A wave of panic and sunlight woke me the following morning where I realized I still had my arms draped around Violetta. Her chest rose and fell in time with her breathing.

I blinked. So that was real. I'd let Violetta share my bed last night and she was still here. Quietly, I peeled myself away, careful not to disturb her. After throwing on a robe, I tiptoed out of the room with my fist firmly grasping my phone.

A quick glance down at the screen told me it was already eight thirty. It was Saturday, which meant Hayden should be awake by now. Unless he was sleeping in because the baby was still with his in-laws.

Please pick up, I prayed silently as I frantically clicked his contact. The phone rang endlessly before cheerfully letting me know that Hayden was unavailable to answer my call but I could leave a message and he'd get back to me.

"Hayden, hey," I started, my voice as low as possible while still being audible. The hallway was quiet but it felt as though my voice echoed with every word. "So, something happened last night. I-I'm not really sure what to make of it." I ran a hand through my hair and chuckled. "You'd probably tell me I'm overthinking and maybe I am. It's...It's about Vi. Violetta. She and I, well we went to the bonfire together. And I don't know, there was a lot of drinking involved. So we were both kinda drunk by the end of the night, but nothing really happened.  Um, anywho, I don't really—it's just a lot. Call me when you can. Bye."

I hung up before I could ramble any longer. Hayden was my go-to for relationship advice. It was the reason he'd been my first kiss in college, the reason we'd stayed by each other's side for so long.

And now, I sort of had to figure things out on my own.

What did last night mean, anyway? We were just two friends going out to have a great time. But were we friends? We were barely strangers. She was the star, I was in the wings.

Could we actually be anything?

Did I want that?

Heat rushed to my cheeks as I thought about the way Violetta fit perfectly against my body. On the dance floor, in the bed.

"There you are."

Speak of the devil.

I turned around. Violetta stood in the doorway of the hotel room, one ankle crossed behind the other as she poked her head into the hallway.

"Hey," I said. "I was just checking my messages and didn't want to wake you."

She smiled. "That's ok. Come back inside? I need to talk to you about something."

I nodded. "I'll be there in a second." I waited for Violetta to close the door again before opening up a web browser on my phone. My eyes grew wide, and that's when I saw it.

The headline on the front page featured not one, but two familiar faces:

Love is in the Air?! Actress Violetta Dawson (27) Hit By Cupid's Arrow in an Exclusive...

"Exclusive, what?!" I muttered to myself. I yanked at the door handle, only realizing I'd left my key card inside when it wouldn't budge.

Violetta opened it a second later, her phone to her ear. "Baxter," she mouthed to me. From the sounds coming from the other end, he didn't sound too happy.

"I know, Bax," she was saying, "But—" Silence as her publicist continued to squawk. "You really don't need to do that." She sighed. "I'll take care of it, Bax. Bye." After hanging up, she turned to me.

"So, there's an article," I said.

"I know." Violetta nodded to her phone. "That's why Baxter called and what I wanted to discuss. Seems we've made front page news." She flopped onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows. "Dammit, they really can't leave me alone, can they? And now they've dragged you into it? I just...ugh! See, this is what I'm talking about, Rea. I can't do anything, go anywhere, without being recognized. Without being judged."

"What's the article saying?" I asked.

"Just some asshole who is making a bigger deal out of something that's not a big deal," she replied. "There's a photo of us dancing together. Apparently people are calling us 'Veagan'." She shuddered. "Who comes up with these things?"

I grabbed my tablet and pulled up the article on the screen. Sure enough, there we were under the headline. Someone had captured a photo of us while we were dancing to 'Cupid Shuffle' during one of the kicks.

Our fingers were interlocked. My head was thrown back in laughter with my mouth open as I sang along. And the smile on Violetta's face told all. She looked at me the same way I looked at anything with mango; the way I looked—I used to look—at Mari; the way that I wish to be looked at again.

My heart lurched. If I had to venture a guess, that was what the paparazzi had seen and decided to focus on.

We made the front page because of a look.

"Okay, so we made the front page," I said, rolling the words over my tongue. Used to being the one who created the headlines, it felt strange to be the subject of one of them, especially one that got it wrong on so many levels. "Now what?"

"We can't leave."

"Well, I sure as hell can't stay in this damn hotel room." I peeked out the window at the passing cars on the road below. "I'm on vacation, Violetta."

Violetta grabbed my arm, her eyes wide. "Reagan..."

"No." I shook my head. "No, I'm not going to let some stupid half-wit paparazzi keep me from enjoying myself. Why is this such a major deal? Don't you avoid these types of rumors all the time?"

"It's different when it's a woman," she snapped. "I told you that yesterday. I'm not open about my sexuality to the world. Hell, I shouldn't have even told you about it." Violetta got up from the bed and stormed through the adjacent door.

"You can't just run from this conversation!" I called after her. "You can't run every time something is scary."

