“I’ll see him when I get back to Kingstree.” I wanted to talk with Killian first. After all, he deserved to know before my mom that I forgave him. “Gotta go. I need to get ready.”
I hung up over her protests and suggestions about what to say when I forgave him, and felt my lips twitch into a smile.
Chapter Forty-Four
Killian
I checked for new texts as I stepped into the room where the signing was taking place.
–Devlin: Good luck.
–Cole: Ditto, bro.
–Max: Yup.
I nodded and inhaled deeply, clutching a print copy of My Fair Molly in my hand. I was wearing sunglasses, but people around me were whispering and staring anyway.
A lot of them had recognized me. They were pointing, making me feel like some kind of exotic animal. I was never going to point at an animal in a zoo again.
I ignored the stares and whispers and discreet raising of phones. These people didn’t matter as long as they didn’t get in my way. I held the book proudly, making sure the cover showed. Emily deserved my support, and this was the least I could do to show her I was sorry.
My body braced for a fight, I scanned the crowd for anybody who looked like a cover model. No buff men in sight, shirtless or otherwise. Mir had probably gotten confused. Emily was a classy girl who did classy signings. She wouldn’t be throwing herself at a model, no matter how muscular or pretty he was. Those guys probably couldn’t last more than ten minutes anyway. Where else would she have gotten the notion?
The authors were arranged in alphabetical order. It wasn’t difficult to spot Emily at her table. There was a pile of books laid out on it, as well as a few boxes underneath, near her feet.
I took a moment to gaze at her. My heart twanged with longing and nerves, like when I’d gone on stage in front of a crowd for the first time. It was because I was gazing at my dream, a future I wanted more than anything else, personified by the woman in front of me. Emily looked so pretty, sitting there with a smile on her face, greeting each of her readers. She wasn’t wearing glasses and she’d let her hair down, reminding me of the way she looked on our karaoke night. It was as though the fight we’d had wasn’t weighing on her mind, and the only thing that mattered was making sure each one of her fans felt special.
She was a fucking pro. And I still couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid.
I went and stood at the end of the long line. Somebody glanced at me, then did a double take. “Hey…” She squinted. “Are you…Killian Axelrod?”
“Nah, ’fraid not,” I said, pitching my voice a little higher than usual. I didn’t want to make this event about me. This was Emily’s moment to shine.
“Wow. You look just like him,” she said.
“Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“I’ll bet. It’s eerie.” She poked her friend. “Don’t you think he looks like Killian Axelrod?”
The friend turned around. “Oh my God. I saw Axelrod in concert once. You could be his twin.”
“Maybe we were separated at birth.” They both laughed, but now I wished I’d worn a disguise. If I’d shown up in a professor-like outfit and a pair of nerdy glasses… Hey, it worked for Superman.
More people noticed me and whispered, but I ignored them, pretending people always mistook me for a rock star. I even ignored a few bold ladies surreptitiously taking my photos, gripping My Fair Molly more tightly even though it felt like ants were crawling inside my belly.
When I finally reached Emily, she looked up and went still, her mouth parted slightly.
My mouth dried, and my throat felt closed up, like I had a tie around my neck. I cleared it. “Hi. I’m your biggest fan.”
“Um. What are you doing here?”
“Did you see the ad?” I couldn’t call, so that had been the only thing I could think of to make sure she knew how sorry I was. Since her dad’s ads were going out this weekend, I had mine go out on both Saturday and Sunday, just to make sure. She had to know how sorry I was. And how much I wanted to fix what I’d broken. If she wanted, I’d buy every copy of My Fair Molly in print right now. Or instantly compose an “I’m sorry” song and perform it.
“Which one?” she asked blankly.
Shit. She didn’t see it, even though I’d put it in the four papers Abby had mentioned. If that was the case, she might not like what I was about to do, but it was too late now. I couldn’t slink away like some spineless loser.
“Can you sign this?” I put down My Fair Molly in front of her.
“Sure,” she said automatically, and flipped the cover open.
Then paused.
My heart went still. I forced myself to not squirm as tension wound through me. A fist tightened around my chest, making it hard to breathe.
She stared at the page for a long moment, then finally scribbled something and signed it. Closing the cover, she handed me the book. “Here you go.”
No smile. No hint that she’d read or seen what was on the page. The ground underneath my feet seemed unstable, like a field in the middle of an earthquake or landslide. “Emily.” Despite myself, my voice came out too tight.
“People are waiting,” she said, then looked directly into my eyes and held them. “See me afterward.”
I left the huge space in a daze and tried to breathe. Blacking out from a lack of oxygen wouldn’t go over well. Then, remembering she’d written something inside the cover, I flipped the book open.
Emily,
I love you. Marry me.
–Killian
My grandmother’s ring was taped to the page. It was the ring Grandpa had used to propose all those decades ago when he realized she was the only one for him. They’d been together all their lives…and so, so happy. And I wanted to use it to ask for Emily’s hand in marriage because I wanted us to have the same amazing, loving life together.
Emily had written:
Don’t want to do this in front of the crowd. See me after.
–Emily
My shoulders sagged. I rubbed my hand over my jaw. She didn’t want to say no in front of everyone. She was too nice to upset and humiliate me like that, because of course then they really would know who I was. Maybe I should cling to the fact that she was nice enough to care about my feelings. Maybe there was still a chance that I could convince her to say yes when I saw her later.
Dream on, the cynic in me whispered. If she was going to say yes, she would’ve said so when she opened the book.
My phone buzzed.
–Cole: How’d it go?
–Devlin: When’s the date?
–Max: We all gonna be groomsmen?
–Me: She didn’t say yes.
–Cole: She said no?
–Devlin: Did you tell her you’ve never proposed before? She’s the special one.
–Max: Why’d she said no?
–Me: She didn’t say no. She said “See me after.”
That sounded pathetic, even to myself.
–Cole: Oh man. I’m sorry.
–Devlin: Tell me what I need to do to make you feel better. Girls, booze, you name it.
–Max: Sorry.
I didn’t text back. Even my band mates thought her response was a rejection. And my gut agreed. There were only two types of answers to a proposal: yes and not-yes.