Unknown (Unknown Identity #1) (4 page)

Guilt made her turn her face away from the TV. She had no right to have those feelings. They had died a year ago, buried forever in California.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Josie grabbed Leslie’s shoulders and shook her. “I’m neighbors with Evelyn Frock?”

“Yeah.” Leslie shrugged. “It’s no biggie. I just write stories.”

“So, you’re a billionaire,” Amber said after a moment, finally putting the pieces all together.

Leslie laughed and shook her head. “Just a millionaire,” she laughed.

“Damn! That’s a ton of money.” Amber blinked several times, trying to grasp the situation through the liquor-infused fog she was trying to navigate.

“Who’s he?” Leslie asked, pointing to the guy on the screen who was now fist-fighting with a werewolf or something convoluted like that.

“Conrad Danes?” Josie’s eyes darted to the TV. “Wait, I have like a million things I want to ask. No one knows?”

“Come on,” Leslie groaned. “Be cool about it, Josie. Don’t freak out. It’s part of the reason I don’t tell anyone. I don’t want to be different than who I am.”

“Okay,” Josie nodded. “Where you Evelyn before… before… you know?”

“Yeah.” Leslie leaned back into the couch, sinking into it as she hugged a pillow, wondering if she’d made a mistake telling the two of them. She guarded her privacy with the kind of fiery dedication that most people guarded their darkest secrets with. She didn’t want to be the focus of the media. She knew if they did find out who she was, it would be impossible to find a quiet little corner of the world to hide in. She eyed her friend for a moment. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“My lips are sealed,” Josie said, grinning like a child on Christmas morning.

“I’m serious,” Leslie growled.

“So am I,” Josie swore.

“Me too,” Amber said. “Man, that guy is hot. Look! That wolf just ripped off Conrad’s shirt!”

Josie snorted. “I’d drink a few from that six pack.

Leslie burst out laughing. “Only you, Josie.”

“Hey, what can I say? I appreciate fine art.”

“One thing, about my job… don’t blackmail me. Ever.” Leslie warned them as her eyes swung back to the television. “Even my parents don’t know.”

“We won’t say a thing,” Josie said vehemently. “I’m honored you even told us.”

“I trust you guys.”

“This is so cool,” Amber giggled, shaking her head as they watched Conrad Danes fight off another werewolf. “We got a secret, famous friend.”

“Don’t forget rich,” Josie joked.

“Don’t forget it’s a secret,” Leslie warned.

“I
have something I want to ask you guys,” Leslie said the following morning. She’d woken early and laid in bed while her friends slept on the couch in the living room. For the first time in a very long time, the apartment felt like home to her, albeit small and not much of anything. She’d made friends and trusted them enough to share her secret. She hadn’t done it because she was drunk. She knew why she done it.

She’d been mourning the loss of Michael and sort of forgot to keep living herself. The one thing he had wanted her to do – go out and live, take on the world. Instead, she’d hidden herself away. It was time to start living again, or maybe try.

But how?

Maybe she needed to go on an adventure. Do something new, something beyond the seven-block radius of her apartment. “You can say no,” she said nervously as she handed them each a plate of bacon and eggs. “I won’t mind…”

Amber stuffed a piece of bacon in her mouth while Josie held a piece of toast midair, ready to dip it into her sunny-side-up egg.

After a moment of internal debating, Leslie figured it was better than the alternative and went for it. “You guys want to go on a vacation or something?”

“Like upstate or something?” Amber asked, glancing at Josie.

“I was thinking somewhere warm and sunny,” Leslie said, shrugging as she reached for a slice of toast. “But, I don’t know. I just kind of want to get out of the city.”

“Like Miami?” Josie asked.

“A little farther south…” Leslie pushed. “Maybe the Caribbean?”

“Are you asking us if we want to go to the Caribbean?” Amber laughed. “Hell yes, Leslie! You’re not trying to buy our silence, are you? I mean, you don’t have to do that. We’re totally cool. There’s no way we would ever tell anyone.”

“I know,” Leslie laughed, the nervous butterflies suddenly disappearing. “I just wanted to know if you’d be interested in going on vacation with me.”

“Yeah,” Josie laughed and double-dipped her toast into her yoke. “When?”

“What about tomorrow?” She was terrified she’d get cold feet.
What if I change my mind? Crawl back into the hole I’ve been living in?
“I mean, if you can get off work. We could go tomorrow or in a couple of days. My agent could get us visas and have everything ready.”

“Work would kill me,” Amber said nervously. “But I think they’d be cool with it. How much are tickets?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Leslie waved her hand, brushing the thought off.

“No, you’re not paying for it all,” Josie said in a determined tone. “We’re not going to mooch off of you.”

Leslie looked at them nervously and chewed her lower lip anxiously.

“You already bought tickets.” Amber saw through her.

“My agent’s taken care of all of it.” Why had she thought it was such a good idea this morning? Grant hadn’t been impressed with the early morning phone call, but he hadn’t argued with her. He, too, obviously thought it was a good idea and probably figured she would change her mind if she had a chance to think it through.

“This is going to be fantastic!” Josie grinned. “I’m so freakin’ in!”

For the first time since Leslie had gotten her first royalty payment and bought Michael a truck, she’d spent her money on something frivolous. She pushed aside the feeling of guilt. This wasn’t just about her; she wanted to do something nice for her friends as well.

Amber called into the club and told them that she needed to cash in her vacation time that she had been saving up for a while now, mostly because going to work for her was like going to a party that never ended. Work for her was a strange sort of fun that very few people got to enjoy. Her boss wasn’t happy, but eventually the platinum goddess made her magic work and she got the short term notice and was free to go. For Josie, all she had to do was call in and tell them that she needed to take some time off.

