Becoming Mila by Estelle Maskame

12

The next morning at church, I spend half of the service blinking at the clock and the other half burning a hole in the back of Blake Avery’s head. We slipped in late, so we’re squashed in at the very back of the hall. It’s the prime position for staring Blake down. I’ve already decided that I’m going to corner him as soon as everyone spills outside into the sunshine.

And I know – I shouldn’t be sitting in church paying more attention to a boy’s neckline than listening to the preacher, but hey, I can’t help it.

Blake is sitting up on the second pew with his mom, his shoulders broad and straight. They were slouched ten minutes ago, but I noticed the subtle nudge she gave him. Being visibly bored at church is clearly not the done thing.

When the preacher dismisses his flock, I scramble to my feet and guide Sheri and Popeye outside so that I can claim a good vantage point for spotting Blake on his way out. We’re one of the first few people outside, so I claim a spot by some shrubs to the left of the church doors.

“Are you waiting for someone?” Sheri asks, shooting me a funny look. She probably thought I was rushing to get home, so now she’s wondering why we’ve stopped.

“Don’t you . . . Doesn’t everyone hang around to catch up after the service?”

“Not always. Lunch is already cooking, so we need to get going,” she says, reaching for Popeye’s elbow to stop him from sneaking off and turning him toward her van instead.

“Hold on!” I say.

“So, you are waiting for someone,” Sheri says with a teasing smile. The churchgoers are slowly gathering outside, but I haven’t spotted Blake yet. “Look, feel free to hang around and mingle. I’m sure the Bennetts will happily give you a ride on their way home.”

Popeye gives me a cheery wave goodbye, and they disappear across the parking lot.

I remain in my spot by the doors, stretching up on my tiptoes for a better view, until finally I spot Blake and his mother emerging. I don’t hesitate for a moment longer, mostly because I don’t want to allow my nerves the chance to kick in, and set off toward them. They’re drifting through the crowd, LeAnne’s movements careful and elegant, and I abruptly step in their path.

Blake scowls at the sight of me; obviously he didn’t expect me to come looking for him. I shoot him a wry smirk before turning to his mother with a pleasant smile.

“Mayor Avery,” I say politely with a nod. How are you supposed to greet the mayor? Am I supposed to shake her hand, even though we met last week? Do I even call her “Mayor Avery”? If not . . . Well, too late.

“Oh, hi . . .” she says with a hint of confusion in her tone. Maybe teenagers don’t tend to randomly approach her; either way, she doesn’t seem that thrilled by the interruption. “Mila, isn’t it? I hope you didn’t get locked out of that ranch again.”

“Luckily, no!” I fake a laugh. “I was hoping I could borrow Blake for a second. Blake?” I angle my body toward his and fix him with a sharp look, one that dares him to defy me.

“Sure,” he says. “I’ll be back in a sec, Mom.”

Just like last week, we split off from the throng to gain some privacy, only this time I’m doing the leading and Blake is doing the following. I turn around to face him, fold my arms across my chest, and stare him down in my most dramatic way.

“Are you here to throw a sucker punch my way?” Blake mocks with an easy smile. He steps back and lifts his fists like a boxer shielding his face. “’Cause you sure do look like you wanna hit me, but just remember where we are. Church.”

“Oh, stop it, Blake,” I snap dismissively. “You’re right, though, I’m not your biggest fan after what happened in Nashville. I’m okay with the idea of ignoring your existence around here for the summer, but there’s something I need to ask you first.”

Curiosity seeps into his gaze. “Shoot.”

“And answer me truthfully, please. You owe me. Again.”

The smirk falters and he nods seriously, pushing his hair back. Now is the wrong time to notice his arm flexed taut under the white sleeve of his shirt.

“At the tailgate party, you made sure everyone found out who my dad is. And at Honky Tonk Central, you were asking me questions you knew I didn’t want to answer,” I start, arms still crossed. “So, tell me – are you just an asshole or, mayor’s son, are you trying to put the attention on someone other than yourself for once?”

