Anywhere With You

by Stephanie Hoffman McManus

  I scoffed, “I read Shae’s book.”

  “Because she’s your friend. And you’re nosy and wanted to know what happened between those two.”

  I shrugged, not bothering to deny it. “Well, maybe something here will entice me.” It seemed everywhere my eyes went there were half naked men on the covers. Hell, maybe I’d find an entire picture book of them. Now that I wouldn’t mind spending a few bucks on.

  I sauntered off, promising to come back and help Shae pack up when it was time. She waved me away and then started talking to a middle-aged woman who had approached her table, towing an entire rolling cart full of books. My eyebrows raised. I wasn’t sure I’d read that many books in my entire life. No, I was sure. I hadn’t.

  I ambled from table to table, until I came across one author handing out condoms at her table. That caught my attention and I stopped. “Will I need one of these if I read your books?” I asked her.

  She smirked. “You might.”

  I picked up one of her books, grinned at the gorgeous, half naked man with dog tags around his neck. I flipped it over to read the back, and then skimmed a few pages in the middle. “Holy hell, it sounds like I might need more than one if I read this book. I’ll have to jump the first man I come across. Do you have to rate this shit R?”

  That got me a laugh. “Well, I certainly don’t sell it in the young adult section.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. So,” I flipped it back to the front, “does this hottie on the cover come with it if I pay extra?”

  “I’m not sure he’d be agreeable to that, but you can certainly ask him when he comes back.”

  “Wait, you’re telling me this guy is here?”

  “Yes,” she grinned. “I almost always bring one of my cover models with me to these things. Helps draw readers to my table.”

  “I’ll just bet. Well how much for this one?” She told me the price and I forked over the cash. She signed the book and then I moved on to the next table. I discovered that she wasn’t the only author to bring a model with her. I saw several faces that matched those on covers sitting in seats beside the authors.

  What the hell, Shae? I thought. Why didn’t she bring a hunk for ogling? Although, I supposed with Kellen sitting beside her, he was mistaken for a model. I’d have to remember to give him shit for that later, and ask how many ladies had tried to have pictures taken with him.

  I rounded the corner at the end of the room and started down the next row of tables. At the second one I came to, a familiar figure was bent over the table chatting with the author and model there.

  “Hey, I bought you,” I said to the guy. He looked up and then almost immediately straightened.

  “Pardon?” He wore a slightly confused grin.

  “Well, I didn’t buy you, but I bought this book with you on it.” I dragged it out of my purse. “Your author friend tried to tell me for a little more she would throw you in as well, but I told her that would be highly inappropriate.” I grinned.

  “Did she now?” His smirk called bullshit.

  I shrugged. “Maybe it was my idea. I can’t remember.”

  “Would you like me to sign it?” He nodded at the book I still held in my hand.

  “Sure, if that’s all you’re offering?” That dragged a laugh out of him.

  He was hot as hell. Chestnut locks, trimmed close on the sides, but all thick and unruly on top, intentionally styled to look haphazard as if some lucky woman had just had her hands in it. Neatly groomed facial hair was a half shade darker and added an edge. He was muscled and had tats peeking out from under the sleeves of a snug white tee. The entire package was pretty damn swoon worthy.

  He reached for the book and borrowed a pen from the other guy, which he used to scribble something inside the cover. “I’m Tyson, and this Jack and Evelynn,” he introduced his buddy and the author behind the table, handing the book back to me.

  “I’m Celia,” I said.

  “So, are you from here or did you travel for the signing?” He’d written a lot more than his name and I was dying to see what it said, but I refrained, and stuffed the book back inside my purse.

  “Oh no, I’m here with my author friend, Sh–” I started to say her real name until I remembered she went by a silly pen name. “Jane Renner.” Jane for Jane Austen and Renner for Ms. Renner’s English class. Even when she’d hated Kellen, she’d still picked a name that was all about him. It was Ms. Renner’s class that brought them together and Pride and Prejudice was the book that had them lip locking in front of the whole class.

