Artificial Love (The Goodbye Trilogy #2) (4 page)

Chapter Six

Emily

Johnny didn’t seem very nice and it was obvious that he was drunk. Ugh. I made a huge mistake driving all the way to Manhattan on a hunch. I sat on the steps outside of what once was Julia Delaney’s apartment. I was so close to a piece of whom she once was. Now she lived over five hundred miles away and the only person I could think of to ask for help, without looking like a complete loser, was out of reach. I sighed. It was too late to go to a hotel and I certainly wasn’t going to put it on the credit card. Michael would laugh even harder when he found out that I didn’t find Julia.
Asshole.
  He will make fun of everything I do so that I would go back to being his submissive wife. Fuck that noise. I giggled at that thought. I read that saying in a romance novel and thought it sounded ridiculous. It seemed fitting in this moment, however, and now I was glad that it had stayed with me. I might use that more often now that my life was noisy and stupid.

I made my way back to the car with my suitcases in tow. I got into the driver’s seat and let out a groan while slapping my hands on the steering wheel. This was not what I had anticipated when I got here. I thought a small chat, out to a club, and drunkenness. Yes, drunk was definitely the key to tonight. I looked at my watch and saw that it probably not a good time to start drinking. I’d be drunk for morning rush hour traffic and probably look like a homeless person. Oh wait, I was a homeless person.

I clicked my seat back and closed my eyes. I listened to the sounds of New York City. Car horns, machine like noises, people laughing loudly, and a heavy pounding on my driver’s window. Michael, I thought. He has found me. I envisioned him pounding the window only a few short hours ago. I started to hyperventilate. I opened my eyes and looked up to see the guy, Johnny standing in nothing but a white tank top and plaid sleep pants.

“What are you doing? It is cold out here. You will get sick,” I admonished him. His eyes went wide and he scoffed at me.

“What the fuck are you saying? You’re the one sitting in a car during the middle of the night. Your car won’t start or something?” He jumped from one foot to another to stay warm on this cold fall night. The air was certainly crisp with the smell of fallen leaves and no one in New England should be going outside without a jacket.

“Um,” I nervously started as I put my index finger up to my bottom lip. Think. Think. What am I doing? I suppose the truth would be the best way. “Well, you see. I just left my cheating husband and have zero friends that would take my side. Julia called me a few months ago and well, she said if I ever needed anything I could come to her. So I drove down here. To New York City. To find her,” I concluded.

Johnny clearly didn’t understand because the strange look on his face was confused, baffled, and maybe even a little pitiful.

“Sorry to hear about your husband,” he finally offered. “So, you don’t have a place to crash tonight then?”

I shook my head slowly and looked out the front window. I should have done something different from the very start. I should have never even danced with Michael at that party. I wanted to strangle my nineteen year old self into oblivion.

“Well, I have a pretty comfortable couch you can…” he started to offer but I cut him off.

“That is very nice of you, Johnny, but I’m fine right here in the car. Once I get a little daylight, I’ll walk around and see if I can find a place.”

“So this isn’t just a spur of the moment visit to NYC?” he inquired.

I shook my head again with a little more force this time. “No. I can’t go back.” My eyes started to tear up and I heard my mother’s voice telling me that the first rule of thumb is never let anyone see you cry. She did spend a lot of time in the bathroom when I was a child. I understood now. Johnny needed to walk back into his place and leave me alone with my own self-pity.

“Come on. It will be just one night. Julia used to live with me so there is some girlie shit in the bathroom you can use,” he suggested. No, he was demanding me to come in, since he was already opening the door for me.

I looked away and whispered a thank you to him. I didn’t bother to lock anything. I just followed Johnny up the stairs, in to the elevator, and we silently walked into his apartment. It was a nice place -bigger than I had thought, but then again, he was a musician for a very popular band that I honestly had never heard one beat of.

“Let me grab you some sheets and shit,” he snapped his fingers. What a lovely host. The first polite thing to do would be to offer me a drink but since it was so late in the night, I gave him points for coming in with the close second of guests’ sleeping provisions.

