“Flight number 2287, nonstop to Los Angeles, boarding now,” called the fatigued voice over the intercom. “Group one, please board.”
I broke away from the kiss, noting with some smugness how stunned Angel looked right now. “Will you think about the party?” I asked.
His eyes were glazed, and with the air of someone shell-shocked, he reached down to adjust himself in his jeans. “Yes,” he managed to get out.
“I can’t wait to see you in LA,” I whispered, and then I gave him another lingering kiss, leaving him slumped against the wall, his hand holding his hand-painted denim coat closed over his hard-on.
I was smiling to myself the whole way back to Los Angeles.
Two days later and I was not smiling.
Angel hadn’t called, hadn’t texted, hadn’t DM’d. A piece of me larger than I was ever willing to admit boarded that plane expecting to see him just hours after we landed, already sprawled across my bed the moment I walked through the door.
That first night I got back to LA, I waited hours for a text, but eventually I fell asleep with my phone in my hand. When I woke up in the morning without any contact from Angel, it felt like someone had filled my throat with gravel.
I’d learned long ago what silence meant; my parents had taught me that, along with my childhood friends and the first boy I’d ever kissed. And I’d only ever reacted one way to silence—by leaving. If someone didn’t have the gumption or the guts to say what they wanted to say to my face, then they didn’t get my face at all any more. Why would I stick around just to be ignored?
Except . . .
Except maybe, the teensiest bit maybe, Angel deserved the benefit of the doubt. He had spent an entire evening in Vermont cooking me steamed dampfnudel because we saw it on an episode of The Great British Bake Off after all, and had even made the vanilla sauce to go with it.
So I relented and did the whole benefit of the doubt thing: I texted first, telling him the time and place of Vanya’s party.
And still, no response.
The night of Vanya’s party, I spent way too much time getting ready, ultimately choosing the perfect skintight leather pants and my favorite black tunic sweater with thoughtfully placed shreds and holes. It was like a comfort blanket. A truly fabulous and devastatingly hot comfort blanket.
And then I went to Vanya’s warehouse/domicile, completely prepared for my artsy Prince Charming to show up and sweep me off my feet. He’d tell me that he’d been so busy, so overwhelmed, but that he was still consumed by the memory of firelight on my skin as we’d made love in front of the fire in Vermont.
Never mind that we never actually got the fire to light long enough to also have sex while it was burning. It was the vibe that mattered.
He would apologize and then he’d kiss me and then he’d apologize to Vanya for turning me into an insecure mess for the last three days and then Vanya would graciously forgive him and ask him what he thought about her latest canvases (and it would be a trick question, because she hated her most recent work) and then even if he got it wrong, he’d get it wrong so sweetly and cutely that it wouldn’t matter. And then we’d both get tipsy from violet femme cocktails and go back to my apartment and have the kind of sex that required towels.
And I was ready for The Moment. I posted myself far from the door and made sure to be mid-laugh as many times as possible, so when Angel walked in, he’d have to search for me, and then when he found me, I’d be utterly unconcerned with his tardiness and surrounded by a crowd of people who were completely charmed by me.
But the first hour of the party passed without my Prince Charming walking through the door.
And then the second. And then the third.
By the fourth hour, I’d had five drinks and had to convince Vanya several times not to issue her version of a CIA burn notice. With an inadvisable amount of gin circulating through my system, I did something I had never done, and would never again do if I could help it.
I texted someone who hadn’t responded to my last text.
Aaaand I got no response.
Again.
By the fifth hour of the party, I was sitting glumly on my best friend’s bed watching the rest of the guests get on without me, or the indie-music soundtracked moment I’d been waiting for. Vanya sashayed over in a chartreuse caftan and boots with multiple goldfish in the clear platform bottoms, her long pink hair catching on her rich brown shoulders. She sat on the bed next to me and handed me a fresh drink in one of those Gatsby-looking glasses she liked so much.
“Is this him?” she asked, showing me his Instagram account.
“Yes,” I said automatically, having become an expert in Angel’s social media over the last three days and already knowing every post, caption, and comment. I tapped through his profile through sheer force of habit, not expecting to see anything new, and that’s when I saw it. A tagged post, shared just a few minutes ago.
It was a picture of Angel with an unmistakably Parisian cityscape behind him. Angel had his arm around a tall blond guy that looked like a long-lost Hemsworth brother. And the Hemsworth had his arm slung over Angel’s shoulders and his fingers tangled casually in the lapel of Angel’s coat. A familiar gesture. A possessive one.
The caption was just a baguette and a heart.
“That’s his ex,” I said numbly. “Blake.”
“He’s with his ex in Paris,” Vanya said to drive the point home, but there was pity in her voice too. “Babes.”
My hand was shaking. I couldn’t look at this picture anymore. I couldn’t look away. Angel was in Paris. Letting his ex touch the lapel of the same denim coat I’d used to pull him closer to my mouth.
Had Angel known then he wouldn’t come to the party? That he’d be in Paris? With a guy named Blake who never missed leg day? Was that why he hadn’t responded to my texts?
“You know what you need to do,” my best friend said, as seriously as anyone wearing goldfish shoes could say anything. “Burn. Notice.”
She was right. I handed the phone back to Vanya, tossed back the rest of my purple cocktail, and handed Vanya the empty glass. And then I pulled out my own phone and tapped open my text messages.
When Vanya saw I’d texted him twice with no response, she sucked her teeth.
“Burn notice,” she repeated, and then made an approving noise as I opened up his contact info and then tapped Block This Caller. I pulled up one of his social media accounts and blocked him, and then another and blocked him there. On and on until the only place left was his Instagram, where I had to see him canoodling with Blake once again before I could block him there too.
And now he wouldn’t be able to call, text, or DM—and even better, I could pretend that Angel Fletcher, my lowkey crush for two years (and highkey obsession for a month) had never existed.
Just a hypothermic hallucination while freezing my nips off in Christmas Notch. Just a hazy dream brought on by too much Grinch Punch at my favorite Christmas-themed strip club, The North Pole.
Angel Fletcher thought he could ghost me? Well, I could ghost him better.
Boo, bitch.
Chapter One
Seven Months Later
A backyard barbecue was deeply off-brand for me, and I made sure Bee Hobbes, my friend and the star of Duke the Halls, knew so when she invited me to her new Los Feliz digs.