“Generous,” Krysta said as she did a brief patrol of the VIP cabana, which was removed from the action and overlooking the property. It was ideal for overseeing a good time without partaking in said good time.
There was a waist-high stone wall lining the cabana, and at the center of all the lounge furniture was a huge charcuterie spread and a pitcher of nonalcoholic sangria. (I’d done No Alcohol November last year, and it turned out I was way more productive without the steady stream of vodka. And, okay,I guessI was a tad nicer too. Sober Addison was here to stay.)
“Sometimes I wonder if Bailey gets in the way more than anything else,” I admitted. “At least hiring her got my mom off my back for a little while.”
Apparently satisfied that no murderers were hiding in the cabana, Krysta removed her black sunglasses and pushed them back over her head, channeling the vibe of a commercial for some sort of edgy hair product that only people in West Hollywood had heard of.
This morning, she’d walked out of her room in a look that could only be described as Bodyguard Mommy Goes to the Beach. Her black board shorts were slung low on her hips and her sports bra–style bikini top peekabooed from under her white sleeveless tank with armholes cut so wide that I could see the way her abs rippled from the right angle.
Since we’d docked this morning and disembarked, Krysta had been... different. Still a little grumpy and lurking in the shadows like a hot gay Batman. But she’d laughed once or twice since we’d done my scheduled pop-ins to the various curated excursions I’d planned for today’s stop in Ensenada, Mexico. We’d done four-wheelers—well, observed them. We went to a cooking class and a local art market, and we even swung by the snorkeling excursion via a speedboat that nearly destroyed my sideswept fishtail braid.
“What’s your mom on your back about?” Krysta said as she sat down and draped her arm over the back of the sectional. It was the most relaxed I’d seen her since we’d met, and the empty space next to her called to me like a magnet. “I can’t imagine what else a mother could possibly expect of a daughter. You’ve pretty much created an empire and mastered every industry, one right after the other.”
I gave in to the temptation of her arm and sat down beside her, half expecting her to pull her arm back, but when she didn’t, I crossed one leg over the other and let myself lean toward her, ever so slightly.
Ever since our accidental kiss last night, I’d felt awkward. Perhaps for the first time in my life. By design, I was the kindof person who walked into a room and set the tone, but this morning I felt like a teenage girl who’d played spin the bottle over the weekend and had to now show up and face her crush on Monday in broad daylight.
And all the while,Augustlurked there at the corner of my mind. What if someone had seen us? The lights were low, but all it took was one snapshot. Context didn’t matter. It never did.
I wasn’t ashamed of my queerness, and despite what people might think after August rolled around, I never had been. Coming up through the entertainment business in the types of circles that referred topurityandmoralityas marketing buzzwords, I’d always detected the dishonesty inside the world I grew up in, and once I became a teenager and realized that I wasn’t only attracted to boys, or even mostly attracted to boys, I didn’t waste a single diary page stressing about it.
I’d known I’d have to be careful, that was all... and play the game right. And I had. Even as I grew more and more tired of being careful, of being in a game at all. Of my whole life being this visible distillation of manicured, Stanley tumbler–wielding success.
In the intervening years, I had strategically expanded my brand beyond the limitations of faith-based entertainment, and I did so successfully. It was helped in part by my mom’s divorce from my dad in my early twenties. As she elegantly—and with enviable PR finesse—detangled herself from the judgmental world I grew up in, so did I. And that translated to my brand, which was in part her brand.
I didn’t hold that against her. She’d worked just as hard as I had to turn Addison Hayes into a movement.
But... that meant she had opinions, and since the brand was me, that meant her opinions were about me.
And now August was nearly here. With its elaborate social media plan, its completed photo shoots, its impeccable podcast-tour strategy.
“Mama Hayes wants nothing more than two things,” I finally said. “Firstly, for me to maximize my public coming-out, which is scheduled for this August via an appearance on Drew Barrymore’s show and a feature piece inPeople. And then a grandchild, presumably because she loves kids, but also because kids are good for business.”
“And she thinks a public coming-out is also good for business?” Krysta asked, her voice neutral.
I sighed. “She’s not naive about it—the fallout or my safety. But she says she sees brand potential there too.”
The corner of her lip quirked as she said, “So no pressure, then, huh? Just stage the perfect coming-out for public consumption?”
“You don’t seem surprised,” I observed. “About the gay thing. Well,technicallybisexual with a serious inclination toward women.”
She shrugged and tugged on my braid gently. “Would it be crossing a professional line for me to admit that I was hopefully suspicious?”
The air rushed out of my lungs long enough to render me silent, but before I could respond, Bailey rushed in, partially clad in hot-pink foam.
“You two have to go out there and join the party. Apparently, the foam is edible. Well, not edible exactly. But not dangerous to ingest... from what I’ve been told. Anyway, it smells like cotton candy. I really should have waited to drop out of college until the second semester. I would have been really good at spring breaking.”
And then she was off again, blowing the foam off her fingers with a delighted shriek.
I turned back to Krysta, the bridge of her nose beginning to turn pink from the sun. “Did you forget sunscreen?” I asked. “Sun exposure is the leading cause of advanced aging.”
What I really wanted to ask was what the hell she meant byhopefully suspicious, and also if that meant she wanted to kiss me again, and also why she’d spent the last two days acting like I was the most irritating principal she’d ever worked for. But skincare seemed safer.
“Am I burning?” Krysta asked, her finger brushing her cheek. “I’m wearing, like, SPF 90.”
“You still have to reapply every two hours,” I told her. “We have complimentary Wishes by Addison sunscreen scattered throughout the party. Just use that.”
She looked at the light pink bottle nested in flowers on the table on the balcony for a moment before relenting. She got up, walked over to the table, and brought the sunscreen back into the cabana. She flicked the cap open with a strong thumb and squeezed the lotion into the palm of her hand with the kind of efficiency that made me think of lube and silicone.
