Page 54 of Me and Mr. Just Right

“Aurelia,” a nasal voice said. “Oh, thank goodness. We thought you’d fallen off the face of the planet.”

“Nope. Still here.”

“Fallen right off into oblivion,” Carmen continued as if Lia hadn’t spoken at all.

“I was in Alaska,” she said.

“I know, dear. Basically oblivion. Meanwhile, you won’tbelievewhat happened. Bo and Gwen broke things off. They’ve been fighting publicly, and Bo swears he’s going to win you back. Gwen says she’d never let her best friend be with a lying cheater like him.”

“Wait. What?” Lia blinked. Had she woken up in an alternate universe?

“They’re spilling each other’s secrets left and right.”

What about her songs? Had they fessed up to that? She did a quick search, but apparently they were keeping that secret under wraps for now. She pulled out Jules’s business card. She could call or text him right now. They were probably off the island, heading home.

Carmen was still talking. “You revealing that you’ve been hidden out on an island with a mystery man has been stealing their thunder. Brilliant move, Aurelia.”

“Wait, what are they saying?”

“Have you not been following any of this?” she huffed.

“I didn’t have cell service on the island.” And she hadn’t been ready to face reality yet for the last couple of days.

“Your fans. They’re going wild about you and Henry.”

“Haydn.”

“Sure, whatever. They’re trying to figure out who he is and how you met and if you’re getting married. I saw his picture … and wow, if that’s the kind of man hiding out in Alaska, book me a trip.”

“What picture?” She was googling frantically, but all she was coming up with were Gwen and Bo and that same picture of Lia on the island, over and over again, with different commentary each time.

“It looks like he’s on a mountain somewhere. And there’s another one of him swimming. It’s all over the fan pages.”

She clicked over to social media and searched up her fan pages. She never followed any of these—it was either people so in love with her it made her uncomfortable, or it was filled with people who hated her intensely and argued with everyone who posted about how much they loved her songs. She’d learned early on to stay away from those pages to preserve her own sanity.

Now, she scoured them like a thirteen-year-old mega fan, searching for any new information. And there he was. Her heart skipped when she came across the photo of Haydn swimming in a lake. The water was a deep blue, and with the snow-capped mountains behind him, she imagined it was freezing cold. You could only see him from the waist up, and he was laughing, his eyes focused on someone off camera.

She missed him so much it hurt.

“Are you even listening, Lia?”

Lia blinked a few times. “I’ve got to go,” she said, and she hung up while Carmen was yelling at her to stay on the phone.

But her brain was too full of Haydn. She scrolled through several more posts where people had dug out pictures of him. Her heart ached looking at them, but she couldn’t stop. Someone had linked theAlaska Ridges Magazinewebsite, and she clicked on it.

From there, she searched out his name and spent hours looking at pictures he’d taken. He really was incredible. He had a way of capturing movement that made you feel like you were there. His mastery of light and dark was stunning. And the colors of Alaska were in every brilliant shade of the rainbow. It made her homesick for a place she’d only visited. For a person she’d only known for a week.

She needed someone she could talk to about this.

Who do you have?It was a question she’d asked herself on a loop since Haydn had brought it up. She could call her assistant, and she’d listen and offer sympathy, but Lia wanted someone who wasn’t on her payroll. Someone she could trust fully.

She picked up her phone and scrolled through it until she arrived at her dad. What would happen if she called? It was a Saturday. He usually didn’t work on Saturdays.

She held her breath and pressed the send button with shaking fingers.

He answered it on the first ring. “Lia!” She imagined the smile on his face—he was always quick to smile. “We were just talking about you.”

“You were?”

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