Page 99 of Reel Love

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’myourSaturdayIslandGirl? 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.

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