Chapter 23 This is no time to become a rule follower.
This is no time to become a rule follower.
Josie
I SET DOWN my phone and am just about to turn my attention back to yet another piece of Sean-inspired art—the man is a cash cow—when Emmy bangs on the trailer door.
Once inside, she appraises my appearance with disdain: paint-stained oversize tee, ravaged jeans, and flecks of color all over my hands.
“I thought you were going to Las Vegas with Sean.”
“I can’t. It’ll just fuel more talk about us. And it’s partly your fault. You need to stop talking about me on your yoga vlog.”
She groans. “I’m sorry. Your fans are relentless.”
“I don’t want fans! I just want collectors.”
Emmy studies my canvas. It’s a couple on the beach backed by a sunset on the water, but muted, like an old California postcard. “I like that,” she says. “It’s not full of rage.”
I scoff. “I’m not full of rage.”
“Not lately.”
I point my brush at her. “I haven’t changed at all. It’s your hormones.”
“?No!” she shouts in Spanish. “?No es cierto!”
Wow, her Spanish is getting good. “It is true,” I bark back. “And have you been practicing with Margarita?”
“Don’t change the subject. And don’t make this about me.
You, Josie Days, have been different since you and Sean started…
whatever it is you’re doing.” She plops down on the sofa and rubs her lower back.
“I have to admit, I was worried at first. Sean isn’t the easiest guy to get close to.
He’s got all these facades and trapdoors and clowns jumping out.
But somehow, you’ve managed to get behind all that stuff.
And he’s gotten behind your defenses, too. Don’t deny it.”
I turn back to my painting. “I don’t need somebody like Sean getting behind my defenses.”
“Like hell you don’t.”
I add some more light glinting off the water. “I’m not like you, Emmy. I don’t want the glamour and glitz.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but the glamour and glitz wants you. Specifically, it wants to take you to Vegas tonight, and I think you should let it.”
“Um, no.”
“Why not? Because you’re afraid some paparazzi might take a picture of you two together? So what? I don’t understand this aversion you have to being on camera. You’re beautiful, you’re poised, you’re not a vampire, so you’ll definitely show up on the negative.”
My brush hesitates just above the canvas. I could tell Emmy the truth, right here, right now. She’s my best friend. She should know. “I just—”
“You just what?”
Chicken out, that’s what I just do. “I choose not to.”
Her features harden. “Fine. You asked for it. I’m going Josie on you.”
A flash of fear zings through me. “Don’t do that, please.”
She bats her eyelashes. “Aw, Josie, precious flower,” she wheedles, “don’t challenge yourself at all, ever. Wilt away in the free plastic vase that some loser gave you on Valentine’s Day when he was trying to get into your pants.”
“For the record, Sean O’Sullivan would be happy to get into my pants, too.”
She raises her voice. “Ignore the fifty-pound Swarovski crystal trumpet vase with two-hundred dollars’ worth of roses being offered to you.”
I plop my brush into the water glass. “You want me to be a gold digger? Is that it?”
“The metaphor isn’t about money, you dolt. It’s about quality! Sean is into you, and for more than what’s inside your pants. I’ve never seen him like this before. One of the reasons the public is so obsessed with you is because they see that you’re good for him! You make him happy.”
“Sean isn’t happy. He’s, like, the most blasé guy I’ve ever met.”
“Uh-uh.” She wags a finger. “I know Sean, and he definitely has feelings for you. And he’s not the only one. No matter what ridiculous things you say, what getup you put on, no matter how hard you try to hide who you are, people see past it to the real you, and they love you. Just like I do.”
A butterfly flutters in my chest. People love me? That’s not something I thought would ever happen again for Savannah Bateman. But maybe Josie Days is someone else entirely.
“I think Sean’s falling in love with you,” Emmy murmurs.
I shoot her a glare. “Boy, you just throw that ‘l’ word around like it’s confetti, don’t you?”
“It has a lot of different meanings, and you know it.” Her expression softens. “But none of them are anything to be afraid of.”
And here it is again… another opening from the universe to tell Emmy the truth about my past. But once the story is out there, I can’t take it back.
The more people in Josie Days’s life who know about Savannah Bateman, the more danger it spells.
Yes, this new life has been a quiet, shadowed one, but it hasn’t been bad.
I got to get to know my real dad before he passed.
I saw that while, yeah, he had problems, he did love me in the way someone with those kinds of demons can.
Emmy’s right—there are a lot of different kinds of love.
But there are a lot of different kinds of hate, too.