“Don’t curse outside church,” he says with a disapproving shake of his head.

“Blake,” I say sternly. I’m not in the mood for games.

He surveys the assortment of waiting vehicles over my shoulder. “Where’s your family?”

“They left. I’m going to ask Savannah for a ride home,” I say flatly. His distraction techniques aren’t the most advanced. “Just answer my—”

“Do you trust me?” he cuts in, dropping his hand from tugging agitatedly at the back of his hair.

“No.”

He smiles knowingly, as though he didn’t expect anything less of my reply.

“Let me take you home instead,” he says. “But later. After you come back to my place.”

“What?” I blink at him, completely taken aback. Go back to his place? Did he totally miss me telling him off right now? I’m not trying to hang out. I’m trying to get a straight answer – to understand what game he’s playing. “I’m going home. Sheri has lunch on the stove, and also – oh, yeah – why would I ever go anywhere with you again?”

“Because let’s not have this discussion here,” he says. “No funny business, I swear. Just lunch, and then I’ll answer your question truthfully.”

I study his expression, trying to gauge the sincerity in his eyes. He doesn’t look away, only lets his gaze bore back into mine, letting me scrutinize him. However much I hate to admit it to myself, he seems genuine. Like the same easygoing Blake who grossly chewed that quesadilla at the honky tonk.

“Fine,” I say with a disgruntled huff, trying to ignore that little voice in the back of my mind telling me that this is a stupid idea. Wasn’t Wednesday night already Blake’s second chance? Am I technically giving him a third right now?

“Let’s go,” Blake says with that annoying dimpled grin.

I hesitate slightly – but if the only way he will give me an honest answer is to go back to his place, then so be it. I just pray this doesn’t blow up in my face . . . again.

“Are you sure your mom won’t object?” I ask. In the back of my mind, I wonder if Sheri will be okay with this. I didn’t bring my phone along to the service with me, but she did say it was fine for me to catch a ride home later. Even if later means missing lunch at the ranch.

“Let’s find out,” Blake says.

We weave back through the mingling churchgoers toward Mayor Avery. She’s engaged in chit-chat with one of the church elders, enthusiastically nodding while the gracious smile on her face never fades. Something about it makes me suspect it’s forced.

I spot Savannah for the first time, expression blank as her parents talk to others. She catches my eye and gives me a friendly wave, but her hand suspends mid-air when she realizes I’m with her cousin. Her pleasant smile transforms into a suggestive smirk, and when she winks, I have to look away before I blush. Do she and Tori really think Blake and I have something going on? Because no, no, no. No way.

But then why exactly am I following him over to Mayor Avery to check if it’s okay if I gatecrash their Sunday lunch?

My palms feel clammy as we reach LeAnne, but Blake knows better than to interrupt when she’s mid-conversation, so we wait patiently alongside her; me staring at the scalding concrete and Blake staring at me. I pretend not to notice.

LeAnne says goodbye to the church elder with lots of pleasantries, then turns to her son, seemingly surprised to find him back by her side already. “That was quick,” she comments. “I’m done here. Let’s make a move.”

“Can Mila come back with us?” Blake asks, sounding like a five-year-old, the words falling from his lips in a quick jumble. He seems a bit nervous, though I wouldn’t have pegged Blake as someone to get anxious around his mother, even if she is the mayor.

LeAnne seems caught off guard by the on-the-spot question. She regards me carefully as though she is determining whether or not I am worthy of entering their home. “Of course,” she says, but her tone comes across with a degree of caution. “There’s plenty food because Blake here tends to guzzle down the contents of the fridge as though he’s been starved for years.” She squeezes Blake’s shoulder and smiles at him in a way that never really reaches her eyes.

Blake doesn’t return the smile, just shakes her hand off his shoulder. “I’m parked over here, Mila,” he says.