  “That’s the one you hit on,” his equally attractive model friend spoke up in amusement.

  “Whatever, I didn’t hit on her,” he denied it even as his cheeks reddened slightly. Aw, a guy who blushed.

  “Yeah, you did, until her boyfriend came over and looked like he was about to rip your dick off.”

  “Oh, Kellen totally would too.” I cringed on behalf of the poor guy.

  “Anyway,” Tyson said, clearly wanting to steer conversation in a new direction. “I didn’t see you at her table today. Just the surly boyfriend.”

  “Oh, that’s because I wasn’t here all day. I went to the zoo and just got back to the hotel.”

  A cute frown wrinkled his brow. “Oh, you’re not her model?”

  I snorted, “No. Definitely not a model.”

  “Oh,” the pink returned to his cheeks and he ducked his eyes and then brought them back to my face. “You look the part. You should consider it too. You could get a lot of covers.”

  I chuckled. “That’s very flattering.”

  “Are you coming to the after party?” he asked.

  “Maybe,” I said slyly.

  “Well, then, maybe I’ll see you there. I better get to my table and help JoAnn pack up.”

  “Maybe I will see you later. It was nice meeting you guys,” I said and then worked my way back over to Shae’s table. Naturally, my eyes sought out Luke, but he and Meg had bailed already. Soon, she’d be serenading him on the streets of St. Louis and he’d fall in love and I really needed that drink Shae promised.

  We packed up her table, and as we were hauling everything out of the big ballroom, we bumped into Tyson and JoAnn, carrying their own boxes.

  “Fancy bumping into you again.” He smirked as he stepped aside to let me go out the door ahead of him.

  “Yes, fancy that.” I grinned back. Shae and Kellen stopped ahead of me to look over their shoulders at who I was talking to.

  “If it happened again, say at the after party, you might have to let me buy you a drink.”

  “I just might.” We went our separate ways once out in the hall, and I followed Shae and Kellen up to what was now their room.

  “So, you met Tyson Parker,” Shae commented once upstairs.

  “I don’t like the guy,” Kellen grumbled.

  “Of course you don’t.” I rolled my eyes. “Because he’s a male with eyes and he can see what a hottie Shae is.”

  “Whatever.”

  Shae gave her head an amused shake and then turned to me. “So, you got your flirt on with him?”

  “Have you seen him? Of course I did. I see a hot guy, I flirt. It’s like my default setting or SOP or some shit. I can’t turn it off.”

  “Course not.”

  “So, you two going to meet up at the after party?” And by meet up it was obvious she was asking something else entirely.

  “Hey, I take offense to that. Just because I flirted with the guy, and he happens to look like the actor from Vampire Diaries, doesn’t mean I’m going to do him.”

  “Oh my gosh, you’re totally right; he does look like Damon, but with facial hair and more muscles.”

  “Right? It’s the eyes; those are all vamp boy.”

  “Whatever,” came another bitter grunt from Kellen.

  “Oh, shut up lover boy. You’re hotter and everyone with a vagina, and all the gay men know it, so quit your whining.”

  Kellen scowled at me, but when Shae l
et go of the rolling suitcase she was dragging and threw her hands around his neck to tug him down for a hard kiss, his frown was turned upside down.

  “You mind if I take a little nap before the party?” he asked when they pulled apart.

  “No, you should get a nap in. Thank you for being with me all day.”

  “Of course, and you know, you could take a nap with me,” he murmured salaciously.

  “Funny, I’m not sure nap means the same thing to you as it does to me. I’m going to let you rest and I’ll go get ready with Ci across the hall.”

  Once we were safely shut inside the room, Shae threw herself down on my bed, resting on her elbows. “Okay, now seriously spill. Did you really hit it off with Tyson?”

  With a dry laugh, I stretched out beside her. “We had like a two-minute conversation in which I practically propositioned him.”

  “Well, must have been some conversation if you propositioned him after only two minutes.”

  “Actually, I propositioned him at the beginning of the conversation.”

