Chapter Thirty-Eight
Annie – Monday
“What the hell?” I muttered to myself as I reached Boffees to start work. I’d picked up Rae with Justin by my side, then dropped her off with Nancy so my head was all over the place anyway, but this was totally unexpected. I glanced at my watch, just to check that I wasn’t really late, but I was on time. Something was going on here – I just needed to figure out what it was.
“Annie!” Tony yelled above the crowd. “Look, guys, she’s here. Everyone, look!” He sounded far too excitable for my liking, it made me very suspicious.
“Erm, what’s going on?” I asked curiously as a blush filled my entire body. I wasn’t used to so much focus on me all at once, and it was making me a bit uncomfortable. “Why are you all here?” I trailed off, hating that I was basically criticizing people for coming to my store, but I really was confused.
“We all got advanced copies of your book,” Jan told me happily, handing me her copy to examine. My heart raced as I trailed my fingers over the glossy cover, my dream becoming a reality. “Justin got the publishing company to send all of your best customers a copy, and we’re all here for you to sign it.”
“I read it last night,” someone else piped up, a face that I barely recognized. “It’s absolutely incredible. I couldn’t put it down.”
“Wow, thank you,” I replied a little breathlessly. “I…I really don’t know what to say.”
I unlocked the door to let people in, and started to carry on as normal, but no one would let me have it. One of the ladies took over making the hot drinks for everyone, someone else took control of the register, while everyone else crowded around me to ask me all the questions that they had about the book.
“When did you write it?”
“Are you writing more?”
“What will happen in your next book? Will it be based on the same characters?”
“How do you find time to write it all?”
“Are the characters based on real people?”
I did my best to answer everyone as honestly as I could, except for the part about the characters being based on anyone. I didn’t want people to know that Mary Ann was loosely based on myself, because that would just lead to more very awkward questions – the sort I wasn’t in any sort of position to answer.
She was her own character, of course; after a while she took on a life of her own, but her internal pain, the fact that she felt blamed for something she hadn't done, the fact that she wanted to kill the male character in the story…that was all me at the time. I laid everything out about what I felt on paper as a form of therapy for myself. It actually worked in a way because it helped me to make my way through a lot of my feelings.
Instead, I chose to focus on the future and the possible plot ideas of the second book, just to give the people of Florence something else to talk about, which luckily they seemed to love.
As I scribbled my name across the pages of the book, feeling much more like a celebrity than I thought I ever would, I felt good about what I’d written in that book. I hadn't really thought about it at the time of writing it, I assumed that I was only writing it for myself, but now I could see that I might actually be able to touch other people in a strange way, and I liked that.
It made me want to do the same again. What I wanted was to make other people happy and hopeful, so that would be the core of my next plot, however it came out.
“There she is,” a familiar voice burst through the doors of Boffees, making me smile before I even looked up to catch his gaze. “The published author, congratulations.”
“Hi there, Roy,” I grinned happily. “I know, all of this is a bit crazy isn’t it?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I always knew that you had it in you.” He took his drink off someone and came to sit with me. “You are going to sign my copy, right?”
My head was all over the place as I signed his book, admittedly feeling just a little bit silly. It was one thing to do it for people who seemed to be fans of my work, but for a friend…well, that was too bizarre for words.
“I can’t believe Justin did this for you,” he told me quietly. “He really is something else, isn’t he?”
“I know, and I’m really grateful to you for telling me to stick with him; things are much better now,” I told him smilingly. “I wasn’t sure that you were right for a time, I thought that you were just sticking up for your friend, and I tried my best to move on. But it didn’t work. I never lost any of my feelings for him.”
“I know it isn’t going to be easy taking on Justin with his baggage, but honestly, he really is a good person. I meant it when I said that.”
“Yeah, I mean this thing with Garrett is difficult for me, you know that as well as I do, but I think I can do it.”
“Thank you. I really do appreciate that,” I glanced around, glad that everyone else had finally broken off into their own groups of conversation now, leaving us both alone. “But I’ve told him now anyway, so things are much better. I feel like I can be more myself with him. I feel like he understands me.”
