Page 69 of Wicked Angel
But without some kind of splashy hook, big news or an event to go with the release, I knew it wouldn’t get any play. I was hoping we could figure out what our hook might be, but since we couldn’t yet talk about Johnny’s band situation, that made it extra challenging.
On Thursday evening, when I was tired of staring at my laptop screen, tweaking words, and Shayla had gone out with some dancer friends, I finally faced the pile of boxes looming in my new bedroom. I put my hair up in a ponytail and dove in, unpacking my things. With every item I unpacked, it felt like I was letting go of my life with Flynn just a little more. Cosmetics, clothes, jewelry. Some books, travel keepsakes; I still had some things in storage at my mom and dad’s house, but pretty much everything I owned was in these boxes.
Once I’d unpacked enough of my own clothes to pull a comfy outfit together—soft, marshmallow-pink cutoff sweats and a cropped shirt with a unicorn on it, because I unabashedly loved me some pastels and a unicorn—I changed into them, relieved to be back in my own clothes. I put the clothes Shayla had generously loaned to me in the laundry. Then I filled my new closet and dresser, turning Shayla’s guest room into my own, neatly hanging my clothes and organizing my things. When Shayla’s clothes were clean, I folded them and left them on her bed for her.
When I drifted into the kitchen for a glass of water, tapped out and ready to sleep, I saw Johnny out by his pool. He was lying on a lounge chair—wearing some very small swim trunks, from what I could tell.
I stared.
He was looking down at his phone, the dusk sky above him all these amazing aqua/pink hues toward the west. The soft lights around the edges of the deck glowed, and with Johnny center stage, practically naked, it looked like a photo spread.
We’d definitely need to do a fresh photo shoot for his press kit at some point. No one could deny Johnny O’s sex appeal. Any way you wanted to look at it, his physical attractiveness, his magnetism, were a core part of his story.
I just had to make sure that was a good thing, not a negative.
As I watched, the glow of the phone in his hand lit up his face. So like that night… his face lit up by the flame of his lighter. I could remember that moment, so sharply. His eyes meeting mine. Whatever the hell was in his eyes in that moment, though… thattorment… I never saw it again.
Johnny could be arrogant and cold, but there was something more going on with him. I’d been on the periphery of his life for long enough to know: he wasn’t that simple. He didn’t show his feelings much, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have them.
I knew I could make people love him.
I knew there had to be something to love.
Not just his music. Not just his looks. His peers knew about those things and still had issues with him. There was something else. Other things, inside of him, that he kept hidden. Carefully guarded.
Walled up.
I was sure of it.
There was way more to Johnny O’Reilly than met the eye.
Maybe I’d always suspected that.
Maybe that was why I’d crushed on him so hard.
Maybe that was why, when he kissed me that night, I turned and ran the other way. Straight into my boyfriend’s arms. And never allowed myself to look back.
After watching him for a long moment, I went back up to my room.
There was one final box sitting beside the closet, and I picked it up and put it on the bed, opening the flaps and forcing myself to look inside. It was all the stuff from the drawers of my bedside table.
Little notes from Flynn, things he’d left on the fridge for me.Have a good day.Simple stuff like that; the man was never flowery with his words.
My sexy lingerie, which I did not see myself wearing for anyone anytime soon. I dug gently through it, lifting out each piece and laying them in a dresser drawer.Here’s hoping.
In the bottom of the box, I found my collection of sex toys. I dug idly through those, too, wondering if I should pull any out. They all seemed tainted with bad memories now. I cringed when I saw the big purple dildo, remembering how I’d told Flynn when we moved in together that I’d named it Dylan.
Major mistake. What made me think a guy would ever want to hear that?
He asked!Mean Me whispered.
I lifted the purple dildo out of the box. “Welp. Goodbye, dear Dylan. We had some good times, didn’t we?” Then I tossed him—it—out. It made a sad, dejected thud in the bathroom wastebasket.
In the end, I upended the whole box over the wastebasket. I threw them all out, feeling bad about how my desire for something Flynn didn’t give me made him feel bad.
* * *
“Why did you and the bodyguard break up?”
