As I was fanning out some of my dark jeans, getting ready to throw them in the wash, crumpled up bits of paper fell out of my pockets.
My heart was in my throat. This was it — this was my list where I wrote down everything I wanted in a partner.
A feeling washed over me that was some kind of distant cousin of deja vu as I smoothed out page after page of my writing on the tiled laundry room floor.
My eyes clouded with tears as I looked over all the things I thought I wanted in a partner. After a few moments of scanning the long list, my eyes zeroed in on the one quality that was circled with four colors: “Makes me famous.”
Well, none of them ended up doing that for me, I thought to myself bitterly. Except maybe Crim, who posted that selfie. Even so, the hype from that photo floating around on the internet wore off quickly and was promptly eclipsed by Alina’s scandal.
I went through the list again, allowing myself to fantasize about some alternate universe where all of the guys were into me again. None of them had all of the qualities I wanted in my heartmate. If anything, Crim came the closest with that weird connection we had. But he was also arrogant and self-absorbed, so it couldn’t be him. Plus, he was missing a lot of traits that I’d found in the other guys…
Maybe it wasn’t possible to get everything I wanted in one person. Maybe I had to make do with some sort of fraction of everything I wanted; either that or be with all of the guys at the same time…
I willed the fantasy away as I shook my head. There was no way any of them would all agree to have a relationship with me at the same time… even if a lot of them were okay with having sex with me at the same time.
You can’t afford to get attached. This is show business, Mason said to me.
I frowned at the truth of his words. None of the starboys had even contacted me in the two weeks I’d been back in L.A. They obviously didn’t want anything to do with me now that I was a nobody again.
As the washing machine clunked away next to me, my mind whirled around with fantasies of what a relationship with more than one person would look like. I’d have all of them — Crim, Mason, Oliver, Leo, and Reese.
We’d be unstoppable.
I was jerked out of my fantasy when my phone buzzed loudly where it was sitting on the washing machine.
Scrambling up to get it, I allowed myself to believe that it might be the production company. They’d tell me that the investigation was over with, that everything was in the clear, and that they wanted me to fly to Morocco as soon as possible to resume filming.
Imagine my surprise when I saw an unknown number on the screen.
Normally I didn’t answer the phone when the caller ID didn’t show the name of someone I recognized. This was a special case.
It had to be the production company — who else would call me from an unknown number?
“Hello?” I asked into the receiver.
“Fucking finally,” sounded Crim’s musical voice.
“Crim? Is that you?” I asked, hardly daring to believe it.
“Of course it’s me, Charmander,” he said.
It might have been my imagination, but it sounded like there was a slight panic to his voice.
“What’s wrong?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“We’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days. Do you know how hard that is when you give everyone the wrong number?”
“I… I what?” I asked, dumbfounded.
Crim recited a phone number that was just like mine except for one digit. When we traded phone numbers back in that booth in Italy when Reese had given us the bad news, I must have been so shaken by the whole thing that I said the wrong number.
“That’s… not my number,” I said. “How did you get my real one?”
“Alina,” he said.
“She’s talking to you guys?!” I asked. “She’s not talking to me at all.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to us,” Crim said, a smile lurking on his face. “But we’re not going to let her close herself off from everything. We all have her back,” he said.
I was speechless; so thankful that Crim was finally able to contact me.
“I hope she’s okay,” I said breathlessly. “How did she sound?”
“She’ll be okay. We’ve all gone through career deaths before; it’s pretty much par for the course in this line of work,” he said. “Anyway, the reason I called was to check in on you. We’ve all been worried since we can’t get ahold of you. It’s not easy since you don’t have an address, you know. And you haven’t been checking your Instagram at all, have you?” he asked.
I swallowed guiltily. I couldn’t bear to check Instagram for a while, so I turned off notifications.
“I haven’t,” I admitted with a grimace.
“Well, you’ve gotten us all worried,” Crim said. “I’ve been asking you to come to Iceland with us while we all wait for the production company to make up its mind about The Black Castle.”
“I thought the reason you were going to Iceland was to stay in a remote cabin and make music by yourself?” I asked in disbelief.
“I lied,” he said simply. “Like I’m going to tell any of the other ones about my next project…”
My heart was in my throat. Was he being serious?
“Black Castle was never my primary focus. There’s another project I want to do — it’s way better, and it’s working with an Icelandic film company. All the guys are here with me too. Well,
