Page 52 of Knot Just A Fan

I throw off the covers and walk to the door in my lounge sweats and no shirt. I should put one on, but the soft knock comes again.

“Just a sec.” I grab the hotel robe from the closet, all terry-cloth and itchy as fuck, but I put it on anyhow.

I don’t look out the peephole. But I should. Because when I open the door, there’s Willow, in a new outfit. If you can call it that.

She’s wearing a skin-tight dress like she’s about to go clubbing. She’s fixed her makeup and her hair’s been curled.

“I needed time to think about all of this,” she says without preamble. “Can I come in?” She looks around, trying to get a view of the bed behind the bathroom but it’s not visible from here.

She’s looking for another person. For Briella.

“We already talked about this,” I say softly, but I want to just close the door and climb into bed. “I thought you’d come here to support us, because we’ve asked if we could support you for years. But it’s done now. It’s okay. It’s time we both grow up and admit we’re not the kids we were.”

I don’t touch her, but it’s not even clear if she wants me to. I don’t think she came to seduce me. My gut says she’s just here to make sure I’m alone. As if that matters. But I know, maybe, in her shoes I’d be suspicious, too. Hell, I’m suspicious of whoever Ali is. But what does it matter? We’re done.

She steps in the room without my invitation, and pulls something out of her large shoulder bag. Something familiar.

She drapes the scarf I gave her all those years ago around my neck. It still smells of the cologne I gave her with it.

“The truth is, babe,” she says, which makes me wrinkle my nose. She’s never called mebabe.It feels so phony. “I don’t need your support. And I don’t think I ever did.”

Then she cups my cheek, like something she’s seen in a film, and says, “Goodbye, Gray.”

She blows a kiss at me, turns, and walks away, leaving the door open and me standing there in boxers, a white robe emblazoned with the hotel name on the pocket, and a fucking knit scarf around my neck.

“Goodbye, Willow,” I say.

The next morning, on my solitary walk to the bakery to either munch on a pain au chocolat alone, or meet Briella if she shows, I toss the scarf in a donations bin.

CHAPTER 23

Briella

Camiand I are at a breakfast place on the outskirts of Nice, across the street from our hotel. A hole-in-the-wall eatery as the scene for my near-choking.

Her perfect eyebrows fly up and she scrapes her chair back loudly on the wooden floor. I gasp for breath, making sounds like a dying donkey.

“Do I need to Heimlich you? God, that sounds so wrong!”

This makes me want to laugh but there’s bacon stuck in my windpipe. My arms flap around uselessly and Cami goes to pound me on the back, but the number of times I’ve heard this makes it worse causes me to leap sideways out of the chair and her hand misses. I nearly fall on the floor and other patrons are starting to gape.

Finally I cough something solid into my napkin. Cami pulls a half-relieved, half-revolted face and sits back down. “Jesus. Are you okay?”

I wrap up the napkin and tuck it under the side of my plate, then push the whole lot away and pull my coffee cup closer. “Yeah. Ugh! I just—I think—” I pause and take a slow inhale. “It was the shock.”

Cami nods, shoveling a pile of omelette onto her fork. “It’s pretty fucking incredible. But girl, you got this. This is karma, finally!”

“Twenty-eightrequests to interview me. I didn’t even expect one, to be honest.”

“Oh, come on. Your work is awesome, you’ve shot this huge band before they were famous, and—well, for one night while they were—and people want to jump onyourtrain now. It’s based on your work, not on Echo. They’re just your subject.”

Cami’s words are buttery caramel to my soul. I want to lap them up. But to be honest, I didn’t jump on that stage to get gigs for me. I did it to … whydidI do it?

I mull this over as I finish the coffee’s dregs and immediately know a second is required. European coffee preparation is superior, no doubt, but it’s really damn small.

“I think I did what I did because I wanted to take the heat off the band.” I shrug.

Cami leans in. She has a bit of egg on her bottom lip. “But you also did it because you wanted to defend yourself, right?”

---