Page 13 of On the Beat

“She’s my cousin. I can’t say no,” Paulo explains, throwing his hands in the air. “What do you want me to do, kick her out? She came all the way from L.A.—”

My life and all of its entailing bad decisions are following me around, having haunted me and caught a direct flight from Los Angeles. “I’m sure she’s nice, but ajournalist? It just feels…”

“She’s family,” he says, sipping his coffee. “I can’t make her leave. Plus, the other two rental properties are being renovated right now, according to my mom. Trust me, I checked.”

The likelihood of her being here for her family to enjoy a relaxing vacation seems far higher than her being here to stalk me.

“Sorry, Paulo. She’s your family. I know I’m acting crazy and paranoid, I guess this just isn’t what I expected. You’ve already been way too generous.” I shake my head. “Thanks again for letting me stay here.”

“Of course, man, anytime.” He pours a cup of some dark substance, and I spy a yellow packet on the table reading Kopiko brown coffee. “Want some?”

“Yeah, thanks.” I take the coffee pot from him and pour it into a mug that reads WORLD’S BEST DOCTOR, which I assume is a gift for Paulo. “So, you’re a morning person now? Back in college, I used to have to drag you out of bed for a nine am class.”

Paulo shrugs, giving a light chuckle. “Well, I have to do early shifts at the clinic where I work, usually. But I’ve requested that they let me take some time off so I could show you around.”

“You really didn’t have to–” I feel bad for further disrupting his life, just because mine is in tatters.

“No, no, you’re one of my oldest friends. Well, the oldest that I still talk to. And we haven’t seen each other since, what,graduation?”

“Whatever it is, it’s been too long.” We settle into an easy conversation, and I force myself to discard thoughts of Isla Romero. She’s apparently not going anywhere, and it would be beyond rude of me to force my best friend to kick out his cousin just so I can… what? Be slightly more comfortable?

That’s not to say that I couldn’t go somewhere else. But the prospect of reconnecting with Paulo is too tempting, and when reinforced by the horrifying danger of being caught by the paparazzi when I go to a hotel or spotted by a fan feels too great.

So I’m stuck here.

In this house.

All I can do is hope that paradise doesn’t become hell.

Chapter 8: Isla Romero

As sunlight slants through the blinds in bright stripes, I take stock of my surroundings.

One beach house.

No wi-fi.

Three months to write or be fired.

Just me, and a moody pop star who hates my guts.

I’m beginning to consider that jumping on a plane at the behest of my editor, flying to the Philippines with only the bare essentials packed in three hours, all to stalk and write about a celebrity who wants me to leave was not the best idea I had.

I need a plan. Instead, all I have is my wits.

Armed with my video camera, my trusty notebook, and a pen, I make my way through the beach house, lured by the scent of coffee and the promise of pandesal, which I saw on the dining table last night.

Approaching Paulo in the living room, I see him reading what looks like a medical journal, from the stethoscope on the cover. He looks up when I enter. “Morning.”

“Good morning.” I run a hand through my hair, the camera thudding against my chest through the Rolling Stones t-shirt I threw on this morning. “Where’s Tita Evangeline?”

“She went back to one of our other rental properties—apparently there’s been some sort of plumbing issue that she needs to go resolve.” Paulo sets down the magazine on the coffee table. “Are you going sightseeing or something? What’s with the camera?”

I feel a strange sense of familiarity yet foreignness with my cousin. I’m not quite American, not quite pinay, and he’s my cousin. Paulo is far closer to Ryder Black, a near-stranger and his college roommate, than he is to me, a relative he met a handful of times when we were kids. Despite our lengthy summer vacations, conversation as children, and the bonds of kinship, our relationship never extended far enough for me to feel I know any of my cousins beyond a shallow, surface-level connection. “No, I just, um, needed to record a video for my YouTube channel.”

“Are you a travel vlogger?” he teases. “I don’t think I could live with myself if my cousin is an Instagram travel influencer.”

“No, nothing like that,” I reply. Being an influencer sounds exhausting, superficial, and like a lot of work and entitlement rolled into one package. To be fair, I work as a celebrity entertainment journalist, which is only one notch above on the respectability scale. “I have a music-related channel. I react to songs and stuff like that.”

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