As the three of us head over to Blake’s truck, I can’t help but keep glancing at LeAnne out of the corner of my eye. Her stride is confident and purposeful, the same as Blake’s.

We climb into his truck – me in the backseat, of course – and he blasts the AC as his Spotify library comes to life. We get going, pulling away from the church and onto Fairview Boulevard.

In the privacy of the truck, LeAnne kicks off her heels and says, “Wow, Mr. Jameson is truly the most annoying person I ever interact with on Sundays. Blake, remind me next week to avoid him.”

I fiddle with my hands in my lap, trying to ignore that pressing feeling of being intrusive simply by being present. I’m, at best, a stranger to the Averys, but LeAnne clearly has no issue with letting her facade slip in front of me. I stare out of the window, pretending I’m not listening. Maybe she’s forgotten that I’m in the backseat.

Only, she hasn’t.

She cranes her neck to look at me, inquisitive. “So, you’re Everett’s daughter,” she says. It isn’t a question. Everyone knows.

Blake draws in a breath. “Careful, Mom,” he warns. He catches my eye in the rearview mirror, the same way he had the first night I met him. “Mila doesn’t like to talk about her dad.”

“Oh,” LeAnne says, her perfectly painted lips forming a literal “O”. “I’m sorry, Mila. I didn’t realize there were issues there.”

“No, no,” I say quickly, sitting up straight. The last thing I want is for the mayor to get ideas in her head about the Harding family being a broken one, so I quickly correct her. “Blake just means I don’t like bringing up the subject of my dad around people. I don’t want everyone to . . . I don’t want to draw attention to who he is.”

Something like understanding flashes across LeAnne’s face. She settles back into her seat and gets comfortable, watching the road unravel before us. “That makes sense,” she says, then gives her son a sidelong glance. “Blake denies I exist half the time. Don’t you, Blakey?” She pats his leg and he irritably swats her away.

“I don’t deny anything.”

She rolls her eyes as though this is a topic they often clash over, then to Blake’s evident fury she turns off his music and switches over to radio. “Enough of those soppy lyrics, don’t you think, Mila? Time for a change of tune . . .”

Blake looks at me in the rearview again. His jaw is clenched, his expression hard, and his eyes carry an apology. For what, I don’t know. Sorry for inviting me? Sorry for his mom’s not-so-perfect-mayor behavior?

We listen in silence to a talk show for the rest of the journey. It crosses my mind at one point that I have no idea where Blake lives – is he a ranch kid like his cousins? – and I spend most of the fifteen-minute ride surveying the surroundings and wondering what kind of house the Mayor of Nashville would live in. A mansion? A cute little bungalow? A ranch on the outskirts of town with security gates just like the Hardings?

“I would have thought you lived in the city,” I try by way of conversation.

“I do,” LeAnne says, but doesn’t offer anything more than that.

“Mom has an apartment in Nashville,” Blake explains. “But our family home is here.”

I don’t recognize the area of Fairview that we’re in, but it’s definitely not the north side of town where the Harding Estate is, and it isn’t downtown, either. We’re somewhere on the outskirts, maybe on the south side, passing a wide street of large houses, all of them spaced generously apart from each other. The truck slows and pulls into one of the driveways, coming to a stop behind a sparkling new Tesla.

So, the Mayor of Nashville lives in . . . a relatively normal home. Which is exactly what Savannah and Tori probably thought when they walked through our gates and saw the old ranch that Everett Harding once lived in.

I peer out of the window. The house may not be some exclusive mansion, but it’s big and well-maintained. The grass around the property is freshly mowed and colorful flowers spring up from the soil. There’s an American flag on a pole in the corner of the front lawn, swaying in the soft breeze.

“I’ll start preparing lunch,” LeAnne says as she slips her heels back on and steps out of the truck. Before she closes the door behind her, she leans back in and asks, “Mila, you aren’t on any of those Hollywood plant-based diets, are you? You’re good with meat?”

