren. My sister will sit at the piano and play the same ones over and over again. Don't let on that you can sing or they'll try and cajole you to join them."

"And what if I want to sing with them?" I challenged pertly, tapping one of her tennis shoes with the toe of my slip-on Vans. "Not everyone is so Bah Humbug, you know?"

I didn't earn the laugh I'd been hoping for.

She went on, talking about the modesty of her mam's home—a two-story brick house overlooking Swansea Bay. Respectable. Orderly. But nothing too elaborate. Her room, she said, was unchanged from how it had been when she was a child, complete with posters of her idols and gold-painted plastic medals hanging on the walls. Her mam liked it that way, and Dillon admitted she didn't spend enough time there to care.

She plucked a plume from its golden stalk and rolled it between her fingers. "It's all just very—ordinary."

With a twinge of heartache, I realized she was nervous. Nervous about bringing me home.

Two days ago, she'd seemed to look forward to showing me where she grew up. To introducing me to her mom. But now there was an underlying hesitation. An embarrassment that hadn't been there before.

It wasn't difficult to guess what had happened.

"Hey." I leaned over, resting my shoulder against hers, drawing her attention back from wherever it had wandered. "I'm still me, Dillon. Yesterday didn't change anything. Not between us, at least. I'm still the same old Kam."

I could feel her unconvinced inhale. And the sigh that followed. "Of course."

"Then stop worrying, will you?" I collected her hand in mine, pressing our palms together. My nails, still meticulously manicured for the premiere, were a direct juxtaposition of hers—short and unpolished. I loved the strength of her fingers. The way endless hours in the sun brought out a hint of freckles across her knuckles. "Believe me, please, when I tell you this: I can't wait to meet your mom. And I love singing Christmas carols. I have a weird penchant for blackened bakery goods. And to be perfectly honest, I am really looking forward to seeing what posters teenage Dillon had hanging on her walls."

It was a relief to hear her laugh.

"Most importantly, however," I continued with pseudo-seriousness, "I can't wait to have the burning question answered: is it a single or double?"

Wise to my implication, she smiled, slowly, deliberately slipping her fingers between mine. It was embarrassing, almost, my physical response to the intimacy of the gesture. The way my breath caught. The way I could feel a shiver run the full length of my spine. With the simplest of touches, she'd set my body on fire, and based on the wicked gleam in her eyes, my reaction hadn't gone unnoticed.

"And which were you hoping for, Kam-Kameryn?"

Striving to restore my sense of poise, I matched her smugness with an arch smile of my own."Anything other than a trundle."

It dawned on me, then, suddenly—I'd never clarified that she'd told her mom we were in a relationship. I mean, I'd assumed she had—Seren knew, after all—but I wasn't sure. For all I knew, Jacqueline Sinclair might think we were just friends. That Dillon had told her the same bullshit story I'd told the Hallwells the previous year. That I happened to be in town for work over the holidays. That I had nowhere else to go.

"Your mom," I faltered, "she knows…?"

The dimples on Dillon's cheeks deepened. "Knows?"

"That we…"

"That we…?" She raised her stitched eyebrow. "That we, what?" she prodded, feigning misunderstanding. "Met in Hawaii? That you're a terrible driver and nearly ran me over? That I took pity on you and invited you to dinner—?"

"Hey—" I made to swat at her, but she was faster than me, securing my wrist in her grip.

"That by the end of that first night I was entirely besotted?" Her teasing tone slipped away as her expression grew serious. "That I've spent fourteen months falling ridiculously, hopelessly, madly head-over-heels in love with you? That you're so far out of my league, it terrifies me, but every day I keep hoping you won't notice?" She took a shaky breath, the pulse in her fingers pounding against my wrist. "Were you wondering if she knew all that?"

I stared at her, my mind spinning. I knew she loved me. It wasn't the first time she'd told me. But she wasn't one to wax poetic. And this time, there was something about the intensity with which she said it—the meaning behind it. I found it hard to breathe. When I swallowed, I felt like I was barely keeping tears at bay, and I wasn't even sure why. Maybe it was because I'd spent the entire past year worried I was in over my head. That the depth of my feelings for her wasn't entirely reciprocated. That I was bound to find myself hurt in an unbalanced, one-sided relationship.

And now, hearing her say that… knowing everything I felt was requited…

I managed a slow exhale, trying to drum up a smile. "I was actually just wondering if she knew we'd be running late to dinner?"