“Thank you,” I whispered again. I heard him rummage through the kitchen and he came out with two beers. “Here. You look like you need one or maybe ten right now,” he smiled at me as he took a swill off of his beer. He was cute. Besides the obvious tattoos on his chest, he was a clean cut blond with a very nice body. He obviously worked out. He hadn’t shaved today and that was a little off putting but he probably had been very busy, seeing as he was a musician.

I watched his face carefully as I took my first swig of beer. It had been years. I preferred wine and champagne but holy moly if this didn’t hit the spot. I closed my eyes and moaned. When I opened them, he was smirking at me.

“What?” I asked incredulously.

“Been a while?”

“You could say that. Thank you. This is so perfect,” I replied.

He jogged off to find my sheets and I wandered around the living room area. Julia’s picture was everywhere. I suppose she hadn’t taken much of her things when she moved out. I dusted a few photo frames off and looked at a bookshelf with some more pictures and books on it.

I didn’t notice that the bottle had dropped and split into a million pieces until Johnny ran out and asked if I was alright. I pointed to the Ouija board on the second to last shelf of the bookcase. It was sitting at the perfect angle that I could make out the three sets of initials. One set were mine. E.F. Emily Fuller. My maiden name. The name I would soon be once more.

“Where the hell did you get that?” My finger shook as I felt more than heard Grace’s letters answering back to me. The word?

Nice. Nice. Nice.

After all these years, I finally believed the dead girl was right. I did grow up to be nice.

Too nice.

Chapter Seven

Johnny

I looked at Emily’s shaking finger and to the Ouija board that Mark had handed back to me at our final meeting. I supposed that getting arrested breaks the legal contract of following someone. It also turned out that the guy ended up having a thing for Jules. Of course he did.

I watched Emily go two shades paler than her already fair skin and as she brought her shaking hand up to her mouth, a small tear fell down the side of her cheek. I got it then. It all made absolute fucking sense.

“You are Emmy!” I announced, causing her to jump. “You’re one of the three that talked to Grace. Each of you got a word, right?”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move a muscle. The poor girl looked like a granite statue in a museum. She was actually very beautiful in the girl next door kind of way. I took the opportunity to check her out since she was checked out. Nice ass, something I could grip on to. Tits, wow, her tits were nice. Not too big but more than my hand full. The curve of her slender waist was sexy. She rocked a beautiful red sweater that brought out her green eyes. She was clearly from upper class since she dressed to fit that social circle. Why the fuck would she want to rekindle a friendship with Jules? Those two couldn’t be any more different and this girl kept saying the word ‘nice’ like it was the only adjective she knew.

Nice.

“You got nice, didn’t you?” I said in a low voice. I didn’t want to scare her but seriously? She was slightly freaking me out.

Her head turned to look at me and with her hand still on her mouth and eyes full of tears, she nodded. She closed her eyes, which allowed all the droplets of sadness to flow down her face.

“I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I am crying over this. I just thought…well, I thought this board was gone,” she speculated. She was mind fucked. She needed something stronger than a beer.

I went to the kitchen and brought down the Crown Royal. I poured two fingers each and handed her one. She downed hers in a quick shot and coughed at the after burn.

“Oh my God, I needed that.” She faintly smiled at me.

“So is it true? Are you nice? And what the fuck does nice even mean? Jules got the word ‘slut’ so that was pretty straightforward, but how does nice play into it all?” I asked, pondering what being nice entailed. Was I nice? Probably not. Actually,
most definitely
not.

“Well, let’s see. I was nice in high school and let the popular girls cheat off my paper. When one girl got caught, I took the fall for it. I was just trying to be nice. I wanted to be her friend, you know? She said she would hook me up with Brad Prescott for the prom. He was a nice guy. I bought the most beautiful dress and waited outside my house until midnight. The next Monday, he said he realized he had asked someone else out. I forgave him, of course. I was very nice about that one,” she scoffed and her face morphed into a look of pure disgust.

