His meow is wretched and pathetic.
“You could stay with Forrest? Koda loves animals. You’ll be forced to wear bonnets and have tea parties, but their place is huge, and warm, and there’ll be tuna for days.”
If looks could kill…Black Cat would be charged with my murder.
“Fine,” I grumble out. “But you better be on your best damn behavior.”
I pull out my phone and log into Saylor’s Prime account, looking up overnight litter box solutions for private planes.
Yeah, that doesn’t sound ludicrous at all.
This is fine. I’m just abandoning my entire life for a third of a year, all for a girl I’ve known for about five minutes.
What could possibly go wrong?
chapter 9
Charlie
The windows of the SUV are tinted pitch black, a shield between me and the frenzy outside. I press my fingertips to the cool glass, feeling the subtle vibration of bodies moving beyond it. Probably for the best I can’t see clearly. There was a time when I craved those camera flashes—each burst of light like a hit of something addictive.Click. Click. Click.Little dopamine explosions that told me I mattered, that I was doing something right.
God, how I lived for that validation. Each flash a confirmation: Yes, you’re worthy. Yes, you’re talented. Yes, you matter.
Now my stomach tightens at the thought of stepping out there. When did it change? When did those same flashes start to feel like tiny daggers instead? They don’t capture me anymore—they capture versions of me. Versions that get picked apart, dissected, judged. A wrinkle here. A blemish there. Too thin. Too fat. Too much. Not enough.
I draw my hand back from the window, examining my own reflection in the dark glass instead. The cameras don’t just document; they contradict. They take the self I’ve carefullyconstructed and they twist it, distort it, until I barely recognize myself in the headlines the next day.
But blaming cameras is like blaming a knife for a stabbing. They’re just tools—cold, mechanical things with no will of their own. They point where they’re told to point. They capture what they’re aimed at. They’re extensions of the people who wield them.
And people…
People are the real problem.
The driver clears his throat, catching my eye in the rearview mirror. “I’ve counted twelve of them so far,” he says. “And more arriving.”
I inhale deeply, my ribs expanding against the tight fabric of my top. Ready or not, those cameras are waiting. I shouldn’t be surprised. We’re the ones who tipped them off.
What I can see is bad enough—a wall of bodies pressing against the vehicle, camera flashes strobing like a rave from hell, faces contorted into shouts I can’t quite decipher through the bulletproof glass. This is my life. Trapped in a rolling panic room, watching strangers try to capture my worst moments for profit.
“Charlie.” Sage’s voice is calm, measured, the tonal equivalent of a weighted blanket. “We’ve seen worse. Everything is okay.”
I drag my gaze away from the window. Sage is sitting across from me in the spacious back seat, her tablet balanced on her crossed legs, looking as put together as she always does. I don’t know how she does it. I’ve been stress-eating room-service pasta and crying into my pillow, and she looks like she just stepped out of a board meeting.
Seeing my anxious expression, she adds, “Just breathe.”
“I’m breathing.”
“You’re hyperventilating.”
She’s not wrong. My chest is doing that thing where it feels like someone’s sitting on it, and my hands won’t stop shaking no matter how hard I press them against my thighs. The black leggings I’m wearing are already damp with palm sweat.
“And you said Taio’s here?” I ask.
“Yes. He’s two cars ahead, he’s already loaded his cat onto the plane.”
I cock my head to the side, the sweet detail distracting me from my borderline panic attack. “Aww, he’s bringing a cat on tour?”
“Yes, let’s find that charming and sweet, and not wildly inconvenient and gross,” Sage tsks. “Private jets are not supposed to smell like cat restrooms.”
