Scene 41

I woke to an empty bed.

Every morning since arriving in Mumbles, I'd risen with Dillon at dawn, and together we'd walk to the waterfront, where I'd sit on the seawall and watch her swim from the boat launch to the pier and back again.

After, once I'd helped peel her out of her wetsuit, and snuck a kiss as we climbed the stone steps to the pedestrian path running along the main road, we'd stop in at Dunn's Coffee Shop, just around the corner from her mam's.

Dillon would order a breakfast bap and I'd discovered the wonder of freshly made Welsh cakes, and the two of us would chat as her hair dripped salt water into her tea and I silently contemplated vanishing from the limelight of Hollywood and moving to a one-horse town in Wales.

But when I opened my eyes this morning, Dillon was already gone.

There was a note on her pillow.

It's cold this morning. Thought you might want to sleep in .

I tossed the note aside. I knew it was neither the weather nor my beauty rest that prompted Dillon to rise without me.

Yesterday, while we'd been at the coffee shop, someone recognized me. I'd been too absorbed in conversation with Dillon to notice—too blissfully secure in the anonymity of my surroundings in the quiet seaside village. Mumbles, despite being a favored tourist spot along the south coast of Wales, wasn't exactly a place one would have their eyes peeled for celebrity sightings.

But a few hours later, as I'd been helping Seren oil her saddles in the tack room of her barn, I'd gotten a text from Aaron.

A photo had been posted on Twitter.

It was nothing damaging—just a picture of me holding my latte, my attention fully committed across the table. Dillon's right arm was the only thing that had made it into the image, thank God. But the user— firebrat2009 , just a kid, no doubt—had tagged @famousfacealert and @star_spotter, with the caption Kameryn Kingsbury!!! Eeeeeek ! Along with a bunch of hashtags. #SouthWales #Mumbles #kamking #sandseekersightings #addisonriley #superheroesdrinkoatmilklattes. As with all of the accounts dedicated to celebrity tracking, the post quickly went viral, with thousands of comments speculating on what I was doing in Wales, and where would be the most probable locations to sight me.

Just like that, the security I'd found in feeling invisible in the tranquil little town was stripped away. And though Dillon hadn't said much, her absence this morning said everything.

While I was dressing, my phone buzzed on Dillon's nightstand. I scooped it up, hoping it would be her, asking if I wanted to come and meet her for coffee. But it wasn't.

I stared at the caller ID.

Dani.

Of course. It was Christmas Eve.

We'd hardly spoken in months. The last time she called, the entirety of the conversation had revolved around her rebuking me for not getting back to her in a timely manner. I'd been in the middle of the promotional tour for Sand Seekers , flying to a new city, state, or country nearly every day. Interview after interview after miserable cheeks-hurt-from-smiling, laugh-at-their-unfunny-jokes-interview. Over and over again.

That didn't matter to Dani. All she cared about was that I hadn't called her back in a week.

"Well, I guess it's like they say, fame really does change a person, Kam." Then she'd hung up.

In some ways, she was right. Fame did change a person.

It made them paranoid. Anxious. Lonely. Vulnerable. Isolated. Sad.

Or at least those were some of the things I'd begun to experience in my newly minted career as it burst into the public eye.

I couldn't deny that in a few short months—weeks, days, even—fame had altered my existence. But not for the reasons she thought. Not for the parties or the money or the esteem. Not because I was someone different than I had been. Or at least not because I wanted to be. More than anything, I just wanted to be me. To exist in a world where my girlfriend wasn't afraid to ask me to join her for coffee.

I let the phone vibrate dangerously close to voicemail, then finally swiped to answer.

"Hey," I hoped I sounded cheery. "Merry Christmas Eve."

"Wow." The word didn't sound condescending, or even sarcastic. I waited for her to go on, to see where this was leading. "Just wow , Kam." In the background there was chatter interspersed with Christmas music. It would be afternoon in Palo Alto. They'd be preparing for the annual Hallwell dinner. "We saw your show last night."

