“You’re a fucking hypocrite,” Jamie spits at me, his skin has turned splotchy red, in a way that I might be concerned about if I could give a damn.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” But of course, I do, the rumors about Wes and me have been around as long as our careers. Fleeting touches. Foreheads bent together. Then there was that night, the kiss, and every terrible thing that came after, that brought me here to stand in front of this sorry excuse for a man.
“I’ve always wondered who you were really thinking about when we slept together. Of course, it was him and now you’re going to be alone together for months. How convenient.”
“I don’t mind hearing that,” Wes mutters.
Jamie rounds on him. “As if you have a leg to stand on. You’re the last person who should be talking.” He has a point, but I don’t give a fuck.
“Jamie, calm down, you’re being so emotional right now. I’m not sure you’re cut out for this business with your delicate sensibilities. Oh—” I slip my ring off my finger, my hand feeling lighter the moment it’s gone. In fact, everything about me feels lighter in a way I haven’t experienced in far too long. For the first time in years, I’m choosing myself without caring what anyone else thinks. “You’ll probably want this back, just in case you’re a one-hit wonder.”
I flick the ring, and it arcs through the air, glinting as it spins. Jamie lunges for it as it slips through his fingers, landing on his knees at my feet.
“Let’s go.” Wes’s palm molds against mine.
And we run out into the night.
7
Avery
September 2024
Isquint against the blinding light. Wes’s grip on my hand is firm as we rush through the crowd of paparazzi gathered at the hotel entrance like vultures. We push past, making it to the line of waiting cars, but Wes keeps pulling me behind him.
“Where are we going? All the cars are back there,” I ask as the glow of the hotel shrinks with each step. A few paparazzi are following, some in cars and others on foot.
“Pizza. There’s a place on the next block. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. The food at that party was shit,” he says, a bit breathless.
A smile plays tug-of-war with the corners of his mouth. For a moment, all the versions of him find a perfect harmony, and a rush of emotion hits me in a wave. I let it take me. Just for tonight. What’s the harm?
“Lead the way, Gaflin.” At the sound of his last name, he pauses for a second, boots scuffing against the sidewalk. I used to revel in it, how I didn’t have to share Wes Gaflin with anyone else. But it’s been so long since it felt natural to call him by his last name.
Wesley Hart belongs to the world. Wes Gaflin? He’s mine.
My heels slow us down, but we make it to the pizza shop, an electronic bell chiming as we push inside. Now that we’ve stopped, the paparazzi have swarmed outside and started taking pictures. One of them is bold and reaches for the handle, but the teen girl employee grabs something from behind the counter and heads to the door. She has raven hair and the natural swagger of a native New Yorker.
“Holy hell, is that a bat?” Wes whispers to me.
“We have the right to refuse service to anyone,” the girl yells, tapping her bat menacingly against the glass. “Step inside with one of those cameras, and I’ll let you know how seriously we take that policy. We clear?” She snaps her pink bubble gum and waits for an answer that doesn’t come. “Thought so.”
Teenage girls are my favorite. Fearless. Invincible. Downright brutal. Proper superheroes.
She returns to the counter and picks up her phone. “I’m taking a picture as my protection fee. Clair is going to shit herself.”
“A friend of yours?” Wes asks.
“Oh no, I hope she gets fucked by a chainsaw. She kissed Luke Weaver last week, even though she knows we’ve been talking since June. I’m going to rub this in her face for so long.”
I nod with approval. “Nice reference.”
“To what?” she asks, her brow cocked, decidedly unimpressed. “Whatever. What do you want? You have to pay, by the way. I’m not giving you free shit just because we’re going to get publicity from this.”
“One cheese and one pepperoni,” Wes orders and hands over a thick stack of cash.
The girl takes it without counting and shoves it into her pocket before sliding our slices onto double-stacked paper plates. I grab my pepperoni and Wes takes the cheese.
The shop is small, so every table is visible from the window. But I don’t particularly care since my stomach has started to rumble. I moan with the first bite. I hope whoever invented New York-style pizza is buried in an ostentatious as hell mausoleum.
