“Cassie?” I called when she didn’t answer, surveying the apartment with a keen eye. Nothing looked amiss. No new boxes of tampons littered the kitchen counter, and there was no Hello Kitty throw blanket on the couch.
I smiled to myself and shook my head, curious to see what else she’d come up with. She thought outside the normal box. I take that back—my favorite brand of woman wasn’t constrained inside a box. She was sitting dead center inside her endless loop of crazy.
“Yo, Cass!” I called down the hall to no answer.
Anxiety tightened my chest as I moved in that direction toward my bedroom. Maybe she had given in, moved out—gone on some shoot with exotic men in an exotic location—and my apartment would be all mine again.
God, I hope not.
I stopped dead in my tracks at my line of thinking. I hoped not?
That was ridiculous.
Still, it drove me forward again, the quiet in my bedroom and lack of activity in my closet sinking a pit into my stomach.
Before I could look around, hunt for her belongings that I’d battled so heartily to hide throughout the week, the doorbell rang.
I changed direction and headed back out of my room, down the hall, and straight to the door. When I opened it, a flower version of a centaur filled the doorway.
He wasn’t actually half man, half flowers, but the enormous bouquet blocking the entirety of his body from his waist to his face sure made him look like it.
“Delivery for Cassie Phillips?” he asked. My heart swelled and sank at once as soon as he said the words, an extreme war of wills between the two versions of me playing out in my head. She was getting deliveries to my apartment, which was insane and insanely comforting. But she was getting flowers, fucking blood-red roses, and those fucks usually came from pricks with dicks.
Six feet, five inches worth of blood started to boil.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said, nearly yanking the huge vase from his arms. He shrugged and took off as I shut the door behind him.
Two angry steps ate the distance between me and the kitchen counter. The glass of the vase clanged against the stone as I slammed it down and rifled through the blooms to find a card without shame.
“Aha!” I shouted as my forefinger and thumb closed around the soft paper of the envelope and yanked it out.
It was too fucking tiny for my big fingers to open delicately, and it ended up looking like I’d chewed it open, but I could throw that evidence away.
The first side was blank, but the second was filled with the scrawl of whatever employee had taken the order.
Dearest Cassie,
You’re so bangable.
Love, Thatcher’s Boner
“Did you send these?” I looked from the card to my dick in question, but after several seconds of irrational thought, I knew he couldn’t have done it. He’d been with me all day.
The only other explanation, however, was that she’d sent them to herself, as me. Or as part of me.
Jesus.
“Is she actually crazy?” I asked myself aloud. I shook my head and laughed, talking to myself again. “Maybe. But you definitely are, asshole.”
“I wrote the best fan fiction scene during my break,” I gushed to Georgia as I hopped on the A train after finishing up a late shoot in Hell’s Kitchen.
“Fan fiction?”
“Uh, yeah,” I scoffed and adjusted my camera bag over my shoulder. “You know I love to write Fifty Shades of Grey fanfic. Don’t you ever check my Wattpad page?”
“You still write on there?” she questioned in surprise.
“Hell yes, I do. I’m still waiting for E.L. James to read my work and fall madly in love with me.” I’d been writing Fifty Shades of Grey fanfic since I devoured the entire series a few years back. I had always loved to write, but it was that series that had actually motivated me to put my fingers to the keys for my own enjoyment. It was probably one of the best things I had ever decided to do. There was just something about writing your own little world of whatever the hell you wanted. It was downright liberating.
“Pretty sure she’s a little busy to be reading fanfic on Wattpad.”
“You’re ruining my BDSM buzz.”
“Sorry,” she said through a laugh. “I honestly had no idea you still did that. I thought that was a 2013 thing.”
“And here I thought, every time I published something new, my Wheorgie was actually reading it. Some best friend you are,” I teased even though I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t normally stick with things this long.
“So, explain how this works to me. Do you just rewrite Ana and Christian’s story or what?”
“No. I apply their story to my life and create my own little fantasy world of BDSM, hot sex, a sweet-ass apartment that isn’t located anywhere near my shitty place in Chelsea, and a perfect cock that can get it up on demand.”
When the word cock left my lips, a woman across from me, dressed in plaid loafers and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, threw the stink-eye in my direction. “Disgusting,” she muttered loud enough for my ears.