"Is that her??!" Marcus's voice interrupted. "Oh my God! Tell her—"

"Shut up, Marcus! Jesus. Go jerk off to her photo on the cover of Vogue or something. Sorry," Dani returned to the conversation, "he's obsessed—he's seen it like six times. Anyhow—Tom and mom and I went to the IMAX last night in the city. Kam. You were a-maze-ing."

It wasn't what I'd expected her to say. Praise wasn't something I thought I'd hear from her. Ever.

"I mean, of course I knew you'd be good, but Kam… and oh my God, Elliott Fleming! That scene—that scene ! How does Carter stand it? How do you stand it? He's so insanely hot. Was he a good kisser?"

"Um, I don't know. It wasn't really something I was thinking about. It's pretty rehearsed, and—" And I hated his guts at the time , I wanted to say, but it wasn't something her overcharged heterosexual ovaries would comprehend.

"Oh, come on! The chemistry between you two was absolutely fire! That can't have all been fake!"

Wild how acting works . I bit my tongue, sticking to the safety of "I'm really glad you liked it."

"No, loved it. Mom even wants Dad to see it when it goes streaming."

Gee. What an honor . "Cool," I said.

"So where do the rich and famous spend their holidays?"

There it was, the subtle twinge of condescension—mixed with a dash of jealousy for flavor.

"I'm still in the UK, actually."

"Oh." She hadn't known. Which meant she must not have gotten anything out of Carter. I owed him big time. "Are you still filming?"

"Yeah."

It wasn't a total lie. It was the same thing I'd told my parents. The bulk of the second film's principal photography would begin in late winter, but I had spent two weeks in Germany shooting last month, so technically, filming had begun. I was just on a very long holiday break.

And it was none of her business.

"Dinner won't be the same without you tonight, you know?" Her voice carried a wistfulness to it, a sincerity uncommon of her. "I miss you, Kam."

It was odd. Despite the careless way she'd treated me throughout our friendship, the reality was, I missed her, too. Dani wasn't like any of my other friends. For everything that she was—her vanity, her hubris, her selfishness—she was still the person who knew me best. The details of my life may not have ever bore importance to her, but she was the one person who knew me behind my every facade.

And now, aside from only a handful of people—namely Dillon, Sophie and, oddly, Elliott—it felt like the rest of the world viewed me through a veneer. I was the face on the cover of Glamour Magazine , the smiling actress interviewed in The Hollywood Reporter , the girl from the movie poster—radiant, perfect, incorporeal.

I was no longer Kam, who'd wet her pants in the sandbox in preschool, and glued her hands to the fishtank in Ms. Coombe's third-grade class. I wasn't the girl who got her braces stuck to Cody Harvey's jacket zipper in PE as a freshman, or the klutz who broke a stem off her stilettos during the first dance of prom.

Only Dani knew that Kam. And it was a Kam I didn't want forgotten. A person I didn't want lost. And it was so easy to get lost in this world—to forget who you were.

"I'm back in LA at the end of January. Maybe we could get together?"

"Think you could squeeze me in?" She laughed to soften the tone. "Maybe a girls' weekend at SenSpa? For old times' sake?"

"I'd love it." It didn't dawn on me right then that my carefree days at our favorite spa were over.

We chatted a while longer, reminiscing on past Christmas Eves, and then Dani was summoned by her mother and we closed the conversation with the promise to talk again soon.

Slipping into a pair of Dillon's slides, I tugged my bedhead into a bun and wandered downstairs. Pots and pans were clanging in the kitchen.

I peeked around the threshold. "Good morning."

Jacqueline poked her head out of the pantry. "Oh, Kameryn." She still wouldn't call me Kam, and I continued to struggle to call her anything other than Mrs. Sinclair . But despite the formalities, she'd been a generous host and made it clear I was welcome under her rooftop.

"I assumed you were off with Dillon."