"I'm not, I'm just changing my clothes!" she threw back at me. "And you're a hypocrite, you know that?" She peeked her head back through the door, as she wiggled into a pair of jeans to go with the unbuttoned flannel shirt that was now draped over her shoulders.

I crossed my arms over my chest. "How's that?"

"Because you ran away from your past." The words hit like a ton of bricks. "Actually, you ran back to your past. For someone who likes to think in the future, you're very chained to what you cannot change."

"You don't know me, Violetta."

Violetta stepped forward, crossing the threshold between the rooms. The white and grey plaid of her flannel shirt contrasted the reddish hues in her hair. "You apparently don't know yourself either, Reagan." Her voice softened at the next words. "You say you came out here for vacation and yet from what I can tell, you've retreated to your past. This hotel, Conrad, the bonfire. All of it is to remind you of what could've been with Marianne. What you messed up. Or so you claim."

"Oh yeah? Well you—you—" The argument was lost on my lips. I looked down at my hands. She was right. How was it that this woman I met barely three days earlier already knew me better than I knew myself?

"You don't give yourself enough credit," she continued. "There's two sides to every story; what about your side? What were you doing in the relationship that Marianne didn't acknowledge? What was she doing that you hated?"

"She never did anything wrong," I said knowing full well it was a lie.

"I don't believe that for a second." Violetta bounced back on the bed then looked at me. "Room service?"

Good. Anything to put an end to that discussion.

"Absolutely." Food was a good idea. I liked Violetta better when she wasn't hungry. She was too philosophical while not fed.

Violetta dialed the number and we listened to it ring. "Ah, yes hi. I'd like to order breakfast for room seven-oh-three, but please charge it to room seven-oh-five, under the name 'Violetta Dawson'." She waited on the other end while a man spoke a few more words. "We'd like, um..." Violetta turned to me, and I quickly pulled up the menu on my tablet. The website assaulted my eyes with a vibrant 'NEW ITEM, LIMITED TIME ONLY!' sign advertising a very delicious-looking breakfast item. I held up two fingers. "Um, two slices of mango toast on whole wheat with poached eggs, a plate of bacon, an extra large pot of coffee with cream and sugar, and a fruit bowl." Another pause, then: "Yes, to the extra mango. Twenty minutes? Okay, thank you!"

"Nicely done," I said, "but you didn't have to charge it to your room. I would've paid my half."

Violetta waved it off. "Nonsense. I'm taking over half your room, the best thing I can do is pay for breakfast."

I rolled my eyes playfully. "The best thing you can do is come with me today. We can go shopping, walk around, anything. But staying up in this hotel room is out of the question. Vacations are all about spontaneity."

"Spontaneity, huh? Okay, fine I give in." She put her hands up in surrender. "But that means I get to pick what we do today."

My lips twitched up into a smile. "Fine by me."

Twenty minutes later, our food arrived courtesy of a waitress named 'Cate'. She rolled the food cart into our room and glanced down at the plates then back to us.

"That's a lot of mango," she commented.

"There's no such thing as too much," Violetta sing-songed as she pushed the waitress lightly back out the door, calling out after her: "Haveagreatdaythankyoubyeeee!"

The scents wafting over from the food cart were heavenly, making my mouth water. We each grabbed a plate, piling them high with food.

"Mango toast," I murmured to myself. "Must be the new avocado toast."

"Oh yeah." Violetta took a bite of hers, crunching down on the warm bread. "Mango toast is all the rage these days. And I can see why."

I bit into my own toast, careful to let the yolk from the poached eggs dribble back on the plate and not on me. It was delicious! The toast was made with a thick mango-y custard that spread out like marmalade on the bread. The sweetest of the mango was not too overpowering as it combined with the bread and the eggs.

"So, Reagan," Violetta said between bites. "You've told me you're a journalist, but I haven't seen any of your articles. What do you write about?"

I brought over my tablet and pulled up one of my articles for her to read. "I typically focus on local celebrities," I told her. "And who we consider a celebrity falls into a few different categories. An up-and-coming content creator, someone who grew up in the local area or moved here after starting their career, and our spotlight standard: celebrities from all walks of life for whom having their story told—their real story—is something they never imagined could be done and cared for." I ticked them off on my fingers.

"And so, me?" Her gaze rose to meet mine.

"I'd go for a shadow angle under the spotlight standard. What you don't see on the surface but is hidden beneath the waves."

"Fun. Oh, you have a little bit of, um, marmalade or something." She gestured toward my chin.

"Here?" I swiped at it, but my fingers came away clean.

Violetta shook her head. She leaned forward and brushed her thumb gently over my bottom lip. "There," she murmured.

I swallowed. "Thanks." My lip tingled from where her thumb touched, and I subconsciously licked my tongue over the spot.

Just as she leaned forward again, brushing her fingers over the stray hairs in front of my ears.

"Vi, I—"

The door banged open, followed by a very panicked man in a suit.

"So, it's true?"