His face turns red. “If you’re done mocking your favorite brother, I have something to say that you’re all going to like. Especially Sunny.”
“Oh my gosh, get on with it!” Mercer calls from her slouched position at the opposite end of the table, stuffing her mouth full of pizza.
“For real. Consider the suspense fully developed,” Goldie says with an eye roll.
Sarah’s quiet smile tells me she’s in on it.
“You’ve all seen Christopher Marchant’s movies, right?”
This is not at all the direction I thought this conversation was headed. And yes, anyone who doesn’t live in a cave has seen his movies. They’re the cerebral, blockbuster dramas that make everyone debate the endings for months.
“Uh, yeah? Sunny has made us watch all of them. Repeatedly.” Willow says. “So?”
“Christopher Marchant is making a new movie and wants to use Nizhóní as a shooting location.” The women around me gasp in unison. It would be comical if I wasn’t in shock myself. “In fivemonths the cast and crew will be staying and filming on the property.”
Mercer’s pizza plops onto the table with a dull thud and it's silent for a beat.
The entire table erupts with questions. Willow wants to be an extra. Goldie wants to quit her rollerskating hamburger delivery job and work at the resort. With teary eyes, Sarah mentions what a comfort it is to see the business she and her husband started thriving under Joe’s leadership.
“This has everything to do with a certain famous social media personality who chose our resort to run away to,” Willow says, with a side hug.
My face goes hot and I know I’m blushing from head to toe. It makes me uncomfortable when they say things like this. Business at the resort has been booming since my location was discovered, sure. But I didn’t make Nizhóní the incredible place that keeps people coming back. That’s all Sarah and Joe.
“Who’s going to be in the movie? Do they know yet?” Sunny is always so calm. It’s amazing Joe hears her over her sisters.
“The only details they’ve told me are that Micah Watson and Anders Beck are the leads, of course” — which is often the case with this filmmaker — “and that they’ll start filming in March so they’re done before summer.” He grins.
Sunny’s eyes widen at the news. “Micah Watson,” she says with a shaky sigh. Mercer crows at her end of the table.
“Yeah, that’s what they said. Anyway, this is going to be a huge undertaking. We’ll need all hands on deck for those months.”
While everyone hammers Joe with questions or daydreams aloud about having a movie crew on the property, Mercer mentions casually, “Sunny’s teenage celebrity crush staying at our resort. Who would’ve thought.”
I catch Sunny shooting daggers at Mercer and mouthing “No!”
Mercer wags her eyebrows up and down. “It’s time they knew. Hi, her name is Sunny, and she’s been in love with Micah Watson since she was fourteen.”
Sunny shouts “Stop!” and buries her face in her hands.
“And!” Mercer is on one and the Pratt sisters are egging her on, “She has a poster of him behind the dresses in her closet!”
“Argh!” Sunny’s tortured words come from behind her fingers. "You are the worst!"
Sarah slides a comforting arm around her shoulders. “Aw, honey. We all know. We’ve known. I checked the search history often when you were all teenagers.”
“Oh my gosh!” Sunny burrows her face in her arms on the tabletop.
I feel Sunny’s pain, so I try to draw attention away from her in the only way I know how: Awkwardness.
“Whew! That’s good news! For a minute there, I thought you were going to propose over pizza.”
Joe clears his throat, but the rest of the group is quiet. Suspiciously quiet.
Sunny sighs, but keeps her face buried in her arms. Her soft voice bounces against the wood tabletop, “He won’t do it in front of everyone. He knows you too well.”
She is right. As much as I love my new family, I would want to be alone with Joe when he proposes. It warms my heart that he recognizes this about me.And when do younotprefer to be alone with Joe, Indie?
My eyes whip to the big hulk of a man seated next to me, who is lazily chewing his pizza like he didn’t just get called out for a proposal by his girlfriend. He is a man with a plan, I can see it on his face. His dark eyes are calm and staring at the nothing in the center of the table. One corner of his mouth quirks up. He knows exactlywhen and where he’s going to do it. Butterflies bang around in my ribcage when I consider the possibilities.