  “You would.”

  We both laughed.

  “Let me stalk him online and find out where he’s from.” She dug her phone out and searched for him on social media.

  “Looks like he lives in Florida. That’s not too far from South Carolina.”

  “Shae, I’m probably not even going to look for him later.”

  “Why not?” She asked, but she couldn’t fool me. She knew exactly why. If this was just her way of goading me into admitting it out loud so she could feel some triumph over being right, then whatever. I’d play along.

  “We both know it wouldn’t go anywhere, except maybe back to his room, and I’m not looking for that.”

  “You could always take going back to his room off the table, and I don’t know, do something crazy like have a drink with the guy and actually get to know him.”

  “Not interested in that either,” I sighed and it was the honest to God truth. As hot as the man was, and as much as I enjoyed bumping into him the first two times, I didn’t really feel the need for a third.

  “So, I guess Meg isn’t so bad after all,” I casually segued, lying through my teeth, but I wanted to know what Shae’s honest opinion of her was.

  “Uh huh, so you weren’t tempted at all to toss her into the lion pen even once today?” Her look told me she didn’t buy that.

  “Maybe once.” Or twice. And then again at the grizzly bear exhibit.

  “Could it be for the same reason you don’t want to have a drink with the super sexy Tyson?”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to deny it, because she was enjoying this far too much, but I was tired of denying it.

  “I think I might be in love with him.” The forlorn confession fell unbidden from my lips, and it was as if hearing myself say it aloud for the first time, truly made it sink in. I looked up at Shae with panic filled eyes because I didn’t want to be in love with Luke. More than that, I couldn’t be.

  “Woah, it must really have been one hell of a conversation if you fell in love with him after only two minutes.”

  “Not Tyson,” I blew out. “Luke.”

  “I know,” Shae said softly. “Just been waiting for you to admit it. Which I thought would be forever coming from the girl who insists she doesn’t believe in love.”

  “Never said I didn’t believe in love. Just marriage, because I don’t believe that romantic love can last forever and happily ever after and all that. People change, grow apart, love fades, or dies a painful, ugly death. Therefore, I think permanently binding yourself to someone you may not even feel that way about in ten years, let alone twenty or fifty, is stupid, and irrelevant anyway since it’s not actually permanent or binding anyway.” Signing a little slip of paper could cancel it all out. Sure, the process was a headache, but that was all the more reason not to go through with a marriage in the first place since the odds were likely that you weren’t going to spend the rest of your life with one person. And yet, the rest of my life with Luke didn’t sound so bad. But I guess that was these pesky feelings talking and not common sense.

  “Fine, say you’re right,” Shae said stubbornly as if she still believed I wasn’t and was only humoring me. “All that crap about divorce rates and cheating, and unhappy marriages, still doesn’t account for one-hundred percent. That means that even if ninety percent of all marriages are a sham, and I’m being generous in giving you that number, that still means ten percent are the real deal. Some people really are happy to spend the rest of their life with one person. And ten percent of six billion people is still something like six-hundred thousand. My grandparents had that. I saw the love in their eyes right up until the day that he died. What if you and Luke can have it too? What if you could beat the odds?”

  “Letting myself believe that would be worse. I’d rather there was something I could take to make it go away.”

  “Why? Why not just tell him instead and take the chance? Even if it’s just ten percent of a chance.”

  “Because it went so well the first time,” I muttered.

  She frowned. “Are you talking about what you told me in Nashville, when you two got drunk and almost …?”

  “Yeah. I might not have been completely honest about that night. We weren’t drunk and it didn’t stop because we came to our senses. It stopped because he came to his.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He stopped us back then. I thought we had something more. I thought there were real feelings, but I was wrong, or confused, or maybe just lonely. I don’t know, but I wanted more than that night. He didn’t. He made that clear,” I said painfully.

  “What?” Shae sounded more than a little shocked.

