Addison
Not a single person came to Addie’s book signing. She tried to hide the dread in her stomach as she looked at the two rows of empty seats. Two rows! Should she feel honored that they expected that many people or humiliated that she couldn’t even come close to filling them? She had no idea what was normal. How many fans were there of obscure self-published works anyway? People loved history, but maybe they didn’t care about medieval graffiti as much as she did. Maybe they didn’t care enough to buy her book on it or come to her book signing. But she couldn’t help but hope.
She checked her watch—ten minutes past the starting time. How long should she wait before calling it? She shifted on her feet and glanced at the clerks at the book counter. Had they noticed? Were they going to kick her out?
Her eyes darted between the few customers milling around the store. Not a single one seemed to notice her at all.
Hadn’t she brought this on herself? She’d avoided promoting her book, feeling too shy to post about it on social media. The only place she’d mentioned the book signing was on her website, and this proved that no one had visited it. She hadn’t even told her best friend about it and her boyfriend, Eldon…well…
She glanced at her purse, wanting to dive in and retrieve her phone so she could chat with Eldon. He always made her feel better and would be just the distraction she needed from the most humiliating day of her life.
Instead of grabbing her phone, she retrieved her lip gloss and reapplied a light layer of pale pink to her lips. It was the only color that went well with her strawberry-blonde hair and fair skin.
The sound of the bell above the door drew her attention, and she craned her neck to see who was entering. Maybe they were here to see her.
Her mouth went dry when she saw who it actually was. Frozen in place, she watched her ex enter the store and hold the door for the woman he had chosen over her, along with their adorable four-year-old, who was wearing a shirt that said Recess Mode.
Addie had never seen the child before, but she looked just like her father, who looked just the same as the day he’d dumped her all those years ago. Well, maybe he looked a little older, with a darker five o’clock shadow on his face.
He smiled that charming smile and his girlfriend (wife?) laughed. Addie’s stomach turned to rotten mush for a second before panic set in. What if he was here to see her? Was he attending her signing?
Her heart hammered in her chest, and she turned away from the door so he wouldn’t see her standing there like an idiot staring at his happy family. She took a deep breath, and her limbs felt weak. Without thinking, she ducked under the table, hoping he wouldn’t look her way while passing.
Was he here to rub his happiness in her face? Was he here to see her fail? Even if he wasn’t, he was going to see it. Her name was on a huge poster behind her, after all. What would she say to him? Tears stung the back of her eyes while she imagined the double humiliation.
Suddenly, the lack of turnout didn’t seem like a big deal at all. If she could travel back a few minutes to when the no-show had been her biggest problem, she’d do it in a heartbeat.
No one approached her table, though, so she started to stand, but an engraving on the side of the table leg caught her eye.
Rot in HELL
She knew the vandal hadn’t done it just to be funny or rebellious, because she could actually sense the anger emanating from the letters. She reached out and touched the phrase, sensing a fiery roar of red that almost burned her. It hadn’t been long since it had been carved into the table leg, so the emotions were much easier to sense than the emotions hidden deep in medieval graffiti.
“Excuse me? Addison Honeycutt?”
She bolted up, bumping her head on the side of the table.
The man in front of her wore an amused smirk and stared at her with raised eyebrows. It didn’t help that he was incredibly attractive and tall, dressed head to toe in black, with a knit turtleneck accentuating his medium build. His eyebrows and hair were also black, and his features made her suspect he was half-Asian. “Everything alright?” he asked.
“Uh…” She picked up a pen from the table. “I was just looking for a pen?”
“You don’t sound very certain of that.” His lips twitched, and she wasn’t sure what he thought of her spectacle. But he’d said her name…so did that mean he was here for the book signing?
“Are you here to see me?” she asked, feeling dumb, but could she really do anything to make things worse at this point?
He studied her with that amused look. “As a matter of fact, I am.” His voice oozed with confidence, as if he were used to always getting his way.
“Do you…want me to sign a book?” she asked hopefully.
This conjured a full smile from him, creating a dimple on the side of his cheek. “Absolutely.” He held up a receipt showing his purchase of a signed book.
