Epilogue: Chapter Forty-Three

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Kissing Hunter always turns me into a walking cliché. Except I'm not walking right now—really, I'm barely standing—so maybe that's a living and breathing cliché. I'm tingling from head to toe, and my skin is warm all over. My face is probably flushed, too, and the eighty-degree October heat isn't the reason for it.

Hunter's face is also flushed, and he's beaming like he's the happiest person on Earth, so at least I'm not the only not-walking, living and breathing cliché in my backyard.

"I missed you," he says. He keeps his arms around my waist. It's a good thing his arms are there, because I'm still lightheaded. His hold steadies me.

"Of course you did. I'm a good kisser."

I toss my hair behind my shoulder and press my lips together to create my best imitation of a sultry pout. Hunter laughs out loud. I'm teasing him, and he knows I am.

"You absolutely are," he agrees. "And I'm not just saying that because I know you'll push me in the pool if I don't. I saw that gleam in your eyes before."

I swear he reads my mind sometimes, but I'm not about to admit it. "You only saw what you think you saw because you want to go in the pool," I say instead.

"Do you want to go in the pool?"

"Yes." He doesn't need to ask me twice. Pool time means him in swim trunks, without a shirt, and I have fond memories of this from our days at the lake. We should just stay in the pool the entire time he's here, when he isn't touring schools. It would be a complete win as far as I'm concerned, since we would be somewhere with no paparazzi or gawking onlookers around, and I could spend the entire time checking out my shirtless boyfriend. What could be better?

He releases his arms from my waist and we emerge from behind the cabana. I call Alfie over to us so we can get him out of the heat, and then we traipse inside the house to retrieve Hunter's suitcase from the foyer. I lead him upstairs to where my bedroom and the guest room he's staying in are. I still can't believe Mom is letting the two of us stay on the same floor of the house and that she didn't insist he sleep in the downstairs suite. She decided Melanie should have that, and who am I to question Mom's decisions?

"That's my room," I tell him as we pass by my open bedroom door. I'm usually in there when we FaceTime, so he's seen it before, at least through a phone screen. "And your room while you're here is this one."

It's the only other bedroom on this floor, since Mom's bedroom and bathroom—the master suite of the house—occupies most of the floor above this one. I walk ahead of Hunter to lead him inside of the guest room. I consider plunking myself down on the armchair in the corner and pretending I'm sticking around to watch him change clothes, but even I know we have a few days ahead of us of living in the same house with our moms around. I should take it easy with the flirting level for a while, even if I am a seventeen-year-old who hasn't seen her boyfriend in what's felt like forever.

"I'm going to get changed and find us some towels," I say. "I'll see you in a few minutes." I leave him to opening his suitcase.

It doesn't take me long to put on a swimsuit and to throw a coverup on over top of it, and then I head out of my bedroom and open the linen closet in the hallway to find towels to bring to the pool. From the sound of things, Hunter is already downstairs, talking to the moms. As I make my way down the stairs, I hear words that I pray are out of context.

"Did you say something about dinner reservations?" I ask Mom when I reach the bottom of the stairs. Reservations usually means a restaurant, and a restaurant on a Friday night means being out in public among a lot of people with phones that have cameras.

"You did," Mom replies. "I was just telling Hunter that we have reservations at Astral at seven-thirty, so to keep that in mind for how long you stay in the pool. We'll need to leave here by six-thirty to be safe."

This is news to me. "We're going to Astral tonight?" I repeat. I hope I misheard the name of where we're going. If I didn't, then I have no clue what Mom was thinking when she made a Friday night reservation at a restaurant in Malibu that's often frequented by other celebrities and that the paps are known to stake out. Tact is the only thing that keeps me from blurting out this question in front of Hunter and his mom.

"Of course tonight," Mom confirms. "Hunter and Melanie are only visiting for a few days. They should see as much as possible before they go home. Oh, and I invited the Santiagos, and Carter is also supposed to join us with his mom."

So much for peeling the bandage off slowly. We're just going to rip it away and throw Hunter and his mom to the paparazzi wolves on their first night in L.A.

"I'm excited to see Malibu," Melanie says. "I've only seen it on TV, but the coastline there seems like it must be beautiful."

"It's incredible," I tell her. "You'll love it." And she will, right up until we're ambushed by someone with a camera and intrusive questions, we're followed home, our night ends up all over the internet, and the paps stay camped outside the gates of my house for the rest of the time she and Hunter are here.

"We can watch the sun set over the ocean if we go earlier," Mom suggests.

Stay calm. Deep breaths. Everything will be fine.

"That sounds great. We should definitely get there for sunset." I congratulate myself for not choking on my words. The sunset in Malibu is spectacular, though. Since it will be before dinner, we should be able to enjoy that much in private before inviting chaos into our lives.

