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Which was how I ended up in therapy twice a week and support group meetings. It took a while, longer than even I expected, but by my birthday, I was beginning to feel a little more like my old self. Not seeing Luca’s name constantly popping up on my phone helped too, and slowly I started to learn more about myself.
The me without Luca was less confident at first, but I began to regain my faith in myself. It wasn’t easy, but I didn’t have to do it on my own. As Shaw once told me, it was okay not to be okay. I didn’t have to worry that everyone I cared about would fall apart if I wasn’t okay every minute of the day.
Of all the lessons I had to learn about myself, that one was possibly the hardest to figure out. It meant giving up control to a certain degree and trusting that those around me wouldn’t shatter if I needed a moment to just not be okay.
While I was getting mentally healthy, life went on around me. Summer came and went. And to avoid putting myself in a situation where I was unsure how I would handle seeing Luca face-to-face, I decided not to go to Aunt Emmie’s annual Christmas parties. Instead, my parents took my brother and me to New York to spend it with Grandpa Cecil, rather than his coming to California to visit with us.
High school quickly was about to become a thing of the past, and Luca was going into the NFL draft. I’d spent the last two years watching all of his games, but whenever he happened to do an interview afterward—like the one he had to do after Alabama won the National Championship for the second year in a row—I made myself change the channel.
He was predicted to go quickly in the draft, something none of us was surprised about. But no one realized exactly how quickly he would go. Tennessee wasted no time picking him up for the third overall pick and the first defensive pick of the year.
It wasn’t easy for me when I realized he was with one of the teams he’d always wanted to play for because he knew I loved Tennessee. Shaw’s parents owned a house just outside of Nashville. Uncle Wroth and Uncle Z both lived there with their families, and I had some pretty great memories of the place from my childhood.
Luca kept his promise and hadn’t called or texted me once in the past few years, but part of me hoped he would at least try on my eighteenth birthday. He didn’t, and I told myself I wasn’t disappointed. Sure, it would have been the day we could have finally been together without anyone saying Luca was breaking some stupid law, but with more than two years having passed since I’d last heard his voice, I should have known he’d moved on.
I went to Shaw’s Tennessee house with her and her parents and told Lyric not to tell his brother, part of me hoping he would let it slip and Luca would show up. He never did, and I wondered if Lyric had kept it quiet or if Luca just didn’t care that I was so close. I didn’t know, and I told myself I didn’t care.
So, when I saw him on ESPN with some girl I’d never seen before, it shouldn’t have hurt as badly as it did. My heart shouldn’t have broken all over again, and I shouldn’t have gotten so pissed I texted Lyric that if he saw something he thought his brother wouldn’t like about me on the internet to be sure and send it to Luca.
I didn’t mean it, and I didn’t plan on going back down that self-destructive road I’d fought so hard to stay off of.
Even though I’d made the threat, I wasn’t going to let my aching heart get in my way. That didn’t stop me from getting on a plane and flying to London with Shaw for the weekend, though. It didn’t keep me from having a good time or reconnecting with a guy who had always been at the back of my mind.
It didn’t stop me from falling in love for the second time. And even if I’d known that the heartache I would have to face soon after would be worse than anything Luca had ever caused me, I still would have gotten on that plane and gladly fallen for the man who showed me what living life to its fullest was truly like.
Chapter 31
Violet
“I can’t believe I let my agent talk me into doing a campaign for a company I don’t know anything about,” Shaw grumbled as the stylist finished doing her hair and stepped back. Leaning forward in her chair, she fluffed her hair a little, then stood. “How do I look?”
I scanned her from head to toe, taking in the dress that looked like it cost at least twenty grand and the diamonds braided into her hair. With her makeup, she looked as if she was about to step onto the red carpet of the Oscars or into a ballroom full of royalty. Seeing as we were in London, the latter was more likely than the former, and I was all for seeing her flirting with a few princes for the weekend.
“I’d fuck you,” I told her with a grin, and she smirked at me.
“Did seeing Luca with that skank on TV finally turn you into a lesbian, babe? If so, you should have told me. I would gladly do a little experimenting with you.” She winked and I snorted.
“No, sorry.” I grimaced. “I almost wish it had, though.”
Shaw lost her smirk and hugged me, making the stylist huff unhappily. When the woman started to repair Shaw’s hair while she was still hugging me, my best friend turned on her with murder in her eyes. “Did it look like I was doing something?” She snarled at the woman. “Because I was fucking doing something. Do not mess with me when I’m hugging the only person in this world who matters to me.”
The stylist lifted her hands in surrender and quickly made a run for it.
“Shaw, don’t make any enemies on this shoot,” I pleaded with her. “Your mom is too busy with the end of Cannon’s summer tour to get called out for this. I promised I would take care of everything, and it would help if you could not make that job harder than it already is.”
She pressed her lips into a hard line. “No one interrupts me when I’m hugging my BFF.”
I wrapped my arms around her for a quick squeeze before stepping back and mock-glaring up at her. “Now, let’s get out there before the client gets pissed. And please, don’t get too snippy with the photographer. You’ve already been put on the ‘will not work with’ list of two photographers. Let’s not get on a third, ’kay?”
“I’m not making any promises. And just to remind you, those two photographers were total dicks. I wouldn’t work with either of them again if they paid me five million dollars for a single picture.” She fixed a few locks of hair and then made sure her makeup was still perfect before turning back to me. “Lead on, beautiful.”
We left the stylist’s room and walked down a corridor that took us straight to the big, open room that was set up for the photo shoot. Normally Shaw knew who she was working for and exactly what product her face and name would be representing. This time, her agent had only sent over a brief synopsis of everything on the client and product.
It was for a new car that was being unveiled in the next few months. Everything was top secret surrounding it, and both Shaw and I’d had to sign nondisclosures promising not to speak a single word about what we saw or heard on the set during the shoot. I wasn’t familiar with the company who designed and manufactured the car, and when I looked them up online, I hadn’t found out much about WAR-SAW Global other than it was a billion-dollar company and the owner rarely was in the spotlight, letting their CEOs handle all the public relations aspects of the day-to-day.
Shaw was more into representing makeup and fashion in general. This was the first time she’d been offered a car campaign, but it was because it was so different from her norm that she’d given in
when her agent told her about the job despite not knowing much about the client.
