Not You It's Me (Boston Love #1) - Julie Johnson Page 0,36

articles promising that sex is always this beautiful, soul-baring act. And, hey, maybe it is like that for some people, every single time.

Somehow, I doubt it.

The bottom line is, sex is sex.

No intimacy required.

And, I, for one, have always been perfectly okay with that. This brave new world of sexual satisfaction without emotional investment has suited me just fine, even if Shelby and Chrissy think I’m defying the laws of nature because I’m not actively searching for The One.

I’ve always thought, a little cockily, that I know something they don’t.

That there is no One. That he doesn’t exist on any level other than fantasy.

But as I sip down my wine and look at Mark’s hand on Chrissy’s pregnant stomach, as I hear the softness in Shelby’s voice when she calls Paul to let him know she’ll be home late…

It makes me wonder if I really know anything at all.

Chapter Thirteen

Nothing

I push against the door to my apartment and meet resistance — it sticks in the frame, like something’s blocking it from swinging open. A forceful bump of my hip jars it wide enough for me to squeeze through, and I step over the threshold onto the mountain of papers that have been jamming my entryway. My eyes bug out as I see literally hundreds of business cards, media release forms, and contact sheets mixed in with a pile of mail several times its normal size, and at least six newspapers.

What the hell?

I’ve gotten more mail in the past two days of dodging my apartment than I have in the two full years I’ve lived in this building. Slamming the door closed behind me, I drop into a crouch and begin digging through the mess. Evidently, the reporters found a way inside the complex — or they bribed my neighbors to do their dirty work for them — because my apartment is starting to look like something out of an episode of Hoarders: The Early Years. There’s so much paperwork, I can’t even see my entry mat. A cursory glance tells me most of it contains contact information and interview requests for different talk shows, radio spots, and primetime sit-downs, all requesting an exclusive. All wanting a piece of the Gemma Summers story.

Don’t hold your breath, leeches.

The newspapers, all of which seem to feature front-page stories about me or Chase, or me and Chase, are a bit tattered, likely from being shoved roughly through the thin mail slot in my door, but I catch sight of a bright blue sticky-note fused to the front of The Boston Globe and peel it off. I have to squint to read the shaky, sloping cursive scrawled across the tiny turquoise square.

Gemma dear,

I’ve been collecting these since this whole shenanigan started! Got The Times, The Globe, The Herald, and The Wall Street Journal. Thought you’d want them. Don’t worry, I kept a bunch of copies for myself — well, only the sections about you, I used the rest to line the litter boxes. Oh, and feel free to bring your new man by to meet Bigelow anytime! He looks like a cat person.

Mrs. Hendrickson, 1C

I let the note flutter to the floor as a hysterical giggle bubbles up from my stomach and bursts from my throat. This whole thing — the reporters, the attention, the hiding out from my own apartment — hasn’t really fazed me until this point. But there’s something about the image of Chase Croft, in his billion-dollar clothes, crouched down on Mrs. Hendrickson’s musty carpeting, playing with her giant tabby cat, that sends me careening right over the edge.

I collapse back against my door, sitting amidst a pile of papers I’ll never read and strangers’ phone numbers I’ll never use, and laugh until tears are glossing over my eyes and I can barely pull a breath into my lungs.

***

It’s strange to be back in my apartment after essentially living at Chrissy and Mark’s for the past two days. Everything at their place is white, glossy, and pristine — the polar opposite of my space, which is dripping in different colors, patterns, and textures.

The apartment is cramped, but it has high ceilings, which lends the illusion of more space than I actually have, and there’s only one window, but it’s big and west-facing, so it lets all the mid-afternoon sunshine pour in. My floors are a hodgepodge of wood — oak and maple, dark and light — with one section blending straight into another with little rhyme or reason. I’ve got a