"She thought I might want to sleep in this morning."

The arch of her eyebrows assured me I hadn't done an admirable job disguising my disappointment. But if Jacqueline knew about the snowballing drama of yesterday's photo, she didn't let on.

"I see," she said instead, once again disappearing into her pantry.

I knew she blamed herself for Dillon's ardent recommitment to her training. Yesterday afternoon I'd heard her say as much to Seren. They hadn't realized I was in the kitchen, and Jacqueline had gone on, lamenting a comment she'd made about Dillon's focus.

Not wanting to be caught eavesdropping, I tiptoed with my glass of water into the hallway and up half a dozen stairs, before turning around and making a production of tromping down each step to announce my presence. The conversation in the lounge abruptly turned to plans for dinner, and what vegetables should be prepared.

Part of me had wanted to find a way to casually mention the article I'd seen pulled up on Dillon's laptop a few days earlier, the headline announcing Elyna Laurent's bold return to competition. She'd come up with an offseason win in Mexico City—a race Dillon had won the previous year.

It was that, I felt certain, that drove her from her bed before dawn each morning and into the ice-cold water of the bay. That which sent her on hours-long runs and cycles through the hills. Entire half-days spent at the aquatic center in the pool. But I left it alone.

Reappearing from the pantry, Jacqueline handed me four boxes of sugar. "Hold these, will you?" she said, before rifling through her fridge. She returned with several sticks of butter. "Tonight is Noson Gyflaith— toffee evening ."

Consulting a spiral index of cards, she pursed her lips, clearly flustered. "This was always Bedwyr's thing. I don't know why, after all these years, I keep trying to hang onto his traditions." Not looking for an answer, she plucked a brass pan from the overhead rack and turned on a burner. "Water first? Or butter? I can never remember." The recipe card was given a second glance, to which she only shook her head. "I've lived in Wales longer than I ever lived in England, and I still can't read the bloody language." Tossing the butter into the heating pan, she turned to me. "I would be lying, Kameryn, if I said you were what I'd hoped for for Dillon."

The unheralded switch from toffee-making to matchmaking jarred me, and I lost my grip on the box I was opening, spilling the contents across the floor.

"Oh God, I'm sorry." Embarrassed, I dropped to my knees, trying to recover the remainder of unspoiled sugar, along with the remnants of my bruised pride. So much for my misconception of her affability.

Welcome under her rooftop, my ass.

Jacqueline knelt beside me, calmly sweeping the fine white grains onto a paper plate. "After what happened with Kelsey, it didn't elate me to learn about your very promulgated career. I'd been hoping her next relationship would be a little less—ambitious, for lack of a better word."

I stared at the glistening granules sticking to my hands. What exactly was I supposed to say to that?

"But I was wrong, Kameryn—to judge you without knowing you." She touched my forearm, prompting me to look at her. "You are nothing of what I expected. You are a treasure. And any parent should be so fortunate to find their child in love with someone as kind, as genuine and lovely, as you are."

Before I could fully appreciate her unexpected words of laudation, she leaped up, cursing. "Damn it!" The pan on the stove had begun to smoke, the melted butter blackened on the bottom. She tossed it into the sink, flipping on the cold water as a hiss of steam rose to fog the bay window.

For a moment, her aimless gaze turned melancholy, but just as quickly, the sentimentality vanished, and she huffed a dry laugh, tipping her chin toward the trash can. "You know, just toss it," she said of the salvaged sugar. "I don't even like toffee." Busying herself with a bristle brush on the soiled pan, she continued with her forthright candor. "Tell me about your parents, Kameryn. Have they met Dillon?"

"They—" I hesitated, "well, yes, last Christmas."

Her umber eyes flicked up from the sink, settling on me for further clarification. After three decades in law, I was certain she could read me far better than she could read the blurred writing on her toffee recipe. "But they don't know about her?"

I couldn't help but look at the floor. "They don't know about me."