My teasing fell flat and I didn't care. The only thing I wanted— needed —suddenly, was to close the gap of the last six months of distance between us. I couldn't wait another second to remember the taste of her mouth, to breathe in the scent of her skin. To bury my fingers in her hair. To feel her against me. I didn't care that we were a hundred paces off a public hiking trail, overlooking a beach in a cow pasture. I didn't care that it was cold. That, as dusk arrived, the wind had found new vigor. I didn't care about the sand that found its way into my shoes, or the reeds that caught in my hair.

I no longer cared that Sand Seekers was being shown in theaters across the world even as we sat there. I no longer cared about the premieres, or the reviews, or the lingering apprehension that in two short months I'd already be back to filming—that once again I'd have to go through all the stress, the pressure, the highs, the lows, and the anxiety that came with it.

All of that disappeared with the setting sun on the languid Welsh coastline.

The only thing I cared about was that she said she was in love with me. And I desperately needed her to know I was in love with her, too.

In the aftermath of our beachside tryst, the magical insulation to the cold had eloped, lost somewhere along the way with my hair tie and one of my earrings.

"Tributes to the Welsh God of the Sea," Dillon teased when we gave up combing through the sand in search of the silver hoop. "Did you know his name is Dylan ail Don?"

I laughed through chattering teeth. "Of course you were named after a Welsh God."

"Or perhaps it was the other way around?" she goaded, earning an eye roll and poke to her ribcage.

We trudged our way back toward the car in the dark, at some point losing track of the wildlife trail we'd wandered in on. My pinky linked through hers, I followed behind Dillon as we waded into the waist-high grass, laughing each time I clipped her heels, and shuddering to think what kind of spiders might be hitchhiking home on my disheveled clothing.

I'd grown so cold I hadn't even had the decency to deny her chivalry when she offered her sweatshirt, leaving Dillon in her shirt sleeves and me bundled in the hoodie and my jacket, zipped all the way to my chin. When we got to the car, I was relieved to find my bra was still tucked safely into Dillon's back pocket, having survived the offroad trek and scramble beneath the livestock fence.

"You and your hikes," I chided, hooking my thumb through a satin strap and stealing back the black Victoria's Secret lace number I'd chosen in anticipation of tonight. I hadn't planned on a roadside detour, or a rendezvous involving salt and sand.

"Um, excuse me," said Dillon, holding the door as I climbed in, and then jogging to the driver's side, "my only intention was to stop for a beachside chat. You are the one who had other plans in mind." She yanked her door shut and flipped on the ignition, turning the heater on high.

I humphed, knowing I was on the losing end of this battle, but clawing to keep the high ground all the same. "As if you can claim you chose this secluded spot with anything else in mind."

She laughed. "Well, when last we spoke, I believe you told me I was going to have to work harder for it than that—so I didn't assume a roadside shag was on the menu. If I'd known you were going to be that easy," she brushed sand off my thigh, "I'd have chosen a tidier location."

With a pretense of petulance, I pulled my leg away from her, retreating the entire two-and-a-half inches the cab of the Fiat permitted. "I'm not that easy—"

"Care to wager?" she whispered through a smile, leaning across the console to ease the zipper of my jacket down below my chin. Her lips brushed my earlobe. "I've got a hundred pounds that say I could convince you of a reprise before I ever throw this car in drive."

"Game on," I challenged, without any actual conviction. The joke was on her if she thought I wouldn't willingly shell out a hundred bucks to keep her doing what she was doing. This was one bet I didn't mind losing. But as I leaned my head back to give her better access to my neck, I caught sight of my appearance in the sideview mirror, and bolted upright in a panic.

"Oh my God—I can't meet your mother like this!"

I looked feral. My hair resembled something out of an Eighties music video, wild with humidity and glistening with sand and seashells. The minimal makeup I'd applied before leaving my hotel was smudged or missing. My cheeks were flushed from far more than the chill, and my lips—I had to take a second glance—were swollen and… tinged almost blue? That was from the cold, surely…

"I look like…like…"

"Like we haven't seen each other in six months?" she shrugged, unperturbed.

I unzipped my jacket further, pulling the neck of Dillon's hoodie lower to examine a red mark along my clavicle. "I think I've got reed rash on my shoulder…"

"Amongst other places," Dillon smirked at me through her lopsided smile, dropping her hand to the gearshift and disengaging it from park. "I'll let you win this bet. It's worth the hundred knowing Hollywood's paragon of virtue is going to have to greet my mother with seaweed in her hair."