Kellan never smiles; he’s no fun. How can he be when he’s a taskmaster? Why did I even become obsessed with him? Oh, right. It’s because of the shock of electricity that ignited my entire body when he accidentally touched me.
He gets “Taskmaster” added to his black boxer briefs, with a winking emoji, all in pink marker—the connotation is clear.
For Nolan—damn Nolan. He smiled at me and said my name, and my knees caved. Also, one look into his eyes exposed all my dirty secrets for his viewing pleasure. Nolan... Nolan gets “Good Girl” written on his white boxer briefs with an orange marker.
Oren. I sigh deeply. The man is a magnet. He strokes his jaw, making me want to kneel before him and let him do things to my mouth. Oh, he gets “Smooth Operator” on his charcoal-gray boxers with a red marker.
I want to give up, but I don’t. I continue signing for a little longer, then I start taking pictures of them and upload them to Alessia’s laptop.
I download a store app and assemble my photos. I add their faces to each of their boxer briefs.
I set my prices—not so high that I won’t get any sales, but high enough to pay for a luxury heart-repair vacation. And I open my virtual store.
And crickets.
Of course. I quickly open a fake social media account, find something that’s trending, and leave comments.
Oh my god, have you seen this? Do you have a crush on Kellan, Nolan, or Oren? If so, there’s a site selling their signed boxer briefs. Get there before it’s all sold out!
Then I wait. And wait. I text my dad to tell him to take his vitamins, but then my stomach growls angrily at me.
Carrying the laptop down with me to the kitchen, I eat the leftover lasagna Alessia brought me yesterday.
Maybe this isn’t going to work.
Until it does.
Oh my gosh.
I get hundreds of orders in minutes. The feature in the fashion magazine calling them the hottest, richest, and youngest billionaires ever is certainly helping me gain traction. How ironic.
I may only have $189 in my own bank account, but now there are more zeroes than I thought I would ever see in a sitting in Alessia’s. Trembling with excitement, alarm, and everything in between, I text Alessia my login details.
The instant she calls me, we spend another twenty minutes screaming into the phone at each other.
The strangest thing is I feel zero guilt, which means this is exactly what I needed. Cue all the catharsis.
It takes me the rest of the day to find the perfect holiday resort and to book my flights. The Hook is a stunning blue island in the middle of nowhere and exactly what I need.
Everything falls into place as if all my planets are aligned. Accommodation is available. Flights are available. I have days off from my rotations at the animal clinic. This couldn’t be going any better than it already is.
By the time they discover what I’ve done and by some chance find me, I’d be so over them already, I would thank them forbeing so hot that selling their signed boxer briefs online made me rich enough for one glorious reset vacation.
I even have time to go shopping with Alessia, and she helps me pack my bags for my trip.
Right now, I’m already dressed for the tropics, and I’m still at the airport. Yes, my eyes had to adjust to all the bright colors after a full year of wearing black, but it’s all good.
My sundress is a pretty bright yellow, with fuchsia flowers printed on it. My sandals have bows on them, and on my head is a sun hat so large I have to tilt my head up to see what’s in front of me.
It’s vacation time, baby, and I’m all smiles and happiness. This is good. This is fabulous. Oh, to not be obsessed with them anymore.
Now if only my brother would leave me alone.
Troy McAllister put the ‘over’ in ‘overprotective’ as far as big brothers go.
He’d been messaging me the whole time, asking me where I was, then telling me to stay home. He is without a doubt the overprotective type, given his time in the military. I get warnings like this from him from time to time, and nothing happens.
So I told him what he needed to hear: that I would stay home, then I turned off my location service. No one is going to spoil my vacation. My life depends on it. Kind of literally.