"Ah," said Jacqueline. The single syllable made me feel like a coward. Uncomfortable under her scrutiny, I stepped too hard on the trash can lever to dump the spoiled sugar, sending the lid clanging against the wall.

Jacqueline didn't flinch like I did. "Are you concerned how they will receive that information?"

"I…"

I didn't know how to answer. I wasn't honestly sure. On one hand, my parents were some of the most open-minded people I knew. Vocal on equal rights, fair housing, the gender pay gap. My dad had driven around with a faded bumper sticker on his work truck that read Feminism is for Everybody until the old Ford finally quit turning over. Most of my mom's friends in the horse industry were gay men.

But when it came to me?

I didn't know.

"Isn't everyone?" I finally said, drying my hands on a dish towel. I risked a glance at her. "Wasn't Dillon?"

The subtle crease in her otherwise flawless brow was the only indication my question surprised her.

"It was never a conversation with Dillon." Setting the pan in the dish strainer, she turned back to face me. "It was just who she was."

"You just knew?"

Jacqueline shrugged. "She just knew. It wasn't a question. When she was thirteen and brought home a girl named Cambrie who she introduced as her girlfriend, I don't think any of us blinked an eye." She flipped the recipe Rolodex closed and shoved it to the corner of the counter. "That was the thing that infuriated Bedwyr most about Henrik. Aside from the reprehensible ethical dilemma of him being her coach and the morally abhorrent truth that she was only a child—it was made a hundred times worse knowing it was so completely against her grain. I think it was that which my husband could forgive himself the least. But anyhow," she said, picking up a soap bar and bumping the faucet on with her elbow, "that's neither here nor there. Grab the sack of potatoes out of the pantry, will you?" And just like that, the whirlwind of the conversation was closed, swirling down the drain with the sudsy water.

Late that night, long after Dillon returned from her workout and Seren came back from the barn, after the evening had been spent wrapping presents while Jacqueline gave in and attempted a second round of toffee, well after Seren had begged her sister to sit at their grand piano—I was shocked to discover Dillon played beautifully—when the house was finally dark, and my body was slack with sleep and content from lovemaking, I lay awake, staring into the dark.

My mind was back on the conversation with Jacqueline in the kitchen. On the way she and Dillon's father had so easily accepted Dillon for who she was. The way we were able to stay here, under her roof, sleeping in Dillon's childhood bed—a double, for the record—without any hint of discomfort or judgment.

It made me want to call my parents. To come clean with them and unburden myself of secrets.

But I couldn't. And not because I was overly concerned with their reaction. I imagined they would be surprised, but when the shock wore off, I anticipated they would be accepting.

The problem was—they'd both been over the moon when I'd put on a pretense of having reconnected with Carter. They adored him. They always had. When we first started dating, my dad joked about putting me up for adoption and keeping Carter if I ever broke up with him. Since rekindling our supposed relationship, I had no doubt my mom had once again been fantasizing about a wedding, and scoping out what future horse shows she could attend as a grandma.

So while Marriage to Carter may have been sitting in the Things Never Going to Happen category for $2000, until I found a way to let my parents down easy, I'd have to allow them to keep smoking that pipe dream.

Which meant there would be no late-night "Merry Christmas, by the way, I'm gay" call to Palo Alto.

Beside me, Dillon groaned in her sleep, and I could feel a muscle in her back quiver with a cramp. I'd noticed she'd gotten more of them since increasing the distance of her afternoon bike rides, but she never mentioned it. Nor did she ever complain about the blisters on her feet, or the chaffing rash from her wet suit, or the endless sunburn on the back of her neck and ears, no matter how much sunblock she applied.

I've experienced worse was her shrugged response whenever I would point out an injury. Enduring it all in silence seemed to be her steadfast motto.

Over the shadow of the uniformed stitches slowly healing across her brow, the moonlight from the garden window illuminated a sign hanging above her trophy shelf. The plaque was cut in the shape of a dragon, with the words Bydd gryf, Ddraig Fach painted in sweeping calligraphy.