Just the thought of it makes my body go into fight-or-flight.
I can’t bear to get canceled again—I mean the real me, not this dating-Sean version of Josie Days I’ve created.
I can’t have my screwup resurrected and paraded about, my family forced to relive the scandal, my stepdad’s studio disrespected again just when it’s finally gaining the recognition it deserves, my friends embarrassed for me and of me.
Dead things should stay buried—like burned-up puppets.
But my presence has been all over the entertainment world for weeks now, along with that horrible meme, and nobody has dropped even a hint that I’m really Savannah Bateman.
Hugo Valencia was as big a part of the Bring Back Chuy movement as anyone, and he hasn’t said squat.
Sean’s advice about controlling the narrative was good, too—giving people something to talk about in the present keeps them from getting too curious about the past. Castillo Studios is thriving.
My castmates’ careers are, too. Maybe everything has been set right.
Maybe I’ve done my penance. Maybe the storm is over, and it’s safe to come out.
“Go to Vegas with Sean tonight,” Emmy prompts me. “You deserve to be happy, and so does Sean. Besides, I feel like he could use a friend right now.”
Emmy is right. Sean cracked the door to his problems. In fact, he was supposed to pick Seamus up earlier today. I wonder how that went—he didn’t mention it in his texts.
“Fine!” I groan. “I’ll go.”
“Excellent!” She claps her hands together. “Because Val is already picking out your outfit. Come on! Grab a razor and some underwear. You can shower in the house. I even got champagne.”
“You hired Val to get me ready for a date?”
“Shut up. I’m nine months pregnant—I do what I want.”
If I ever get to be pregnant, I’m totally using that line.
Inside the house, I luxuriate in the sinfully high water pressure of Emmy and Jason’s shower while Val and Emmy mutter over the outfits he’s brought for me.
When I come out toweling my hair dry, they are brandishing their choice: a white, sequined jumpsuit straight out of the seventies with a wide-open back and halter neckline.
“I guess no bras are invited to this party?”
“Ah, sweet summer child,” Val chuckles, a pair of silver platform heels dangling from his long fingers. “I got you covered. Literally.”
“Don’t ask how,” Emmy cuts in, handing me a flute of champagne. “Just submit.”
I down the champagne like a shot. I guess I’m about to get loved, Emmy and Val style. I hold out my glass for a refill. “She submits.”
“She submits!” they crow together.
When they’re done with me, I look like the Disco Queen of the Universe. To aid my anonymity, Val produces a pair of lightly tinted sunglasses. Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately, they’re purple and rectangular and futuristic. So, I guess I’m the Disco Queen of the Universe, Time Travel Edition.
Not gonna lie—I love it.
Jason stops drinking his protein shake in the kitchen long enough to mime how I look so good it about kills him. “Break his heart, Josie!” he calls as we hurry out the door. “Don’t worry! I’ll be here to pick up the pieces!”
Emmy speeds to the airport and the hangar where Sean’s private jet is kept. “Oh crap, the plane’s already leaving!” she cries, squealing into a RESERVED space. “Didn’t you tell him you were coming?”
I’ll admit, I was kind of in the moment, getting pampered and all. “No, and I don’t think you’re supposed to park here,” I warn her.
“This is no time to become a rule follower!” She clicks the locks open on the luxury SUV. “Get out! Go get on that plane!”
She’s practically shoving me out the door as I wrangle my purse and lightweight-but-warm Kate Spade wrap.
I hurry to the tarmac in my platforms (it’s not easy) and scan the multiple private aircraft—some sitting dormant, some being loaded, others taxiing toward the runway.
How am I supposed to know which one is Sean’s?
I turn back to Emmy and give an exaggerated shrug. That’s when she gets out of the car and hoofs her pregnant self in my direction. It’s a sight to behold. I can’t help but feel guilty watching my favorite little Willy Wonka factory worker working up to those kinds of speeds.
“Dammit,” she cries, and I follow her gaze to a sleek black jet with a green shamrock painted on the side taxiing away from us. “We missed him.”
I don’t want to acknowledge the disappointment flooding through me. I shouldn’t care. This wasn’t even my idea.
“I’m sorry.” I pull off my purple glasses. “You and Val worked really hard to make this happen.”
Emmy gives a defeated sigh. “It’s okay. I’m just sorry for you, hon.”
I pshaw at her. “It’s fine. I don’t need to go.”
She chuckles. “Oh, you’re going.” I follow her hardened gaze to the glowing LAX pylons across the private landing strip. “I’m just sorry you’re going to have to go coach.”