  “Yeah.” I tried to force a smile like it didn’t still sting after all this time. “I know you think I’m too afraid to admit my feelings, but I was ready to once, until he made it obvious that he didn’t and couldn’t reciprocate those feelings. It’s probably for the best anyway. It wouldn’t have worked out then, and nothing has changed.”

  “I think a lot has changed, Ci. You have changed and so has he. It’s obvious you two care about each other. You’re attracted to each other and have serious chemistry. A lot of relationships are formed on much less than that.”

  “I can’t take his rejection twice, Shae. Once was bad enough. It would be worse now, because … because …”

  “Because you love him.”

  “Yes, but Luke would never let himself fall for a stripper.”

  “Don’t, Ci. Don’t do that to yourself. You’re more than that and Luke knows it.”

  “Shae, he told me as much that he could never be with someone like me. Luke wants himself a good girl. Someone decent and moral and respectable that he can take home to his mommy and daddy.” Like Meg. Maybe I was being irrational about her, but whether or not Luke would ever see her again after we said goodbye in Colorado didn’t matter, because if not her, then it would be someone like her.

  “That just doesn’t sound like Luke.”

  “It is.” I’d embraced what I was, who I was, a long time ago, and that meant Luke Anderson would always be just out of my reach.

  “I’m a stripper, Shae,” I laughed bitterly. “Maybe not anymore, but that’s always going to hang over me. That’s always going to color how he sees me. I’m not the girl who gets the prince.”

  She shook her head, frowning at me. “I don’t think it’s the way Luke sees you that’s the problem. It’s the way you see yourself.”

  “Don’t give me those sad eyes, Shae. I’m not depressed or suffering from low self-esteem. I’ve just accepted the way things are. Accepted who I am.”

  If anything, Shae’s expression grew sadder. “That’s the problem. You’ve accepted things that just aren’t true. You’ve let yourself believe them for so long. I can only guess that your family has something to do with it.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because family is usually at the root of
our self-image. But that’s not you, Ci. I don’t think that’s how Luke sees you either, but that won’t matter if you don’t start seeing yourself for who you really are. Forget why you don’t think you deserve something good.”

  Her words struck a chord in me and a nerve, which meant she was probably right, but I felt my defenses going up. “I do have something good in my life. His friendship, and I’m not going to risk that.”

  “It’s your choice what to do here, but I just think that when you love someone, it’s worth every risk.”

  Nineteen

  Cici

  Present

  Was it? Worth the risk?

  We dressed and readied for the after party. The whole time I was twisted up in knots. Shae was quiet after our conversation and left me alone with my thoughts when she returned to her room to touch up her makeup and change.

  My reflection stared back at me from the bathroom mirror as I raised the eyeliner to touch up my own makeup. My hand stilled just inches from my face.

  It’s just eyeliner, I said to myself. Yet, something had me setting it down and taking a closer look at what I saw. It was the same mask I wore every day. I put on makeup like a soldier would put on armor.

  Cici was nothing more than a costume I hid behind, and I’d never realized it until now. I adopted this persona in that backroom when I had my audition. I left Celia behind. I wanted to forget about her. Never wanted to be her again. The very next day. after I’d accepted the job instead of the date, I went shopping. I’d known it was stupid, considering I had no money, but I had a credit card with a few hundred-dollar limit, and I racked up charges on makeup and new clothes to fit the new me.

  I threw out everything from my old life that reminded me of the girl who was never quite good enough. My wardrobe changed drastically, my makeup became heavier and I was Cici from that day on. Maybe at the time I’d needed that. Cici was a lot of things I’d thought I wasn’t. Confident, strong, determined.

  But she was me. I was those things, I’d just had to dig deep to find them. Becoming Cici had allowed that, but it’d also changed me in other ways. Ways I wasn’t so sure I was proud of.

  Sex became a weapon. I was mistrustful of everyone’s intentions. Men became people who only wanted to use me and treat me as an object to be possessed. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that’s all I would ever be. A pretty object. Something to be owned, and I’d made a promise to myself that I would never let any man own me.