"Morgan is a girl's name."

I glance up from my burger, squinting against the sunlight filtering through the trees behind August's head. He sits across from me, glaring down at his salad like the server somehow got his order wrong. His dark brows are pinched so that the crease between them is extra deep, his lips pressed tight together. I watch him stab his fork into a piece of lettuce with the most aggressive motion and shove it into his mouth.

After we finally peeled ourselves off of each other—and after August cleaned himself up—we hurried out to grab lunch before I had to head back to the studio. We now sit outside on the patio of a little restaurant just down the street from Morgan's house. The weather is beautiful, as it always seems to be in Los Angeles, a balmy breeze that takes the edge off the heat from the sun, and if it weren't for the paparazzi across the street, it would be perfect.

"Morgan can be a girl's name, yes," I say, dipping a fry into my ketchup, confused about why he has such a broody look on his face.

"I thought Morgan was a girl," he mutters.

"Well, in this case," I blink at him, chewing, "Morgan's actually a boy."

He glares back down at his plate, forking another piece of lettuce. I have no idea why he's so irritated—he's the one who ordered the salad. It's not like I forced it on him. This is entirely self-inflicted. 

Just as I'm about to look away, he mutters, "And what's the deal with him calling you Maisiecakes?"

"It's a funny joke, really," I start, popping two more fries in my mouth. "We were working late one night and I ended up staying over—"

"It's a terrible nickname," he cuts me off, reaching for his water. "And mildly inappropriate."

I tilt my head. "Is it?"

"Yes," he grits out over the rim of his glass.

Okay, so I'm getting now that maybe it's not the salad he's upset about. August is jealous. He walked in, saw Morgan and I working in the studio together, and now he's jealous. It's... well, it's amazing, really.

I brush the salt from my hands, rubbing them together before resting my chin on one, fighting back the smile tugging at my lips. "August."

"What?" he grumbles as he swipes three fries from my plate and dips them into ketchup. Normally, I'd have swatted his hand away by now, but I'm too amused to care.

"Are you jealous?"

"What?" He huffs, shaking his head, but I don't miss the way the tips of his ears turn pink. I bite my lip against a grin. "No, that's—no. Why would I be jealous?"

"If you were jealous—"

"I'm not jealous."

"—it would be okay. Endearing, even." I pick up my burger, trying to hide my grin behind it. "In, like, the cutest way possible."

His jaw tightens, then untightens, eyes tracking me as I try to chew as ladylike as one can with a mouth full of burger. I take him in, and despite his broody face—LA looks good on him. He's changed since we left Morgan's, trading his shorts for jeans and tugging a hat over that wavy, tousled hair.

There's a smirk pulling at the edges of his lips, and it makes me want to crawl right into his lap, thighs bracketing his hips, and lick it clean off his face.

August leans in and, in the most deliciously rough voice, murmurs, "Hard to be jealous when I can still see the hickey I gave you earlier."

"August!" I whisper-yell, my hand flying to the spot on my neck where he was definitely sucking earlier. I hear Ryan chuckle from his spot off to the side of us, and I turn to shoot him a glare, but his attention is fixed on the growing crowd across the street.

Quickly, I pull out my phone and discreetly flip to the camera to check. Sure enough, there's a red, bruised splotch on the left side of my neck.

"Oh my god, I do have a hickey," I whisper, feeling my face flush. I gently set my phone down, a little mortified, and glance over at the paparazzi across the street, cameras going off as they snap pictures of us and then back to August. "Why didn't you say something?"

He just shrugs, a wry smile on his full lips. "I liked seeing it there."

I scoff playfully, picking up a fry from my plate and fling it at him. He laughs, catching it as it bounces off his chest.

"Careful," he teases, popping it into his mouth. "They're going to think you're abusing me."

I shake my head at him as I reach to take a sip of my strawberry lemonade, grinning at him over the rim of the glass. Flirting with August feels like the best kind of indulgence—eating ice cream before dinner, binge-watching an entire series in one night, spoonfuls of Nutella straight from the jar. I'm completely in love with flirty August.