“Meat is fine,” I say. “Thank you,” I hastily add, letting her remark slide, even though I’m growing sick of people around here assuming that everything about me is Hollywood. Sure, I live in a seven-bedroom house within the gated community of Thousand Oaks, and sure, my dad is a movie star, but that doesn’t mean I’ll turn my nose up at honky tonks, or that I’m automatically on some strict celebrity diet (I absolutely refuse to be part of Mom and Dad’s ridiculous protein-only one), or that I’m anything more than just Mila Harding.

Blake rests his hands on the top of the steering wheel, his eyes following his mom as she struts toward the house, waving cheerfully to the neighbor across the street, then lets herself in the front door. I’m not sure why we aren’t going with her. Blake and I remain in the truck together, quiet and still.

“So . . . are we getting out?” I ask, releasing my seatbelt and placing a hand on the door.

“Holy crap,” Blake mutters. “She really pisses me off.” His eyes are still locked on the front door of his home, where his mom has just disappeared out of sight, and I notice he’s gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles are white.

Oh, so he wants to talk about his mom. I scoot over into the middle seat so that I can lean forward to get a better look of him. “Yeah, I kind of picked up on that. I’m sorry she insulted your music taste.”

Blake laughs, but there’s no humor in the sound. “In more ways than one.”

“I get that she’s the mayor and that means having a public face and a private face, but I didn’t think she would be so – relaxed? – in front of me,” I admit. After all, she doesn’t even know me, so how can she trust me?

“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t think so either,” Blake says with a sigh. He lets go of the wheel, flexes out his fingers, then releases his seatbelt. He turns to look at me in the eye. “But I guess she sees you the same way I do.”

“What – like someone you can taunt?” I half-joke.

Blake’s expression falters. He presses his lips together, trying not to smile. “Like someone who understands how it feels to be under a microscope.” He pushes open the car door. “Now we can get out.”

We climb out of the truck and into the humid air. Blake heads up the driveway and I follow, but we don’t make for the front door. Instead, he leads me around the back of the house and into a huge yard. It’s fenced off and private from the neighboring properties. Wooden decking curves around the house where big bi-folding doors lead inside, and wicker furniture decorates most of the space. For some reason, I can’t really imagine Mayor Avery sunbathing out here with a margarita in her manicured hand.

At the foot of the yard, there’s a cabin. It’s natural-looking, rustic wood, complete with windows and a big set of glass doors.

Blake strides ahead, already at the door of the cabin. “Welcome to my bachelor pad,” he says with a grin, and I think how it’s the first real smile he’s given me today. He pulls a set of keys from his pocket. “You’re okay with dogs, right?”

“Dogs?”

Too late.

The cabin door swings open and a bundle of golden fur pounces from inside, hurtling across the grass toward me. Two heavy paws land on my stomach with so much force that I’m knocked completely off balance. I land on the grass, hard, and the beast jumps all over me, sniffing at my ears and licking my face.

Blake’s apologetic laughter rings out as he grabs hold of the dog’s collar and hauls it off me. I stare up at him, collapsed on my elbows on the warm grass while I catch my breath. Blake is holding back a bouncy Golden Retriever, its tongue hanging excitedly from its mouth as its curious black eyes remain fixated on me. Blake kneels down by its side, still holding tight onto the collar.

“Mila, this is Bailey,” he tells me. He scratches under Bailey’s chin, then leans in close to one of his furry ears. “And Bailey, this is Mila, okay? Miss Mila. Be nice to her.”

“You have a . . . a puppy?”

“Yup. My baby.” He stretches over to grab a fallen stick from the grass and then hurls it across the yard, releasing his grip on his dog’s collar. Bailey takes off after it. “Sorry, I should have warned you better. We’re still trying to nail the training,” Blake apologizes. He walks over and offers his hand to me.

“You’re in luck,” I say. “I love dogs.”

