Page 47 of Joey

Are they gonna pass me around? Is he planning on stealing me from Joey?

Which is a dumb thought since Joey and I are not a thing. It’s all pretend.

Still, I can’t help but feel that I’m with Joey.

That’s how we set this up. I’m his public girlfriend. There’s no Wald in my future.

At least… not without Joey.

“Turn into this garage on the right,” I say.

We turn. And I direct him to my parking spot since my car is back at the hotel. Then we get out and take the elevator up to the fifth floor and the next thing I know he’s leaning too close to me as I push the key in the lock and open the door.

“After you,” he says.

I walk forward into my little apartment and then turn to face him as he closes the door. “Right here?” I ask. “Right now?”

“Fuck you?” He chuckles. “I can’t have you first. That will never work.”

I laugh at his audacity. “What the hell does that mean?”

“You know what I mean, Brooke.” Then he walks into my bedroom and I follow, feeling a little lost. And maybe a little helpless. And that feeling in front of the new house comes back to me. The fantasy feeling. It’s been a long time since someone took me by surprise in a good way and I have lived long enough to understand that being taken by surprise is special.

You don’t get but one or two good surprises in many, many years.

A door. But not just any door. This is like a freaking drawbridge lowering down over a moat surrounding a castle.

It’s a big deal.

I don’t understand it yet, but I recognize it. And that thought makes me remember something that Mila cosmetics chick said in her book. Something about being ready for your chance. You put in the work and you build this thing. And one day someone is looking for this exact thing you built and they find you.

That was how she described her tipping point of success. She found her business partners when they were all in college still. Separate colleges. While on spring break, of all things.

But something happened to them that brought them together and their idea for a cosmetics line took root.

That’s the prep stage. Their big break came years later after they graduated when all that hard work added up to some kind of grant or award.

Boom. The drawbridge lowered and they walked right into the castle.

But she freely admits that her life wouldn’t have happened this way if she didn’t find her team.

It wasn’t her talent or the talents of the other women with her that made the difference.

It was their synergy. It was the cumulative effect of all four of them that opened that drawbridge and got them the keys to the castle.

And I just think there’s a lesson there. She had three partners and now here are these three men who want to partner with me.

Weird, right? Maybe that Calling Your Destiny audiobook wasn’t full of shit after all? Maybe my sleeping brain did absorb some nugget of truth and I’ve been putting it into practice all these weeks. So that one day—today—I wake up and they whisk me up in their procession and take me into the castle with them.

God, I’m weird.

But I gotta admit. It’s a pretty big coincidence that I’m here in my apartment with some guy I don’t even know, and tomorrow we’re moving into the castle together.

And damn, that house is so perfect. I cannot imagine a luckier little girl.

I might even be a little bit jealous of Maisy Kane.

Wald opens my closet and starts picking through clothes. “What are you gonna take?” He glances at me. “Probably some summer things and some winter things. We gotta have pics in all different seasons.”