My phone buzzes, skittering across the table, pulling my eyes away from him—it's Andrea. She's still in Massachusetts getting things ready for the tour next week while I'm here recording. She has been flooding my messages, asking how LA is going, asking how things with August are going. I haven't had the nerve to tell her about our arrangement. I can already picture the smug look on her face.

"Okay, first off," she texts, "since you're clearly avoiding the topic of August, I had to ask my sources. A little birdy told me you've got a hickey!?"

I whip around to Ryan. But his hands are folded behind his back, shaking his head at some paparazzo with a long lens camera crossing the street towards me. The guy freezes when he sees Ryan, eyes wide, realizing he's been caught, then quickly scurries away.

My phone buzzes in my hand again. "Second, I know you're like on cloud nine or whatever, but just a gentle reminder—you have your dad's dinner this weekend. There's still time to cancel if you want, Mace. The tour next week is a perfect excuse."

My stomach twists, and suddenly, I'm not so hungry anymore.

I've been doing a phenomenal job pretending that dinner with my dad isn't happening this weekend, shoving it into the part of my brain where I keep everything I don't want to deal with. I was hoping this would be the year I'd finally forget about it entirely—maybe even the year I wouldn't care if I missed it.

"Hey, so—" August's voice pulls my attention back to him. I watch as he swallows, brushing his palms against the thighs of his jeans. "I know you said, uh... I know you said you'd think about it, for this weekend"—Oh God, not him, too. It's like a planned ambush—"your dad and stepmom's dinner—"

"August—"

"—but I want to go."

"No, you don't."

"I do, actually," he says, matter-of-fact.

"It's going to be boring. They'll just talk about doctor stuff the entire time." Between my dad, my stepmom, and my stepsister, it's always felt like they're speaking a completely different language with all the medical terms they toss around the table. I could never really keep up and always end up binging Grey's Anatomy, hoping Meredith will impart some life-altering wisdom during the six-hour marathon I try to squeeze in before heading over. I'm not sure if I'll have time for that this weekend.

"Just think of it as part of the trial run," August says.

I shake my head, staring down at my half-eaten burger. "That was never part of the deal."

"I'm pretty sure orgasms weren't either, but here we are," he whispers with a cocky grin, looking far too pleased with himself.

My stomach swoops and I huff out a scoff, blushing furiously. I steal another glance at Ryan, who—thankfully—didn't seem to catch the comment this time.

"Come on, Mace." August leans in, more serious now, invading my space the way he always does when he's trying to convince me of something. I can list every time he's gotten his way just by leaning in—like when he talked me into going to that sci-fi book convention in Maine or that time he convinced me to watch all three Lord of the Rings extended editions back-to-back-to-back.

But now... now I know what his lips feel like against mine, how he tastes like spearmint, the sound he makes when I tug at the ends of his hair. And it's making it increasingly harder not to give in.

His fingertips brush my knee until his palm presses firmly against my thigh. "I'm not letting you go alone. Even Andrea agrees I should come—it'll look better for our..." He glances past me, searching for the right words. "Our dating situation. What if they ask about us—about ma? They've probably heard something by now."

"I doubt it," I mumble to myself. They've never really been the kind of people to follow pop culture or keep up with anything related to celebrity news. Honestly, I doubt they even know I came out with a new album two months ago.

"Why don't you want me to go?"

"It's not that I don't want you to go, Gus, it's just... it's just that..."

It's just that what if he meets my dad's family and everything changes? What if he sees the same flaws that drove my dad away—the same things that made him choose another family over me and Mom? What if he realizes I'm too much... or worse, not enough? What if he leaves and breaks my heart?

Because everyone I've ever cared about has left, one way or another. No one stays. And I thought maybe I was finally coming to terms with the fact that I don't get to have the things I really want. That if I kept what I wanted at arm's length, maybe that was the only way I could keep them at all.

Having August like this—whatever this is between us—is more than I've ever had, more than I've ever let myself want. And I'm just not ready to lose him too.

"It's just that, what, Mace?" August's voice cuts through my downward spiral, pulling me back.

My eyes fall to the table, swallowing against the tight knot forming in my throat.