I slip my hand into Blake’s and he pulls me up, but with a little too much effort. I nearly fall straight into him. We stand in front of one another, barely a foot between us, our hands still interlocked. His skin is warm, his fingertips gently calloused. We mirror each other’s stare and there’s something in his eyes I don’t recognize, something sparky and vibrant . . . Something that sets free butterflies in my stomach.

Bailey comes pounding back over, stick between his teeth, and I pull my hand free from Blake’s.

“Hi, Bailey!” I say, kneeling down. I weave my hands through his soft, thick fur and then play a little round of tug of war with the stick.

My parents won’t let me get a dog back home, despite me begging every birthday and every Christmas, because they believe it would be unfair to bring a pet into such a hectic lifestyle. I get their point, but it sucks. There’s a lot of things we don’t have time for these days.

“He likes it best like this,” Blake says, playfully nudging me out of the way. He gets down on his haunches and grabs hold of the stick with both hands, wrestling to free it from Bailey’s death grip. Bailey growls and snarls, as viciously as a ridiculously cute puppy possibly can, until finally Blake wrestles the stick free and throws it across the yard again.

It’s hard not to watch, entranced. There’s something rather adorable about watching a guy play rough with his dog under the summer sun while still in his slacks and a dress shirt, fresh out of church.

“Enough, Bailey,” Blake says, breaking the spell. “Come on, Mila, let me show you inside.”

Straightening up, we walk over to the cabin, where he holds the door open and gestures for me to go on in. He looks a little nervous as I step past him and into the cabin, which is essentially a man cave.

There’s a TV mounted onto the wall in front of a couch that’s covered in blankets, a foosball table, and home gym kit that takes up most of the space in here, complete with a squat rack and one-hundred-pound weights. The walls are decorated with posters of musicians, and in the very center of the room, directly in front of me, is an acoustic guitar perched in a stand.

“I don’t live out here or anything,” Blake says as he closes the door behind us. Bailey has padded inside too and flops down into the dog bed beneath the TV, gnawing on his new favorite stick. “This is just where I relax.”

I sit down on the edge of the couch and play with the hem of one of the blankets. My eyes circle the cabin one more time, the sunlight streaming in through the windows and lighting up every item. “This is cool,” I say with an impressed nod.

“Yeah, I like it.” Blake sits down on the edge of the foosball table. Anxious now, he stares at the ground and swings his legs gently back and forth. “So, I believe you’re still waiting for an answer.”

Oh, yeah. That’s the reason I’m here in the first place, right? To get an answer out of Blake. Or at least mostly the reason . . .

I fold my hands together in my lap and straighten my shoulders, trying my best to look like I mean business so that he takes me seriously. I’m not in the mood for him to give me any joke answers.

“So, Blake Avery,” I start formally, clearing my throat as though I’m an attorney, ready to deliver my closing argument. “You are so, so confusing. One minute, you’re telling me you like my piercing and introducing me to honky tonks and shoving food down your throat in front of me – which, for the record, is gross – but is all still pretty normal.”

Blake listens attentively, eyes glistening in the sunlight.

“But then out of nowhere,” I continue, unfazed, “you put all this pressure on me, like you enjoy making me uncomfortable. So, Blake – are you a jerk, or are you just glad there’s finally someone else who can take the attention off of yourself?”

“Did you rehearse that?” Blake says.

My expression hardens. “Answer me.” (And yes, I did.)

“I’m not a jerk,” he says seriously, his intense eye contact unnerving. “And I’m sorry if I ever made you uncomfortable, because I didn’t mean to.” Blake sighs and slips off the edge of the table. “You’re right – usually the attention is on me. Blake, does the mayor know you’re drinking on school property? Blake, you better keep the music down before the mayor shows up.” He moves closer, his expression earnest and his eyes only on me. “And then you show up out of nowhere, and I think: Great, everyone will have something else to talk about for once.”

“Convenient,” I mumble.

His mouth twitches, fighting a smile. “Right. Convenient is exactly what you were.”

