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“I guess?”

“Yes! Just like old times,” she says and saunters to her bedroom.

My stomach turns. Yeah, old times. Which means everyone I once knew will be there and find out that my plans to make it big in France failed big-time.

Colton gets on his bike and hands me his spare helmet. I push the thing onto my head. This time, I manage to get onto his bike a bit more gracefully.

“I’m getting the hang of this,” I say proudly.

“You are.” He turns around. “But you’re still forgetting to grab a hold of me. I won’t bite. At least not while we’re driving,” he says with a wink.

I do as he says and wrap my arms around his waist. At least this is distracting me from thinking about the bonfire.

Colton throttles the engine, and we whiz away. He takes a route that leads to a small road following the coastline. It’s a shortcut only people who live in Summerville Creek know about. The road snakes along, offering beautiful vistas of the area.

I sigh. Paris is nice too, but it doesn’t have these scenic views of the ocean. For the first time since deciding to go back home, I’m not sad about it. I had forgotten, or maybe forced myself to forget, how much I love being close to the ocean.

Plus, it’s not every day you get to ride on a motorcycle with your best friend’s hot brother. This is all so relaxing and exciting at the same time. It’s—

“What the heck!”

I’m wheezing and coughing, no longer feeling relaxed. Instead, I’m trying to get the remnants of a fly out of my mouth. Gosh, I hope it was a fly and not some other icky-looking bug. Oh man, what if I swallowed a bee or something?

Colton slows down and comes to a full stop on a stretch of road that widens near the cliff next to us. He must be wondering why I’m squirming in my seat like this.

He flips the visor of his helmet up. “Are you okay back there?”

“Bug,” I manage to say. That’s when I realize I’m touching my outstretched tongue with my hand. I swipe the swab of saliva on my shorts. He frowns, and I can’t blame him. Even I am grossed out by me.

“Sorry,” I say. “That thing came out of nowhere. I mean, not out of nowhere, it flew from around here somewhere, but… Sorry.”

He laughs. “For getting a bug in your mouth? Or for not flipping down the visor like you should’ve?”

“Oh.” I reach for the visor with my clean hand. How could I forget to flip it down? I snap it in place immediately. At least it hides the mortified look on my face.

“You good?” he asks.

I give him a thumbs-up. There’s no way I’m opening my mouth again anytime soon.

Fifteen minutes later, we arrive at the amusement park. Colton weaves his way through the cars that are already filling the parking lot, even though the park doesn’t open for another half an hour. He takes a left at the entrance, following the “staff only” signs, and parks his bike in the shade of a tree. I follow him into The Village, which according to Colton is what the people working here call the employees’ area.

There’s a flurry of activity happening in The Village. People dressed up in costumes run past, some of the crew members are pushing large trolleys filled with wrapped sandwiches, and a group of teens working summer jobs emerges from the dressing rooms, all dressed in the bespoke work outfits of the park: denim blue shorts or skirt paired with a yellow polo shirt. In a couple of hours, I could be wearing that outfit! Granted, the colors are not the most flattering in the world, but they’re not the worst either.

Colton leads me through a corridor with offices on either side. He stops at one of them and knocks before entering.

A bald man with a big mustache is sifting through papers behind a desk.

“Come in,” he says without looking up.

“Hi, Frank,” Colton says. “I’ve got that friend of mine with me.”

Frank puts down his papers and throws me a big smile, teeth and everything. “Ah yes, Elle, am I right? Looking for a job? Why don’t you take a seat?”

Colton nods and gives me a wink. “I’ve got to run. Good luck, Elle. See you later, Frank.”

He closes the door with a soft click, and I take a seat like Frank instructed me.

“I’m sorry for barging in like this,” I say. “I know I should’ve brought my résumé and all, but it was all very last-minute.”