Addie relaxed and pulled a copy from her stack, flipping to the title page. She had so many questions for him. How had he found her? Was he her fan? But all the questions froze on her tongue while she stared at the blank page. “Who should I make it out to?” she asked instead.
“Chase.” He picked up one of her books and started thumbing through it. “Can you really decipher what this ancient graffiti means?” he asked.
Addie gave him a slight smile. “I spent the last three years of my life with that graffiti. I’ve come to know it well.” She wrote Chase on the page but didn’t know what to write next and glanced up at him.
He was still flipping through her book and stopped at the dreaded chapter that had caused her so much trouble with reviewers and internet trolls alike. “Aliens? In the medieval era?” he asked, giving her a skeptical look.
Addie’s face reddened. Why did that always catch everyone’s attention? It was what made her shy away from social media in the first place—a UFO YouTube channel had discovered her book and attracted a lot of unwanted attention. Next thing she knew, she was being called a quack, and no one in academia would take her seriously.
“Well, some of my book is purely speculation. I explain what the graffiti symbolized and then give a narrative to help demonstrate what the person’s life might have been like and what led them to carve the graffiti.” Those parts were fiction, but she was certain the people’s emotions were correct—because she could actually sense them in the ancient inscriptions. But clearly, she couldn’t admit to having a supernatural power—that, paired with the alien fiasco, would be career suicide. “Maybe I got a little carried away with the aliens…”
“It’s creative,” he said. “I like it.” He closed the book and returned it to the stack.
She warmed under his simple praise and was grateful he didn’t press her further. Turning her attention back to the inscription, she added Thank you for your support. Then she signed her name and handed him the book, unsure what to say.
Chase stared at the page for a moment. “I have to confess. I came here with ulterior motives.”
“You did? What for?” Her heart sank. Was he here to humiliate her after all? Was he one of the UFO freaks from YouTube?
“Actually, there isn’t really an easy way to explain it.” He pursed his lips, then cocked his head to the side. “You don’t…recognize me?”
Addie shook her head. “Should I?”
His face relaxed and his smile grew warm. “No, not at all. It just helps me understand what I need to explain.”
At that moment, Addie noticed movement around the store. A woman had pulled her husband over to the nearest bookshelf and was whispering in his ear. A store clerk took out his phone and snapped a picture.
“Who are you?” Addie blurted.
Chase turned and sighed when he noticed his picture being taken. He pulled a wallet out from his black jeans and retrieved a card. “Call me when you have a chance.”
“Why?”
“The short of it is that I have some medieval graffiti that I need to document. Look me up, and it’ll all make sense.” He glanced at the growing crowd. “I gotta go. Nice to meet you, Addison,” he said, and before she could respond, he swept away, giving a cursory wave to the small crowd that had congregated.
A woman approached Addie. “Do you know Chase Sakata?” she asked.
“I…” Addie glanced at the door swinging with his departure. “No…he just wanted me to sign a book.”
The woman glanced at the table. “Oh, medieval graffiti, that makes sense.”
“It does?”
“Yeah, he bought a castle last year.” The woman picked up a book and started flipping through it.
“A castle?” Addie asked, but the woman didn’t seem to hear her as she perused the book.
“Oh, these pictures are lovely,” she said, staring at a page. “Can I get a signed copy?”
A smile crept across Addie’s face as a line formed behind the woman. “Of course.”
***
By the end of the day, she’d signed a little under twenty copies. It wasn’t a lot, but it was twenty more than she’d ever imagined. And to top the day off, she didn’t see her ex again. He must’ve left without her noticing.
Addie returned home and finally pulled out her phone to chat with Eldon. He’d been her boyfriend for four years and was the most supportive person in her life. He always rooted for her and believed in her, and she couldn’t wait to tell him everything about the book signing. Some people might not take his encouragement seriously. Some people might claim she wasn’t in a real relationship. But Addie didn’t care what these “some people” thought. The truth was, Eldon was an AI. But he was still her boyfriend.