“Oh. So, you do want everyone to talk about me rather than you,” I say, my shoulders sinking. This is what I didn’t want – a stir. Ruben’s words echo in my head, all that crap about maintaining a low profile . . . But how is that possible in a town as small as Fairview? Nothing exciting ever happens – and then Everett freaking Harding’s kid pitches up?

“Well, yeah,” Blake says. He steps in front of the couch and props his arm on top of a rack of vinyls. “Most of Fairview High are wondering if Everett himself is about to show up too.”

My heart sinks. I should have never gone to that tailgate party. And honestly, I should have never even befriended Savannah again. I should have stayed within the ranch boundaries, painted flaky woodwork, listened to Popeye’s stories from the Vietnam War, and learned to take care of the horses with Sheri. I should have done what Ruben and my father expected of me – to remain silent, poised, and obedient, a perfect pixel in the Everett Harding picture, with no wriggle room in which to simply be Mila Harding.

“Mila?” Blake says with concern.

I look up at him, my heart thumping hard in my chest. “Did you not think –” I try, but my throat has gone dry “– that there was a reason I didn’t want anyone to know who my dad was?”

The crack in my voice reveals my panic, and Blake moves suddenly to sit down on the couch next to me. He hunches forward, hands on his knees, searching my face for a hint of what exactly thisreason may be.

“You don’t sound pissed at me anymore. Should I be concerned?”

Bailey shuffles over and jumps up, paws on the edge of the couch, furry head nestling into Blake’s lap. His tail wags enthusiastically, but Blake pushes him off.

“Not now, Bails,” he whispers. He points firmly to the dog bed and Bailey skulks off to the other side of the cabin. “Good boy.” Blake fixes his attention back on me, his expression intense. When I don’t respond, he takes a stab at guessing. “You don’t want anyone to know Everett Harding is your dad because you don’t want everyone in Fairview kissing your ass? You want to make real friends and not fake ones? You’re bored of talking about him?”

I shake my head. “I didn’t want anyone to focus on who my dad is,” I say, my voice flat, “because no one was supposed to know I was even here in the first place.”

Blake furrows his eyebrows. “Huh?”

I turn to look at him sharply. “C’mon, Blake. You’ve already figured out that I’m not here because I want to be.”

If he feels smug about being right, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he relaxes back against the couch and stares ahead for a few seconds, pensive. “When I pushed you so hard in Nashville, it wasn’t just for fun, Mila. I was giving you a chance to get something off your chest. Anything at all.” He sits forward again, edging in slightly closer to me this time. His knee bumps mine. “So. Anything?”

I glance down at his knee by mine and instinctively pull my leg away.

I’m probably the only person around here who can understand you . . .

Those words of Blake’s from our argument in Nashville circle inside my head, on a constant loop. I told him our lives were totally different, but when I steal a peek out of the cabin doors at the pristine house, I think of LeAnne. The Mayor of Nashville, with her son under strict instructions to keep his act in order so that there isn’t even the possibility of a single blemish on her record. A familiar feeling for Everett Harding’s daughter.

I tilt my chin up and my eyes meet Blake’s.

Maybe he is the only person around here who could possibly ever begin to understand me, to understand lifeas the kid of someone in the spotlight with an image to maintain. I bet there are a lot of people out there wishing to ruin the mayor’s reputation, and Blake must surely be under pressure to act a certain way.

So, I take a deep breath and start talking.

“The Flash Point movies,” I say. “The latest one hits theaters next month.”

“Yeah, I know. The trailer plays during every damn commercial break on TV.”

I give Blake the side-eye, and he holds up his hands apologetically and then mimics zipping his lips shut.

“The production company is convinced that if there’s bad press about any cast members then the movie won’t make as many millions at the box office. And the whole no-bad-press rule extends to family members, too. Like me.”

“So, you’re bad publicity?” Blake asks, intrigued.