When I asked about the sign the first morning we woke in Wales, she told me it had been a gift from her father. He'd hand-carved it for her fifteenth birthday.

And what did it mean? I'd asked, not even attempting the pronunciation.

Be strong, Little Dragon . A pet name he'd given her as a child.

In a house haunted by the absence of her father, I found the spirit of the words disheartening. Even ten years later, his presence—or lack thereof—was palpable. It could be felt in the empty space beside Jacqueline on the sofa. The chair left vacant at the head of the dining room table. The study door that never opened at the end of the hall.

There were no photos of him throughout the household. The first night in her bedroom, Dillon must have sensed I was looking for one as I scanned the various snapshots pinned on her wall.

"When my mam's grief eventually transitioned to anger, she put all the photos of my dad away," she said, unprompted, pulling out an unframed 5x7 from her desk drawer. In the picture, Dillon was in a race bib, her t-shirt plastered to her skin, her dad beside her with his arm around her shoulders. The two of them shared the same pale blonde hair and dimpled smile.

When I handed it back to her, she returned the photo to the drawer.

Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed the hour. Twelve strokes. Midnight. It was officially Christmas morning.

Careful not to wake her, I gently massaged the tense muscle in her back, kneading my knuckles into the fiery wings of the phoenix spanning her shoulders.

It had been exactly a year since I first slept beside her. Since the small hours of a misty bay morning had catapulted my world into the clouds. At the time, I'd had no sense of the future. No clue of what we were doing or the direction things would go. I'd known only that—when the holidays were over—I hoped to find a way to see her again.

So much had changed in a single rotation of the sun.

But nothing more so than how much I loved her—how much I could no longer imagine my life without her.

As her breathing deepened once more, I eased my body against hers, soaking in the comfort of her warmth, drifting to sleep with the smell of salt and sea, sunscreen and chlorine that never left her skin.

I woke the following morning with a start.

The fragments of an unpleasant dream faded with my return to cognition.

Dillon was up already, dressing in the dark.

My heart sank. Again, she meant to leave without me.

Last night, when she'd reached for me between the sheets, finding my mouth with hers, I promised myself to let that be enough. I'd known from the beginning our relationship was better off in shadows. The debacle with the photo had clearly shaken her—but it hadn't scared her away. I knew if I wanted to keep her, I needed to give her her space. To be content with whatever parts of her she would give me.

But still, this morning I was disappointed. I wanted to tell her I could be more careful. I could wear my glasses. Change my clothes. Blend in better with the crowd. Hell, I could even shave my head— Britney circa 2007 was fine with me—whatever it took. Just please don't cut me out.

But as I heard her zip her jacket, I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to make it more awkward than it already was.

Instead of tiptoeing out the door, however, I felt the mattress shift beneath her weight as she sat on the edge of the bed.

"Happy Christmas." The scent of Banana Boat sunblock filled my nostrils before she pressed her lips against my ear. "I know you're not sleeping."

"Nadolig Llawen," I whispered, botching the impossible pronunciation of Merry Christmas in Welsh, despite having practiced it for the past three days.

I felt her smile. "Your butchery of my language is charming, but it still doesn't get you out of coming with me this morning."

My eyes flew open. Without another word, I was out of bed, into the previous day's discarded clothing, and stumbling into my Uggs before she'd retrieved her backpack from the closet.

I wasn't being left behind.

It didn't bother me that she walked a little further away from me on the sidewalk, or resurveyed our surroundings before kissing me as I unzipped her wetsuit, or that she changed our coffee spot to Valdi's, all the way out by the pier.

She wanted me with her enough to risk the chance of another photo. Another fan post. Another chink in the armor safeguarding her from the world's prying eyes.

It was the most meaningful gift she could give me.

Nadolig Llawen —however the hell it was pronounced—indeed .