Normally, I’d put the book down the second I got to the end of the story. I’d never read beyond the last page of a boring English lit book in high school, that was for sure. But I wanted more. Emily fascinated me. Her sharp tongue, her take-no-prisoners attitude, her I don’t care what you think sense of fashion and behavior.
I still couldn’t quite believe she had no clue who I was. She claimed she didn’t at the supermarket, but I’d eventually decided she only said that to take the ice cream. But when I was drumming, she’d glared at me like she wanted to put a bullet between my eyebrows. And earlier today, she’d been more annoyed than fangirling when I showed up on her doorstep in nothing but a towel.
I’d never had a woman behave that way around me. Even before I’d become famous—much less after—women tended to smile dreamily and let me do whatever I wanted. What would Emily do when she found out who I was?
My gut said, Don’t count on her squealing and fawning all over you.
I picked up my phone and checked out her social media accounts. There were quotes from her books. Several selfies. I squinted. Those couldn’t be her, even though they’d been tagged with her pen name. Where was the messy mane? The glasses? The bare face and annoyed scowl?
Her face was flawlessly made up in the selfies, her hair lying sleek and tidy around it. The eyelashes framing her wide eyes were so curled and thick that I knew they had to be from mascara. Emily had gorgeous green eyes that reminded me of a summer forest, but her lashes weren’t as long as in the picture. And whatever she’d done to her lips made them look fuller, although I liked her nude lips better. That way they’d only taste like her, not lipstick.
And her clothes actually looked nice, like something Mir would wear to work or a nice restaurant. So weird to see Emily with such a public façade.
As put together as she was in these photos, I liked her better all private and casually disheveled. She would’ve never forgotten a bra when she was dressed to face the world. And she was cuter when she wasn’t wearing makeup. More real. Bet she smelled like herself rather than perfume and cosmetics. I should probably check. Just to establish the truth, not because I harbored an unhealthy fixation with my neighbor who didn’t know who I was and hated my drumming.
I scrolled down. There were more pictures of Emily at some signing event. She still looked virtually unrecognizable in the photos. Too polished. Too dressed up.
Something about them reminded me of my ex, Caitlyn Shaw. Caitlyn wasn’t a writer. She was a social media influencer with half a million followers worldwide. She both recognized me and treated me well…unlike Emily. But everything else had been a lie, a carefully cultivated image and brand. The real Caitlyn was nothing like social media Caitlyn, and I’d been fooled. I’d thought she cared about me and wanted to be with me. But she only wanted what being with me could do for her career.
I’d been such an idiot. Devlin had told me that shit like that happened all the time. Said it’d get better. But even now, the memory of that shit-tastic relationship embarrassed me and pissed me off. Made me more cautious and standoffish because I didn’t want to repeat the experience, even though I knew not every woman in the world was like Caitlyn.
The more photos I saw of Emily as Emma Grant, the more a bitter taste filled my mouth—the same taste as when I’d found out Caitlyn was livestreaming our dinner. My manager had texted me to let me know because he wasn’t sure if it was something I wanted.
It wasn’t. I’d been planning on proposing to her that night. Instead, I broke up with her while her audience watched live. I hoped she’d received thousands of the likes she loved so much. And I’d made sure to like that video myself to show “support,” since that had been what she wanted more than anything else in the world.
Still… It didn’t look like Emily was trying to be an influencer. She only talked about her books and engaged her fans. I shouldn’t judge her for being so different in person. She wasn’t like Caitlyn, who had been image-conscious all the time and puked after meals when she thought I wouldn’t notice, then lied about it when I asked her to seek help. (I’d learned after the breakup that she wanted to tell her followers about all the rich, sumptuous meals she was enjoying while “effortlessly” maintaining a size-two body.) Emily ate ice cream, drank beer, crunched on crackers full of carbs and obviously didn’t care that her body wasn’t anywhere close to a size two. A decent publicist would’ve advised her to clean up before appearing in public so she wouldn’t scare away potential readers.
My eyes landed on framed photos of the family on the fireplace mantel. Grandma was smiling in many of them, looking happy and proud, her arms looped around the younger me and Mir. I was smiling in one, showing my braces and looking slightly dorky, even though I was doing my best to hide that from the world with a confident grin.
Nowadays, that same grin on stage made women scream and throw themselves at me. I was still me—Killian Axelrod—but Killian the Rock Star was very different from Killian the Teenager or Killian the Private Citizen.
I looked back at the photos, at my grandmother. She’d always known I’d make it big, even though some of the more pessimistic people in Kingstree told her most artists never make enough to pay phone bills. “Don’t judge my grandson’s future based on what happened to other people. He’s different. He’ll be a success,” she’d said all the time, in an indomitable tone that told everyone she knew she was right.
I should follow her advice. I shouldn’t judge Emily based on what Caitlyn did. They were different people.
Chapter Ten
Emily
“Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.”
I did a little shoulder dance as I hit six thousand words for the day. I could finally hear myself think now that the annoying noise had stopped. I blew on my fingers, ’cause they were smokin’!
I checked the time. Nine thirty p.m. My stomach let out a growl, begging for food. I realized I hadn’t eaten anything except some crackers in the morning. But it was hard to remember to get off the couch when I was busy with scenes pouring out of me. I never interrupted my flow when I was on fire.
But now that my belly had gotten my attention, I couldn’t ignore it. I opened the fridge. Beer. More beer. Wine coolers. Ooh, a strawberry one! I pulled it out and put it on the counter. A tub of peach yogurt…ugh. Expired a month earlier and undoubtedly toxic by now.
I rummaged through the freezer. I didn’t even have any Bouncy Bare Monkeys, having consumed the last of it for breakfast yesterday. An unopened bag of frozen halibut filets lay on the bottom. I couldn’t recall why I’d purchased them. I liked seafood but almost never cooked it, generally for lack of time. When I did have time for a relaxing meal after meeting a deadline, I ordered takeout or delivery because usually I couldn’t bother to exert the effort, especially when it was just for one person and I loathed cleaning up afterward.
The two or three diners and takeout places that existed in Kingstree were closed now. That was one disadvantage of living in a small town. But I still had Animal Crackers. They were nutritious enough. They’d sustained me in college and business school, and they could sustain me now.
I opened a new bag and grabbed a few. I bit off the head of a lion first, then washed it down with the wine cooler. After several bites, my stomach quit grumbling so much. I let out a soft sigh of satisfaction. Couldn’t do better than the current combo for a quickie dinner while on a tight deadline.