“Yeah, well, I really do hope that things work out between you.” He leaned back in his chair and shot me an odd look. “God, if you’d told me when I set up that investment meeting that we would end up here, I never would have believed you.”
“Me, neither,” I admitted. “But I’m glad that’s what happened. It’s worked out much better. Now I don’t want to expand, I want to stay here and write more books. I want to be there as much as I can for Rae.”
“That sounds amazing,” Roy nodded, totally agreeing with me. “Now that you put it like that, that sounds like a much better plan for you. Plus, you have your fan club; you can’t let them down.”
I peeled into laughter about that. “I know, I can’t believe it. It’s all so much. I can’t believe that they all like the book, it seems insane to me.”
“I can believe it; you’re an amazing writer. And now you have to believe in yourself, there’s nothing holding you back.”
With that, he stood up and shot me a wink before heading out on his way. As he left, I felt so glad for him for so many reasons. He was great friend, next to Nancy he was one of the only other people that I trusted, and now he’d led me to love of my life, too, without even realizing it.
“Now, I’m going to make the coffee this time,” I said loudly to everyone. “So let me know what you all want.” I just wanted everything to return to as normal as possible; the attention was too much for me.
***
“Hey, handsome,” I said playfully as Justin picked up the phone. I’d been wanting to talk to him all day long about what he’d done for me, but I didn’t just want it to be a quick, five-minute conversation. So I’d had to wait until I was home, with everything done, and Rae fast asleep. “How are you?”
“Urgh, painful, I miss you so much!” he exclaimed loudly. “Plus, I’ve had all kinds of lawyer-related stuff to deal with today, so that hasn’t been fun.”
I gulped, shaking my own past from my mind, wanting to only focus on what was happening right now. This wasn’t me and Billy; this was Justin and Garrett. If I just kept that thought at the forefront of my mind, everything would be okay. “How is it all going?”
“Oh no, we don’t have to talk about it,” he did his best to insist. “That wasn’t why I brought it up.”
“No, I want you to be able to talk to me about it, please?”
“Okay, well, it doesn’t look good for Garrett,” he sighed sadly. “He’s going to be locked up for a long time.”
I wanted to tell him that it would never be long enough, but that seemed inappropriate, so I bit down hard on my lip instead to silence myself. “But there’s nothing that I can do for him while he’s being so stubborn, so he’s going to have to dig himself out of this one.”
“Oh, you’ll always be there for him,” I replied knowingly. “But I think that you’re right. You can’t spend your whole life worrying about someone else. His behavior is his own choice.”
After a brief thoughtful pause, he continued. “So, do you have any news for me? Anything exciting happen today?”
“Oh, like you don’t know,” I teased. “You know for a fact that everyone in Florence got a copy of my book today. I was absolutely swamped at work today, it was a nightmare.”
He laughed out loud, which was exactly the reaction that I wanted. I wasn’t really mad at him, how could I be when he’d made all my dreams come true? “So it was a good day, then?”
“It was amazing,” I replied sincerely. “Thank you so much, I really appreciate everything that you’ve done for me.”
“Well, I appreciate you, too. More than you’ll ever know.”
That made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, just knowing that I made him feel good, too. This was all so new, so exciting, and I never wanted it to end. Luckily, it didn’t feel like it ever would. Luckily, it felt like Justin was going to be in my life for a very long time to come.
As we talked, I lay on the bed next to Rae, no longer caring that she was spending an increasing amount of time sleeping next to me. That was something that she would grow out of, I was sure of it. I held her close and relaxed as Justin’s voice soothed me.
I felt at peace, really happy with my life, and for someone who had spent a lot of time feeling the opposite, it was nice. He really made me feel amazing,
I loved him – that was becoming more apparent with each passing day. I just hadn't quite worked out how I was going to let him know. With all of his talk over the weekend about the future, I knew that he was planning to be in this for a long time, even if he wasn’t saying it aloud, but that still didn’t make it easy for me to express it.
I would though, eventually. When the moment was right…