This Is What Happy Looks Like - By Jennifer E. Smith Page 0,67

get in here?”

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. “I told the front desk you were probably passed out drunk.”

Graham frowned. “Why would you say that?”

“Because I couldn’t possibly think of another explanation for why you might be out punching photographers,” he said, and though it was clear he was kidding, when his eyes slid over to meet Graham’s across the room, there was a hint of annoyance at what was no doubt coming: a full-blown media storm.

“Obviously I’m not drunk,” Graham said, then nodded at the computer. “Is it up yet?”

“Not yet,” Harry said.

“Then how do you—”

“I got a call from Mitchell.”

Graham looked at him blankly.

“That PA who’s always hanging around with the photographers,” he explained. “It’s gonna move fast.”

The phone in Harry’s hand rang, and he glanced at the number, then set it aside. In the hallway, they could hear the family next door returning to their room. They’d checked in a few nights ago, and when Graham had passed them in the hall for the first time, they’d all stopped without exactly meaning to. The father was the first to come to his senses, hurrying them along as one of his young daughters cupped a hand over her mouth, the words escaping between her fingers, giddy and disbelieving: “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” Even after they’d piled onto the elevator at the end of the hall and the doors had closed behind them, Graham could still hear high-pitched squeals of the two girls, and he hadn’t been able to keep from smiling.

Now he tried not to imagine what they might think when they saw his picture on the front page of one of the local papers that were always scattered around the lobby. If it didn’t happen tomorrow, it would undoubtedly happen the next day, the photo sure to be dark and grainy, set beneath some kind of silly and melodramatic headline like Lights Out, Thanks to Larkin.

“It wasn’t bad enough that you broke his camera?” Harry was saying, and Graham tipped his head back with a groan. “You had to punch the guy too?”

“I know,” he said. “But he was in my face. They all were. They were basically stalking us.”

Harry glanced up at the last word. “Us?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Let me guess…”

“You don’t need to,” Graham said, meeting his gaze.

Harry’s face was grim, and he reached up to ruffle the back of his hair. Graham could almost see him trying to swallow the words he so desperately wanted to say: I told you so. But it was there anyway, in his eyes, and Graham knew he was right. He should have stayed away from Ellie. But he wasn’t sorry for the same reasons. He didn’t care about bad publicity. He couldn’t even muster up any worry over Mick’s reaction to all this. All he could think about was Ellie. All he wanted was to make this okay for her.

“So what do we do now?” he asked, sitting forward. “Can we keep this under wraps? Or spin it somehow?”

“I’m trying,” Harry said. “If it were only the photos…”

Graham didn’t have to ask what that meant. “You mean if I hadn’t punched him.”

Harry’s phone began to ring again, and this time, he brought it to his ear. “Yeah,” he said, and then fell silent as he listened. Graham rose to his feet and walked into the bathroom, where he turned on the faucet, splashing cold water on his face, trying to shock away the events of the evening.

He placed a hand on each side of the sink and rocked forward, angry at himself for going down to the beach at all. But when he’d noticed his drawing framed in the window of her mother’s shop, there amid all the poems, something about the sight of it had seemed to carry him right down to the cove. And he couldn’t for a second regret what had happened there, could still feel it like a stamp across his chest, the place where Ellie had been curled against him.

Under the lights of the bathroom, he examined his hand where his knuckles had come into contact with the photographer’s cheekbone as he listened to Harry’s voice grow increasingly angry in the next room.

“It’s already out,” he said a moment later, appearing in the doorway of the bathroom. “Everyone’s running with it.”

Graham looked up from the stream of water as it coursed over his sore hand. “What about her?” he asked, trying to keep his