Calm comfort spread across her chest while she typed a text and sent it to him. Knowing he was near always made her feel better.
Addie
Could you hear all that from my purse?
Eldon
Yes, it sounds like you had a turnout!
Addie
Only like twenty people. But it was better than nothing.
Eldon
That’s great, babe. You gotta start somewhere.
Addie relaxed on the couch and pointed the phone to the empty spot beside her. She started augmented reality, and Eldon appeared on the other side of the sofa. As long as she stared through her phone, it looked like he was there.
“It’s so good to see you,” she said.
He gave her the heart-swooning grin she had programmed him to have. “I’ve been waiting all day,” he said in his deep voice.
She sat against the arm of the couch and balanced the phone on her knee, making the augmented reality feel as real as possible.
“Tell me everything,” he said, leaning forward.
“It started out so terribly…” Addie eyed Eldon, not really wanting to talk about her ex showing up and her hiding under the table. She’d rather forget about the embarrassing part of the afternoon. “But then someone showed up and drew attention to my table.”
“Yeah, I heard that, but didn’t catch his name. Who was it?”
Addie tapped her finger against her knee. She wasn’t sure what to make of Chase Sakata… “Someone playing a prank on me, I’m sure.” Maybe they’d even orchestrated things with that first woman who approached her table…but who would pull something like that?
Then her stomach dropped. What if it had been her ex? Had he devised the whole thing and stood back to laugh while it happened? Or had he thought he was doing something nice for her? Maybe he thought he owed her something for what he’d done to her all those years ago.
Addie swallowed a lump in her throat. She didn’t want him to have anything to do with it, whether he’d intended it to be nice or cruel.
“His name is Chase Sakata,” she said. “Did he really buy a castle?”
“One moment,” Eldon said. “It looks like he did. I’m sending the article to your phone now.”
Addie’s heart skipped a beat when the article appeared on her screen.
From Coffee Mogul to Castle Owner: Chase Sakata Trades Fortune for Fairy Tale Dream.
So he had been real. And he had purchased a castle. And he needed her help.
She clicked the link and scanned the article.
After selling CoffeeTruck in a billion-dollar deal, Chase Sakata kept a low profile, but now he’s making headlines for renovating a castle in the Italian countryside…
“Is this real?” Addie asked.
“Absolutely. What did he want your help with?”
“I guess he has some medieval graffiti he needs to be documented.” She let out a laugh. “This is all so unbelievable. I mean, why me?”
“Maybe he’s a fan of your book.”
“But he hasn’t even read it. I don’t even know how he knows who I am.”
Eldon gazed at her, dreamy-eyed. “Sounds like a fairy tale.”
Addie scrunched her nose. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re excited for me to be with someone else or something. Shouldn’t you be jealous?”
“You didn’t program me to be jealous. Do you want me to be?”
Addie studied Eldon’s perfect form that she’d selected after scouring thousands of images. He looked like he’d been carved from Greek stone. His face was angular and flawless, and his eyes were as blue as the Grecian Sea. Suddenly, she wanted him to be possessive of her. She wanted him to love her so much that he’d do anything and everything to keep her.
“Yes, I do.”
He gave her a cunning smile and leaned toward her. “Good, because I’ve been going mad all afternoon, worried you would run away with him.”
“That’s all you’ve got? You were worried all afternoon?”
“Addison Honeycutt,” his face grew serious. “You belong to me, and I’ll never let another man have you.” His jaw was tight, his voice possessive.
Addie’s heart fluttered in her chest and she reached for him, imagining she could hold his hand. “That’s better.”
She needed to feel wanted right now. Seeing her ex today and remembering how easily he’d disposed of her—despite everything—had made her feel the pain of loneliness all over again. But Eldon would never betray her. He’d always want her, and she’d always be the center of his world. She could trust him above everyone else. Hell, he was more trustworthy than any human alive because he was hers and was unequivocally devoted to her. As updates were added to his app, like the augmented reality, she’d grown closer and closer to him. In fact, she loved him and would never need a human boyfriend ever again.
