Great Big Beautiful Life(15)

Unfortunately, I say, there’s another writer auditioning too. Hayden Anderson.

Priya sends a picture of herself still in bed, squinting, last night’s makeup blurred around her eyes. Someone tell my editor I’m too sick to come into work today.

Should’ve thought of that before you sent the five beers text to her, Bianca points out.

Cillian replies to my text: I’ve met him. Rather unpleasant sort, isn’t he?

I frown. Rather unpleasant sort? Didn’t realize I was texting a regency era gentleman.

What? Cillian says. He IS unpleasant. Hot though. SAD.

I don’t think he’s that bad, I reply.

LOL, Cillian replies. Duh.

Meaning? I say.

You like everyone, Priya says.

I take a long sip of my latte. Once again, Cecil didn’t steer me wrong. It’s delicious. I’m just saying, I type out, he probably has his reasons for being the way he is. People usually do.

Bianca and Cillian both like the text, and Priya says, Hot people are usually somewhat unpleasant. They don’t have to play by the rules. Hotness is wasted on the hot. Like me!

As a pleasant hot person, Cillian says, I’m offended by this.

Putting you on Do Not Disturb to get some work done, but love you all. I silence my phone, put my head down, and pore over my notes, adding thoughts as I go.

After about thirty minutes, though, my laptop battery is on its last legs. By then the sun is all the way up, the back of my neck beginning to sweat and tingle with an oncoming burn, so I pack my stuff up and head back to the hotel. Late last night, I managed to book a place for the month, but it’s not available until tomorrow, so I’ve got one more night at the Grande Lucia.

One more night as Hayden Anderson’s neighbor, which I’m sure he’ll be relieved to know.

Rather than interrupt his morning by knocking on his door, I leave his green tea and the paper bag with his croissant outside his door, then let myself into my own room.

I plug my computer in to charge, then take a scorching shower, mostly because my bangs are too greasy for dry shampoo to have any shot.

Afterward, I towel dry my hair, my bangs falling into messy pieces across my forehead, and slather myself in sunscreen before getting dressed. Since this is, ostensibly, one of my last free days before I dive into work, I decide I might as well do something fun. Like go to the beach or rent a bike and ride around the island. I put on my bathing suit, just in case, and pull on a floral yellow-and-pink romper with a sixties-style collar, along with the Simon Miller platform sandals Priya gave me for my birthday.

If my mom could see this outfit, she’d faint. When I was a teenager, she’d insisted that, because I was tall, everything looked shorter on me than on other girls, and while she was very likely right, I’d always so desperately wanted to be allowed to dress like the other girls I went to school with, which is probably why I still style myself, in Bianca’s words, like a little scamp, or as Cillian put it, like a 1990s animated Nickelodeon teenager.

Both compliments, in my opinion.

I leave my laptop behind but slide my notepad into my bag along with my sunglasses before stepping out onto the walkway.

I’m already past Hayden’s door when I notice the green tea and croissant still sitting there.

I backtrack, check the time on my phone. Surely he’s up by now.

For a second, anxiety spikes through me. I check the long-dormant impulse to panic. For the most part, I’m grateful for the things my childhood gave me—optimism, empathy, an appreciation for life—but the unease that still comes from a shut door isn’t one of them.

The urgent ping of did something happen, and the thought that always follows: What if I’m too late this time?

I shake myself. Hayden is not my sister. I have no reason to suspect he might not be okay, and furthermore, no reason to feel responsible for his well-being.

Still, I find myself knocking on his door, needing to be sure he’s all right.

When there’s no immediate reply, the anxiety deepens.

Never mind that he could be out running, or at lunch, or anywhere else on the island.

I just have a feeling he’s the sort to stick to the same basic schedule every day, and if that’s the case, he should’ve been back from his run by now.

I pound again. “Hayden?” I shout.

I hear a muffled grunt from deep within the room, and instantly something in me relaxes.

I mean, for all I know, he’s duct-taped to a chair inside, but that sounded like a fairly typical Hayden grunt, from what I’ve witnessed so far.

“Grunt twice if you’re okay!” I shout.

Instead, I hear the rattle of the dead bolt, and then the door swings open.

“Is there a fire?” he asks.

I can’t answer immediately. I’m focused on prying my eyes off the bare expanse of chest at face level to look up into Hayden Anderson’s very nonplussed expression.





6




I swallow the lump of heat that’s risen to the back of my throat. Now that I know he’s fine, I’m embarrassed.

Now that I see he clearly responded to my pounding by running straight from the shower to the front door, a towel wrapped around his waist and a scowl set deep into his brow and jaw, I’m humiliated.

My whole body feels hot and tingly, that burgeoning sunburn feeling times a hundred.