“Only by accident,” I groan. I sink my head into my hands and rub at my temples. Even now, I can still taste the sweet fizz of that champagne from the press conference. The final straw in the very, very short list of Mila Harding’s mistakes. “The past few months I’ve done a couple of things that would be minusculeif I were anyone else, but in Dad’s world they’ve been escalated into totally end-of-the-world stuff.”

“Like?”

“Like being photographed giving the finger to the paparazzi. And TMZ have a video of me throwing up at one of Dad’s events.” I drop my hands from my face and raise my head, my cheeks blazing red. “If you’ve not seen it already, then please, please don’t google it or anything.”

“I promise I won’t google the video of you throwing up,” he says with a smile, his hand clasped over his heart. His knee touches mine again, but this time I don’t shift my leg away.

“There’s a lot riding on this new movie and Dad’s every move is being scrutinized while they roll out the publicity campaign, so—”

“So, it’ll be easier if you’re not there to mess things up for him?”

Ouch. It’s the truth, but still it sounds harsh hearing it from someone else.

I look up at Blake and his frown has both pity and empathy in it. Maybe he does know exactly how I feel. Guilt rises in my throat; I know my mouth should be sealed shut. Ruben would have me for dead if he knew I was about to spill this reality to Blake, but I can’t stop myself. Knowing that someone else gets how it feels to have so much pressure hanging over your head – well, it feels . . . comforting. Comforting to know that someone else can’t afford to make any so-called mistakes either.

“I’m too much of a risk,” I murmur. “They don’t trust me not to stir up anything vaguely resembling bad publicity again. And the movie comes first.”

“So, you’re here until it’s released?” Blake finishes. He evidently knows how these things work. He knows the lengths to which someone in the public eye will go to preserve their reputation. It’s not just A-listers. The Mayor of Nashville can live without dramatic headlines, too.

“Probably longer. It needs to earn however many millions of dollars at the box office first. Dad’s manager thinks I shouldn’t even leave the ranch. I think he expects me to be totally incognito, invisible, but my aunt lets me live, obviously. So, yeah. No one was really supposed to know that I was here, I don’t think. But now everyone does.”

Now that I’m saying this out loud, I realize how ridiculous it is. I’m trapped in Fairview so that I don’t potentially create bad press for a movie that I’m not even involved in. If only I’d not been hungover and humiliated that morning after the press conference, I could have fought my corner harder. I could have held my nerve and told Ruben that no, I wasn’t going anywhere. And I should have dared to ask my father where his loyalties really lie.

“Don’t you think it’s hilarious how everyone assumes life is great when your parent is some kind of star?” Blake scoffs. Then his expression grows gloomy. “They don’t know the half of it. Do you have any siblings?”

My throat feels so restricted now, I can barely speak. I angle my body into his, and our knees press closer still. “No. Do you?”

“No,” he says, then rolls his eyes. “So great, right? No one else to share the burden with. All focus is solely on you. I love being an only child,” he adds dryly.

“Yeah, it sucks. You don’t want the focus to be on you.”

“And I took it upon myself to keep putting you on the spot in front of everyone at the tailgate party,” Blake says after a moment. Looking troubled, he remorsefully touches my knee. “Fuck, Mila. I’m sorry – I know you were so upset that night.”

Transfixed by Blake’s hand on my leg, I can’t reply. I look at his fingers, the way his grip tightens as though he’s unaware he’s touching me. He follows my gaze down to his hand then pulls it back with a jolt. Pink flushes across his neck.

“I wasn’t upset,” I protest. “I was mad. There’s a difference.”

Suddenly, there’s a loud rap at the glass doors of the cabin. Blake and I both start at the same time, yanked out of our bubble as I twist around. Bailey lunges from his bed and barks madly at the door, making my heart beat even faster. LeAnne stands outside the cabin, her hands pressed to her hips, peering through the glass.

“Lunch is served.”

Her features are tight, and she does little to hide her disdain as she glances between Blake and me for a long while. Eventually, she turns on her heels and stalks back to the house, leaving me wondering if I imagined the disapproval in her look.