"We'll keep track of the time so we're out of the pool and ready to go when we need to," Hunter promises the moms. He turns to me. "Ready?"

I am beyond ready to flee this conversation before the filter between my brain and vocal chords loses the battle and I ask Mom if she's thought this through or if she's lost her mind. "Let's hit the pool," I reply.

This time he leads me through the house and outside. I put the towels on a chaise that's by the pool, remove my coverup, and kick off my flip-flops. I need to put tonight and what could go wrong at dinner out of my mind, so I can enjoy the time I have right now with Hunter. Perhaps I can manifest a miracle and we'll go completely unnoticed at Astral tonight, even though Sawyer and Carter have their own followings and are also often recognized when they're out somewhere.

I walk over to the edge of the pool. Hunter is only a couple of steps behind me. I'm debating between jumping in or going to the other side to use the stairs that descend into the water, but pause when he touches my shoulder.

"Is everything okay? You seemed a little tense when your mom mentioned dinner." There he goes with the telepathy again.

"Everything is great." I hope I sound convincing.

"Look at me, please."

I turn around to face him, wearing my best things-are-fine expression that he will probably see right through. He contemplates me for a moment, then he reaches out to tuck a lock of my hair behind my ear.

"Rule number one, Cali. We're always honest with each other."

His voice is gentle, but it still takes effort not to flinch at the reminder. It's my rule that I came up with after everything that happened between us when Bowie exposed my true identity, which could have been avoided if I had just told him the truth about my life from the start. I know how important honesty is to him, and it's important to me, too.

"You're right," I confess. "The truth is I'm having minor anxiety about something I might not need to worry about, and I don't want to alarm you for no reason because there's a chance it won't happen. That's all."

"What won't happen?" He strokes my cheek with his thumb. His touch is hypnotic, and I find the words tumbling from my mouth.

"Being spotted at dinner, and being photographed and followed, and ending up with your entire visit here all over the place as entertainment gossip. I know it will happen eventually, but I didn't want it to happen today, or even during this visit if it could be prevented. I want you to love everything about being here and to have the best time." I shift my gaze away from him so I can stop myself there and not continue with "so you don't change your mind about moving here," which is what I'm most afraid of.

"I do love everything about being here and I'm already having the best time." He tilts my chin up so I have no choice but to look into his eyes. "So, rule number one again—I'll be honest with you. I've watched the video of you and the paparazzi at LAX when you came back here in the summer a zillion or so times. I knew before getting on the plane this morning that something like that could happen at LAX today, or somewhere else we go, and I'm okay with it. I also had a talk with my parents before my mom and I came here to make sure they expect it, because I don't want anything that happens to catch them off-guard or change their minds about me going to school here."

"It can be a lot at times," I warn him. "Some of them get right in my face, and some say things that are intended to provoke me. I'm afraid they'll do the same things to you."

"Let them. I'm not going to let some thug with a camera and a smart mouth ruin a second of my time with you. The only thing that matters is that we're together."

Leave it to him to know what to say to put my mind at ease. This is why I adore him. This is why I wrote a song for him. This is why it's going to be my turn to calculate the seconds between the end of this visit and when I see him at the end of next month, and why I'm already figuring out how to visit him a bunch more times before he moves here.

"I don't know how you did it, but that's exactly what I needed to hear." I wrap my arms around him and lean my head against his shoulder. "Thank you. You're pretty amazing, you know."

Hunter's arms circle around me, and he pulls me in closer. "Does this mean I've saved myself from being pushed in the pool? Because I could tell you were thinking about it again."

I giggle in spite of myself. "This time. You might not be so lucky tomorrow."

"What if I scoop you up and throw you in the pool first?"

"That will be the end of me writing songs for you and serenading you," I tell him. "You wouldn't dare do it."

I disengage myself from his arms and jump in the water before he has the chance to prove me wrong. He stays standing at the pool's edge.

"Are you saying you're going to serenade me while I'm here? We could bring your guitar to Malibu."

"Listen to you. As if the song I wrote for you being my next single isn't enough. I'll be serenading you every time you turn on the radio." I splash water at his feet. "Are you coming in or are you just going to stand there daydreaming about being sung to at sunset?"

His answer is to jump into the pool, landing a few feet away from me. He wastes no time splashing water at my face. I raise an eyebrow and start to splash back, but he's too fast for me and catches my wrist.

"There's something else you should know if we're going by rule number one." He keeps hold of my wrist and takes a step closer, appearing serious all of a sudden.

"What's that?"

"You're pretty amazing, too."

He leans in to kiss me again. We're in full view of the house, and I discover I don't care if someone watches us this time. It doesn't matter if it's the moms, or the paps, or anyone else. Let them watch. Now that I know Hunter has already considered what could happen when we're in public and that he's prepared to deal with it, I won't let anything distract me from enjoying every moment of the few days we have to spend together.


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