Page 70 of Sounds Like Love

That surprised me. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He looked back out toward the beach. The sun was beginning to sink lower and lower in the late-afternoon sky. “I think it’ll do us good.” Then he grabbed his two cups as he stood and told me goodbye.

It was only after he was gone that I realized he had probably followed me to the boardwalk after I’d left so abruptly, and I wondered why.

Chapter24What’s Love Got to Do (Got to Do) with It?

SINCE SEBASTIAN HADcalled off work today, I invited Gigi over to my parents’ house. It was Monday, and she didn’t have anything booked in the morning, so we staked out at the beach with a rainbow-colored umbrella planted in the sand. I had hoped to spend today with Mom, but it was a bad day, so she stayed in bed, and I wasn’t sure how to navigate her bad days yet. They didn’t look how I thought they would, though now that I was here I wasn’t really sure what I had expected. Someone lost in her memories? Unable to tell the year from the day? I’d watched YouTube videos and read firsthand accounts to prepare, but her bad days—at least for now—were just days where she simply stayed in bed. They were days that looked more like a steady creep of depression, and maybe at the moment, that’s what it was. The beach in front of my parents’ house wasn’t private, but it’d always been pretty barren, until a few years ago, when some TikTok influencer spilled about the hidden beach access lot,and so now it was just as crowded as everywhere else. A family had set up shop right beside us, and a soccer ball kept whizzing by our heads, too close for comfort.

I stared at a text from Rooney, checking in. Should I send her another margarita emoji or … ?

“I think I might take a trip inland on Wednesday for supplies before the hurricane gets here,” Gigi said, putting down her book. It was the newest big fantasy romance—something about fairy kings and encyclopedias. “Wanna come?”

I decided to figure out the Rooney of it all later and dropped my phone in my purse. “Sure—oh, wait.” I winced, remembering. “I can’t.”

“Doing something with your mom?”

“Not quite …” I realized I’d never told Gigi about getting ice cream with Vanorour upcoming dinner date.

So I bit the bullet, and I told her.

Gigi, as predicted, was not cool about it. At all.

“Sebastian’s right there and you chooseVan?” she asked in disbelief, sitting up on her beach towel. She abandoned her book in the sand and turned to me.

“It’s not what you think.” I was about to explain, and then realized that I still hadn’t told her about my burnout, or the fact that I was stuck, or that I felt that maybe hanging out with Van could spark some sort of inspiration in me—

It felt like an elephant in the room at this point. I should tell her. Everything. I began to muster up my courage, when she gave a loud sigh and slumped back on her towel. “What I wouldn’t give to have your life sometimes.”

And that courage died on my tongue.

She went on, “What’s it like having a hot ex back in the pictureanda pop star vying for your heart?”

“We’re just cowriters,” I insisted weakly.

“Mm-hmm.”

Maybe now wasn’t the time to tell her. “It wouldn’t work out between us. We all know that. Besides, he’sinfuriatingsometimes.”

Gigi crossed her arms behind her head. “Oh?”

“First off, did you know that he’s classically trained?”

“Yes, I told you that. Like, fifteen years ago.”

“Well, it’s maddening.”

“Because he’s talented?”

I began to respond, but then thought better of it because what if I accidentally projected it to him? I didnotneed him getting a bigger head. “And anyway, he’s thoughtful and he remembers my coffee order and he’s even got a nickname for me—bird.Bird!”

Gigi propped herself up on her elbow, watching me with a growing smile.

“And I thought I could, I don’t know, make him look like a normal dude if I made him wear an ugly Hawaiian shirt. But no! He’s still aggravatingly hot in it! And he knows what I mean even when I don’t say it, and he has this weird faith in me that I don’t even have inmyself, and it freaks me out, and even when I can get into his head, I can’t figure him out! And it’s not like Iwantto figure him out, because I don’t care, but I don’tnotcare, either, you know?” I pursed my lips. “I think.”

“Oh, dear,” Gigi noted. “You’ve got it bad.”

I shot her an alarmed look. “No, I don’t. I’m going on a date withVan. NotSebastian.”

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