“You know what nice is, Johnny? It is letting people walk all over you. It is people taking and taking and taking just so that you know that they think you are a nice person,” she proclaimed as she took more of the Crown Royal and poured herself another shot. “Oh, may I have some more?”

I put my hand out as to let her know to proceed. I didn’t understand a fucking word she was saying but those lips were deliciously tempting right now. The beer and the shot revived my earlier buzz and I leaned back on the couch to watch her suck the liquid through those plump lips. This was Emmy from twelve year old Julia’s life and I was drinking with her. What a freaking trip.

“I suppose nice also means that you married a douche bag who cheated on you and it took you a while to finally say you were done?” I cautioned to ask.

She nodded and stuck out her tongue in disgust from the shot she had taken. “Absolutely. I knew he was fucking women. Hell, some of them I made pies for on a monthly basis. It was like, here. Have some pie and why don’t you suck my husband’s dick, too?” She snorted. It was cute.

“You know what would be nice?” I asked as I moved closer to her.

“Hmm?” She hummed up at me from the floor.

“Your tongue on mine,” I said in my most seductive voice. She stared at me with a blank expression at first and then looked at my lips. She turned her head just a bit to take in my whole face.

“I’m not very good at that sort of stuff. I mean, come on, that’s the reason my husband cheated. I wouldn’t explore or be adventurous,” she quoted with her fingers.

“A kiss is a kiss. Kisses are nice,” I repeated.

“Okay,” she said, looking at me but not moving at all. I got down on the floor and took her chin in my palms. She closed her eyes.

“Open. Watch me kiss you nicely,” I finished before my lips found hers. They were like virgin lips. She didn’t know how to kiss. She remained motionless and I nibbled at every part of her lips until she gasped at one particular spot in the corner.

My tongue invaded her whiskey drenched mouth and I tied my tongue up with hers. She watched me with the attention of a student who watches their teacher.

“Move with me,” I demanded into her mouth. She closed her eyes, put her hands on my shoulders, and repeated back every motion I gave to her. It was one of the nicest kisses I had ever had in my life. Actually nice was not the word for it. It was the fucking best kiss I’d ever experienced in my life. With anyone.  Including Julia Delaney.

A cell phone ring tone began with fake birds chirping. It had the opposite effect of peacefulness since Emily pulled away suddenly. With wide eyes, she regarded me like she was just now seeing me for the first time. I felt her heavy breath on my moistened lips and there was a spell between us. Neither of us wanted to move. I quickly glanced at the birds starting to chirp once more and she gave me a sheepish smile.

“That was…really good,” she said, her breath still heaving.

“I thought so, too,” I confirmed with a wide grin. “In fact, can I have some more of those tasty lips? I was just getting started with them.”

“Really?” she asked in surprise. “You want to keep…
just
kissing? I mean, well, I don’t know very much about… um…”

“Fucking?” I breathed out.

I was blunt. Johnny Lennox was nothing, if not totally in your face blunt. I knew I had offended her and quickly wished I had said something else. Her cringe drew her farther from my personal space and she looked over to her purse when the birds started to chirp again.

“Emmy?” I asked, using the name that Julia always referred to in the stories. Her head popped up in surprise and then she smiled widely. She liked that.

“Emmy, who’s calling you at two in the morning?” I asked.

“Michael,” she whispered.

“Michael, the cheating husband?”

She nodded.

“Aren’t you going to listen to what he has to say? I mean, I probably would,” I offered casually. I decided after I had cheated on Jules the first time that I would forgive her for cheating on me if that ever became a problem. I was Emmy’s husband in a way. I was the lying, cheating motherfucker that broke hearts, souls, and bands.

She shrugged and got up to answer her insistent chirping phone. Again, that ring tone was
not
relaxing.

“Hello?” she asked with a low, submissive sounding tone.

I listened to her end of the conversation which wasn’t much. A few
yes’s
. A few firm
no’s
. A few more annoyed sounding
no’s
. He was obviously drilling her about her whereabouts and when she was going to come home to him. He was going to find her, coax her, or whatever he had to do to get her back. She was too weak
not
to go back.

I absolutely knew the type since I was one of them.