They spent the rest of the day shopping and trying on bathing suits, and as far as Josie and Amber were concerned, they were singularly tasked with the job of finding Leslie clothing that wasn’t work-out attire or comfy clothes. Her hesitation over going slowly disappeared. After a day of shopping, eating out, and enjoying everything that New York had to offer, Leslie found herself in a completely different mindset.

She needed this.

It was time.

When they finally made it back to the apartment and spent the rest of the evening watching the strange, melodramatic paranormal series that Conrad Danes was in, Leslie found herself completely enthralled by the character who was just another one of the pining boys in love with the central female lead.

She often wondered what it was that was so special about the woman that the TV show was focused on that would be worth keeping a guy like that around. But as they watched the show, she was actually completely caught off guard when Josie and Amber said that they found other characters on the show more attractive. That was just insane to her, something that didn’t compute.

“Did you hear he’s single now?” Josie said after a moment.

“Oh,” Leslie said after a moment, shrugging like it didn’t matter to her. Why would it? He was a celebrity and she was no one. What was she supposed to do with that information?

“You could totally date him, Leslie,” Josie pressed. “Go do some famous book signing thing, or have your agent to get in touch with him.” She giggled and pretended to pick up an imaginary phone. “Oh Grant, here’s my next bestseller and do you mind telling Conrad Dale to give me a call?” She pitched her voice high as she spoke.

Amber started pretended to be Grant with her imaginary finger phone and spoke in a low voice, “You got it, babe! You’re one of those people who’s in the rare position to actually be able to date someone that they see on TV. Anything for you, babe. I can make that magic happen. Is there anyone else you think’s hot? I can get them all for you, babe.”

“No way.” Leslie shook her head as she laughed. There was no way that she could ever be able to date someone like him. “Grant never calls me babe, by the way.”

Amber scrolled through her real phone. “Just for the record, Conrad’s single. It was all over TMZ.” She held her phone up to show Leslie. “His wife was cheating on him. Huge scandal. People were raging all across the planet. It was insane.”

“When?” Leslie asked, feeling like she was coming out from under a rock that she had been hibernating under for ages. It felt like she was cheating on Michael by asking. However, she was never going to meet Conrad so it didn’t matter. It was like a book boyfriend. No strings attached.

“Like two weeks ago.” Josie grabbed a bottle of wine and poured it into three glasses. “Totally nasty according to the papers. His wife, or ex now, was sleeping with the neighborhood. Not just one guy. Like tons.”

“That’s just the papers talking.” Leslie accepted the offered glass of red wine. “See? That’s one of the reasons I don’t want anyone knowing who I am. Who knows what really happened?” She glanced at the TV just as Conrad managed to walk on screen just out of a shower with just a towel on.
Damn, he’s hot!
It dawned on her that it was a crush. It had been so long since she had been so drawn to someone that she felt the possessive power of a crush. Michael has been her one and only crush. She finished her glass of wine too fast and dropped back against the couch, pissed for letting some stupid TV character mess with her head.

There was something potent about a crush for those who had never experienced it before, or had been cut off from it for a very long time. She couldn’t stop it. She tried saying it was just a silly physical crush. She was just stepping back into life and somehow had managed to latch onto the first hot image she saw, like an oil tanker getting ripped open at sea and coating her entire world with the slick embrace of the oily reality. She took a deep breath and stared out the window of her tiny apartment and looked at the world around her. Was this what a crush was like for everyone else? She took another deep breath.
Let it go. It doesn’t mean anything. Use the guy to dream about as you fall asleep. No big deal. He’s not Michael.

No, he wasn’t. Michael was never coming back.

She was never going to meet Conrad.

Taking a look at him on the screen, she imagined what his favorite color was, where his favorite restaurant was, and which Avenger was his favorite. There was so much she wanted to know about him that wasn’t even sexual. She was only thinking these things because she was mad at Michael for dying. She stared at Conrad and forced herself to wonder what his lips would taste like or what he’d look like, in person, without his shirt on. There were so many questions running through her mind, but mostly, she just wanted. She wanted him.

Honestly, she thought about her life and wondered what he would be interested in. Would he care that Gustavo’s was her favorite pizza place, mostly out of convenience and the fresh ingredients? Or that she liked to binge watch TV shows when she wasn’t writing? Would he care she was an author?

Stop it! Stop wondering. You aren’t going to meet him!

She grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped it around her. What the hell was going on inside her head? It scared her. It made her want to curl up back into the comfortable little life she had built for herself without these quiet, self-deprecating thoughts. This was not something she wanted.

She just wanted to vanish right now. Be like Michael and not have to live her life without him. The thought terrified and haunted her. How could she get out there when she was so scared of everything?

She needed this vacation.

She was going to step out into the world and start to face life with unbridled passion and courage. She just needed to get out of her apartment first.

She glanced at Josie and Amber. “Thanks for coming with me tomorrow,” she said quietly.

Josie laughed. “No, thank you for inviting us.”

“I’m so getting laid,” Amber commented, and she watched the TV. She sat up suddenly. “This resort… it’s in a remote part of the Caribbean that only a few people have ever heard of… there will be men there, right?”

Josie punched Amber as Leslie let out a sarcastic sigh. “There will be men there. Rich ones. I’m sure single ones. The staff is probably loaded, too.”

“I don’t care about loaded with money. I want ‘em loaded at the hips.”

Leslie burst out laughing. “You’ll have no problem finding that with the bathing suit you bought today.” She poured herself another glass of wine and held it up. “Cheers to an amazing vacation.”

“And all of us getting laid.” Amber winked and giggled.