"It's just that... it's not going to be fun," I finally say, my finger mindlessly drawing a frowny face in the condensation on my glass. "His fami—My dad and stepmom, they're not like your family, Gus. It's nothing like Sunday dinners at your parents'. It's just an hour and a half of awkward small talk where we eat some overly fancy dinner Evelyn will make, and that's it. Plus, it'll take forever to get there and back. Triple the time in driving. I don't want to make you drive all the way to New Haven and back. It'll be a waste of your time when I can just meet up with you after and tell—"

"It won't be a waste of time," August says, dipping his head just enough to catch my eyes. They're so earnest it makes my chest ache. "I'll be with you. And I'd love to actually meet your dad for once. We've been friends for, what, almost a decade now? I'm pretty sure you've met my entire extended family at this point, my crazy aunt included, and yet I've only ever met your mom those couple of times."

I sigh, watching as his lips turn down at the corners, frowning at the mention of my mom. I remember that first time she met August. She'd been grinning like an idiot. Practically dragged him to the couch and then immediately proceeded to tell him about how she walked in on my first kiss with Aaron Whitner sophomore year of high school.

Mom, I had scolded through the most strained, forced smile, my face burning. I don't think August needs to hear about all my awkward adolescent moments.

I do, actually, he had said, grinning.

She just smiled at me and then pulled me into one of her hugs, warm and tight, whispering in my ear, I like him. He's cute.

God, I miss her hugs.

I shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts, fighting the stinging sensation building behind my eyes as I glance up at the fluffy white clouds drifting by.

"Your family's different, Gus."

"Maisie," he presses.

I blink at him. "Don't Maisie me."

His lips settle into a firm line, a deep breath pushing out from his chest. Those eyes of his trail along my face like they're trying to figure something out, that crease creasing. "If you hate it so much, then why do you even go?"

Because I don't want to be alone, I almost blurt out.

I know what it feels like to be alone. To not have anyone.

After my mom died, I spent that first year wondering who I'd spend the holidays with, who I'd call in an emergency, who'd remember to call me on my birthday.

Mom and I had come from a line of mistakes, missteps. My grandparents, from what I was told, accidentally got pregnant with her in their late forties, with no intentions of having kids, let alone wanting any. By the time I was old enough to remember them, they were gone. And me—well, I was the byproduct of a very brief, very fleeting one-night stand.

My father was never really involved in my childhood, aside from the occasional phone call or birthday card in the mail. It was always just the two of us—Mom and me. She had moved us around so much growing up that I never had the chance to put down roots. We never stayed anywhere long enough for friendships to stick.

Kismet, Maisie girl, that's what we are, Mom used to tell me, like we'd somehow defied all odds just by existing. She had this way of making it feel like we didn't need anyone else—that it was enough, just us.

But after she passed, kismet felt less like fate and more like we were a string of accidental tragedies.

I took a leave of absence from college when I came home to take care of Mom. By the time I was ready to go back, it felt like too much time had passed, like I'd missed too much, and I ended up dropping out completely. Going back just felt pointless. And then the thought of seeing August and Gwen together on campus every day made my stomach turn. It was hard enough seeing them when they would visit Green Harbor—watching him kiss her, hold her hand. August and I still talked like we always had, but something had shifted. He seemed serious about her, and knowing he didn't want me like that—on top of everything else—broke my heart a little more each time. So, I stayed in Rock Point and threw myself into full-time shifts at Hannigan's instead.

It wasn't until those TikTok videos of me singing went viral and Andrea swooped in, wanting to sign me as my manager, that things really started to change. For the first time, it felt like I had something—a dream to chase. Something that no one could take away from me. Once Andrea found a producer willing to work with me, she sent me off to LA, and I went without hesitation. Maybe, deep down, I thought I'd find something more out there, too—friends, a life that could somehow bury the loneliness that had settled in after losing Mom.

Everything had felt new and exciting, but as the days blurred into weeks, the loneliness crept back in. I ended up in some shitty apartment by LAX that I'd found on Craigslist—probably not my best move. My roommate, Alexis, was... fine. Her boyfriend was constantly over, smoking weed out the living room window, rambling on about whatever dive bars his band failed to get gigs at while I tried to eat my Lucky Charms in peace.

