Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,24

At least one of us found the situation amusing.

“Have no fear. I’ve been talked into the ever profitable Sci-Fi genre. This book is galaxies away from The Girl in the Yellow Dress…literally.”

“What do they mean ‘as soon as possible’?” The pucker of my sour face only increased as he became more excited.

He stood up, moving to stand beside a bulky piece of luggage I hadn’t noticed before.

“In this business, it’s all about striking while the iron’s hot. Well that’s what they tell me anyway. They think it would do wonders for sales to release the new book around the same time The Girl in the Yellow Dress hits theaters…Which means I need to be in New York like yesterday.”

“You can’t leave now!” I was aghast. He was the whole reason I was in this position in the first place! He couldn’t just leave. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” He scolded me with a smile, which only made it worse. I wasn’t in the mood to be charmed. “It won’t be for forever. I’ll be back before the end of the summer. It’s actually really great that you’re here, Addy. There’s no way I could go if you weren’t.”

Uh oh, nicknames were not a good sign. My eyes narrowed at him suspiciously.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just like what happened yesterday on set. No one else would call me out about the script. I need someone here I trust and who knows the information, so that I don’t end up with my name stamped on a pile of garbage.”

“I did not agree to that.”

I could barely bring myself to watch the scenes half the time. Surely, he couldn’t expect this out of me too?

He leveled his pretty, brown eyes at me, fitting his lips with a pout that should only ever be appropriate on a four-year-old.

“It’ll come with a pay raise. I’ll make sure you get my writer’s salary without ever having to put pen to paper. All you have to do is report back to me if something is awry. If even the smallest little thing doesn’t feel right, I want to know about it. You’d be getting a lot more money for barely anything more than you’re doing now.”

And there it was again…money. The real reason I’d been talked into this stunt. College wasn’t cheap, and pretty soon I was going to have to take loans out that would probably follow me around for the rest of my life.

I thought of Madeline and how she never let anything stand in her way. She was willing do to whatever it took to achieve more out of life, and so was I…even if it meant sacrificing my pride, and possibly my mental stability.

So in a stunning turn of events, I took a page out of Madeline Little’s book and agreed.

“You are amazing, Adley Adair.” He told me, leaping across the room to give me a slobbery kiss on the cheek.

“I know.”

And then Cam was gone, and I couldn’t even say it was the first time I’d ever watched him go.

I was wide awake even though I didn’t have to be on set for hours, so I took my time in Cam’s shower, using all six showerheads to massage my tense body. Once I was dressed, fed, and appropriately bored, I ventured into new parts of the house. While Cam was there, it had seemed presumptuous to grant myself a tour, but now that he was gone, I took my time wandering through all the extra nooks and crannies that were hidden throughout the rather immense home.

It was nothing like the loft in North Carolina that he’d owned since he was sixteen and had gotten emancipated from the state. When he’d started at Duke and moved into a dorm with Thomas, he hadn’t sold the loft, instead, renting it out while he was away. We’d moved back into the loft together when I showed up on his doorstep, finally ready to admit I was already five months pregnant.

The loft had been simple, clean, small, but not cramped. It was one open room, and only furnished with the necessities. He was so proud of the space that he’d worked to pay for with his own money, and his love showed in the personal and eclectic décor.

This mansion, cut from the same cloth as every other house on the street, was the opposite of personal. It could have easily been one of those model houses they show you when you’re