“Daisy!” I squeal. “Thank you, thank you!” This time, my smile is real.
“You can thank my teeny tiny but perky boobies and see-through shirt. He stared at my tits the whole time I was trying to convince him to help.”
“Thank you, Daisy’s boobs!” I say with enthusiasm.
“You know, it might not be a bad thing that you lost your phone. To be honest, I was tempted to let it stay broken.”
“What? Why?”
“To start fresh without your text buddy as a distraction. You can have your own summer of risks—just like you said Nanna wants you to have.”
“I’m not going to model nude for a famous photographer like my grandma did. Not that anyone would want me to.” I look down at myself.
“Of course they would. You’re hot, even if you insist on hiding your assets. But you don’t have to do exactly what she did. Just take a risk a day, any risk. It can be something small. Like getting on Tinder.”
“Really? Tinder?”
“Well, any dating app. There are plenty. Or what about speed dating, then? Bungee jumping? We’ll think of something. But the point is to take some risks.”
I gnaw on my lips, which are chapped after two days in the hospital.
I nod. “Okay. Let’s do this. The summer of risks.”
“Yes!” Daisy pumps her fist in the air as if she’s Rocky Balboa at the end of a fight. “But you need a plan, or you won’t do it. You need to take one risk a day for the entire summer.”
“Okay,” I agree. “But I get to choose the risks, not you.”
“You have to seriously consider the ones I suggest.”
“Fine,” I say, because sometimes it’s easiest to just agree with Daisy.
“This is going to be fun,” she says. “And I think your first risk should be finding someone new to crush on.”
A new crush.
My relationship with Remington, if you could even call it a relationship, was supposedly risk-free.
Except “no risk” is just a mirage. There’s a risk in everything, even the things we think are safe, like stepping off a curb. Maybe my phone breaking is the universe sending me a message. I almost died because I was preoccupied with my phone, and that’s basically the way I’ve lived the last few years. When Nanna got sick, it just felt easier to retreat. But hiding isn’t safety. It just means I don’t get all the good stuff along with the bad.
I feel a glimmer of excitement for the summer. The summer of risk. And Daisy is right. My first risk should be falling for someone real.
CHAPTER 8
Chase
“Chase, darling, get your head out of your ass. I said look brooding. I didn’t say look like someone pissed in your cereal. Good gracious.”
Glaring at Emma, I give my profile to the camera. I’m backlit by the large window of the fancy suite that’s designated press central for the day. I’ve done enough photo shoots by now to sense the image the photographer is going for and to offer myself up, in character, with the variety of expressions and angles I’ve perfected over the years—my tilted smirk, my profile in silhouette.
The three leads of The Wanderers have been holed up here all day, alternating between interviews and photo shoots. The studio expects us to keep the fandom machine fed.
“That’s the face, sugar. A little more pout, a little less pain-in-my-ass.” Our personal assistant, Emma, keeps the insults flowing with her slight Southern accent. She can be mean as hell, but with her accent and sassy smile, you’re more likely to thank her than curse her as she bulldozes in and gets her way.
Which is why she’s such an effective personal assistant to Sebastian. And why I convinced her to work for me as well. She can make any publication print a full retraction and have them apologize to her for the inconvenience. Emma is magic in getting people to do what she wants. Usually.
But her tricks aren’t working with me today. My costars and I just did a full day of press, being polite to reporter after reporter, answering the same mind-numbing questions dozens of times, all the while trying to sound charming and humble. I have to be confident, yet pretend that I don’t realize I’m famous for my abs and face.
Doing press is never my favorite activity, but I try not to be an asshole about it because it beats being broke, jobless, and homeless like I was when I was a teen. Today, however, I’m over it.
I take a deep breath and will my patience to return as I turn back to the photographer who’s been snapping away for the last thirty minutes. “We good? Please tell me you got what you need, man.” I don’t want to be rude to the guy. He’s only doing his job, and it’s not his fault the publicists booked us so solidly I can’t breathe.