Three weeks in, when I asked if Alexis wanted to watch Notting Hill with me, she stared at me blankly and said, Look, Marcie, I know we're like roommates and all, but that doesn't mean we need to be friends.

I took a job at Trader Joe's, working the worst shifts just to cover rent while I recorded that first album. I'd come home, eat ramen, then sit through rush-hour traffic to get to Morgan's place. I kept myself busy because I genuinely loved what I was doing, but if I'm honest, it also helped me avoid the creeping fear of just how alone I was. The more I worked, the less I had to face the fact that I had no one left.

For a long time, the distance between my dad and me didn't bother me. Those awkward, once-a-year dinners we had felt like enough, especially after that first one at sixteen. But after Mom passed and I spent that year in LA, I realized I had to at least try to have some kind of relationship with him. Because even a strained connection was better than having no family at all.

"I never said I hated it," I murmur, pushing my plate aside, my appetite gone completely.

"You have before," August counters.

"That was a long time ago, before my m—" I bite the inside of my cheek because the truth is, of course, I hate it. I hate how it feels like he's obligated to see me. I hate how he barely looks at me when I'm right there in front of him. I hate how he can have a normal conversation with my step-sister, but not with me. I hate that he is the only parent I have left. "I said that once, forever ago. I don't necessarily hate it; it's just... sometimes it's boring."

August's hand squeezes my knee gently, trying to pull my attention to his. I glance to where his hand is on my knee. "Maisie, if you really don't want me to come, that's fine, but I don't want you to have to go alone when I'm more than willing to go with you. We'll make a road trip out of it. I'll drive, you can pick the music, and we can even stop at Friendly's in Worcester. Let you eat your weight in ice cream sundaes."

My eyes flick to his. "You'd stop at Friendly's for me?"

"Of course I would," he says, shaking his head like he instantly regrets saying it. He hates Friendly's. "Even if it shaves five years off my life."

I bite the corner of my lip, hesitating as I watch him. His face is so serious, his thumb brushing softly back and forth along my knee, waiting for me to say something. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad having him there—having someone there for me. Best case, my dad shows up late like always, we slip out early, head straight to Friendly's, and August never brings it up ever again.

"Okay," I finally say, "but only because you promised to take me to Friendly's."

"Perfect. Friendly's," he echoes with exaggerated enthusiasm, leaning in to press his lips to mine. August kisses me right there, in front of everyone in the restaurant, in full view of the fans across the street—not because he has to, but because he wants to. The faint click of paparazzi cameras in the background only slightly ruins the moment.

"We should probably get you back," he says, pulling out his wallet and tossing some cash on the bill. "I'm sure Morgan's wondering where you are."

I snort. "So jealous."

He sighs, pulling off his hat to rake a rough hand through his hair. "Of course I am. You should see the way he looks at you. The way most people look at you." His voice dips as he swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I don't want anyone else looking at you, especially when you're supposed to be mine during this trial period."

Mine. The word vibrates through my chest. It's strange, almost overwhelming, knowing he feels that way—the way I've felt for so long, even if it's just on the terms of this trial period. That he doesn't want others looking at me.

He stands, and I slip my hand into his outstretched one, our fingers lacing together until our palms press tight. "You do realize I'm about to go on tour with around sixty thousand people per concert watching me, right?"

He drags a palm across his jaw. "Oh, I'm well aware. It's something I'm working through."

A smile pulls at my lips as warmth blooms inside me, spilling over. I can't help it—I feel like I'm bursting at the seams because of it. I whisper, "You have nothing to be jealous of."

He squeezes my hand, his tension easing just slightly. "Come on, let's get you back."

___________

Only 12 more chapters to go guys 🙈 How are we feeling so far? Any thoughts, feelings, or predictions?

And for those of you who might have missed it, Public Relations has made the 2024 Wattys shortlist, along with Broken Rules! Thank you all so much for reading, voting, commenting, and following along with our bbs Maisie and August—I honestly couldn't have done it without you all 🥹