Chapter 41 Are you wearing anything under that towel? #2
I don’t, and I don’t think Hugo does yet, either.
I told him I buried Chuy in the cemetery, but I didn’t say exactly where.
I was hoping that Castillo Studios might win that award before a certain zombie puppet was resurrected.
Now, however, it’s a moot point. Margarita knows who I am. Everything’s going to come out.
I throw open the screen door and plow directly into Miguel and Lupe, barefoot and holding their shoes. Dammit! Sean must’ve convinced them to go take a walk on the beach, and now they’re back, just in freaking time.
Lupe’s mouth falls open, and a myriad of feelings swirl inside me as I stare into her big, dark eyes, her more grown-up features. “Savannah?”
Miguel just looks guilty.
I make a run for my trailer. I don’t know what else to do. I can’t face her. I can’t face Emmy, either. All my deceitful, cowardly chickens have come home to roost, and it sucks just as much as I thought it would.
Margarita is going to leak my secret to the press, and then the judgment will come like a torrent, followed by the humiliation.
It’ll spill over to everyone else in my orbit.
Juan Ernesto and Castillo Studios. Miguel and Lupe and the cast of Más Allá de las Estrellas.
Knowing Sean and Emmy, they’ll try to stand up for me and get sucked in, too.
I can’t let that happen. I’ve got to get out of here. Disappear, and hope like hell that the scandal disappears with me.
What used to be Peyton’s room has become storage for my art. I’ll have to leave all that behind. I throw as many clothes and toiletries into my travel duffel as I can fit. I’m going to lose my home again and everyone I care about.
A gasping sob escapes me, but, no, Josie, there’s no time for pity and self-loathing.
Right now, you have to get out. Disappear.
Go somewhere where people can’t find you, where they won’t recognize you.
I’ll get a new name. Start a new life, again.
And this time, I won’t be stupid enough to try to share it with a movie star.
There’s a knock at the aluminum door, and I almost jump through the roof.
“Josie?” It’s Sean.
“I can’t right now, Sean! I just can’t, okay?”
“The police have arrived. I have to go down to the station for questioning.” His voice is muffled through the door. “But I’d really like to talk to you first.”
I bury my face in my hands and gather my strength. How am I going to be able to do this—say goodbye to Sean forever? It was one thing to know that I’d still see him at work, that he’d still be a part of my life.
I swallow the burning ache in my chest, drag myself to the door, and open it, stopping just inside the doorway.
Sean found his pants, but not his shirt, apparently.
Behind him, a couple of early trick-or-treaters start to make their way toward Jason and Emmy’s door, but their mom seizes their arms and steers them toward the next house—one without a half-naked man in the yard and a blinking police cruiser out front, probably.
Sean zeroes in on the overstuffed duffel bag behind me. “Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Please, don’t.”
The sheer fragility in his voice guts me.
I stare at him. God, he’s so perfect, everything about him, from the tousled, damp hair to that chiseled body to that matchless mouth and that gaze that is still captainly even in its vulnerability.
I had that, for a minute. For a few short weeks, I had more than I could ever have imagined.
More than I could ever deserve. I sear this moment into my brain so that I can paint it later: Sean O’Sullivan, my celebrity crush, bare-chested in my doorway, begging me to stay with him.
In another moment, another universe, another lifetime, I’d give him what he was asking for.
I’d stay. And I’d never say no to him again.
But this is the life I’ve created for myself, and I don’t get to do that.
“My secret’s out.”
“Yes, and now you can face it. Look at this as an opportunity. Your sister is here. You could start by talking to her.”
He’s so good at this. So convincing. Talk to Lupe? Yeah, right. It’s too late for that. It’s been too late for that for a long time.
“My decision is made.” There. I can play the captain, too.
“Josie, you can’t just run and hide every time life gets hard.”
“Yes, I can!” I blurt. “And it was working fine for me until you and Emmy forced me onto that show.”
I expect him to argue. To “control the narrative,” but he says nothing.
“Hugo’s going to find Chuy. Margarita’s going to dox me. And my family and friends are going to be humiliated all over again. Everyone’s going to hate me even more than they already do!”
He’s still quiet, and it’s kind of scary.
“I did everything I could to make you choose somebody else in that contest. Why didn’t you just let me? You were my celebrity crush. How was I supposed to say no to you?”
In this moment, I couldn’t hate myself more. I hate my past self. I hate my present self. And I hate that I’m blaming him for something I would do again in a heartbeat if given the chance.
Sean’s expression is broken, not a hint of nonchalance in sight. “Please tell me that’s not how you really feel.”
Well, would you look at that? It is possible to hate myself more.
“Please just let me go, Sean,” I whisper.
His lips part, and I’m mesmerized again by that perfect, beautiful, sensual, unforgiving, ravenous, sublime mouth that will never be mine again.
The police lights dance off his muscled torso as he stands there holding my gaze, saying nothing, respecting my wishes and destroying me at the same time.
Letting me destroy him, too. Destroy us.
Watching me burn it all down because that’s what I do.
He’s better off without me. They all are.
He turns to go, and I manage to hold in the tears until the aluminum door slams shut.