Page 56 of On the Beat

“I never dissed your medal. I just pointed out that outside of the Olympics, nobody watches swimming. I betyoucan name more NBA players than Olympic swimmers.” Isla rolls her eyes, suggesting this is a long-running argument between the three of them.

Just as Gabriel opens his mouth like he wants to win that bet, the TV clicks off and the Romero parents stand up. “Boys, don’t you have your own room and better things to do than harass your sister?”

They leave at once through an adjoining door.

“As for you two,” Isla’s mother turns her gaze on the two of us. “Why are you still in your bathing suits? Where are your clothes?”

“We had to make a hasty escape,” I say before regretting my words, realizing I’ll have to explain what exactly we were escaping.

If I want to keep up this charade of being a deadbeat musician who plays gigs at lounge clubs and tours with a garage band in his mother’s van, it would hardly make sense for me to say the paparazzi were after me.

Before I can explain or Isla can dive in to save me, I hear frantic camera shutters, yelling, and commotion from outside the window. The four of us crowd around it, though I stand behind the rest, both because I’m unpleasantly damp and also because I don’t want to be seen by the cameras.

“Is there a celebrity staying here or something?” Isla’s father asks.

“Something like that,” Isla mutters. Then, in a louder tone, she says, “I heard SB19 is staying in this hotel.”

“We should go get their autograph,” I suggest. “Didn’t you say you love their music?”

“I already had such aclosebrush with them,” she says. Well, we did perform on the same stage as the band.

“Go get their autograph,”TitaJoy urges. I’m ninety percent sure she just wants to be rid of me, which at the moment, I don’t really mind.

After all, there’s something I need to discuss with Isla. Alone.

Chapter 27: Isla Romero

“Ryder,” I say, as my fake boyfriend but veryrealkisser takes me by the hand and leads me into the stairwell. “You know the band isn’t actually here. You don’t have to drag me there just to get their autograph because you’re a huge fan.”

“Iama fan of SB19 and Iknowthey’re not here,” he says, but he doesn’t let go of my hand.

“Then what’s with the breakneck speed?” I say. His hand feels oddly reassuring holding mine, even if this all means nothing. I try not to think about the phone call I just got from my editor, Jane Thornton. Reminding me that this article is my one shot at journalistic credibility, even if I have to sacrifice my personal integrity to do it. What if he knows?

“I want to get out of here before the paparazzi tail us anywhere.”

I chew on my lower lip and try not to trip down the stairs. “Can you at least slow down? I already got rid of them by telling them that SB19 is across the street, remember?”

He complies with my request for reduced speed, though only slightly. “Sorry.”

His fingers wrap more tightly around mine, and I wonder if I did the right thing by telling him that our kiss was a mistake. It didn’t feel like a mistake. It felt like the first right decision I’ve made after a long string of bad ones. But just because it felt that way doesn’t mean my feelings are true.

I may want so badly to believe that Ryder Black, with all his complexities and quirks and his characteristics that go far deeper than any surface-level magazine spread could cover, actually likes me. I want to believe he actually might evencarefor me. And maybe he does. But our relationship would wither under the sun, wilt in the Los Angeles smog, and give one last, rattling, dying breath underneath the glare of paparazzi cameras.

No, even if we did like each other, our relationship is like casino winnings in Vegas. It’s only meant to stay in one place and it can’t survive anywhere else.

I sneak a glance at his mouth. Even if I do want a repeat of our kiss. The kiss that seems to only happen when we’re either completely alone or on the verge of being caught by paparazzi cameras.

We reach the fifth floor and keep going, and thankfully I had time to towel-dry my hair, so that I’m no longer leaving a trail of chlorinated water behind me like blood on a crime scene. “Ryder?”

“Yeah?”

In the stairwell, anything can happen. We haven’t reached our destination, but we’re right in between the past’s mistakes and the future’s consequences.

“Do you want to repeat that mistake?”

In the dim grey light of the stairwell, a shadow slants across his cheek, covering one of his blue eyes. “Just once.”

“Just once,” I agree, even as I hang my towel on the railing and he reaches for me like he, too, knows it won’t be just once.

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