Page 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Piper

Today, all the kids are at the house with the family. But I decided to go to the store with Paxton. Because I’m not supposed to be alone, Georgíos Nikolaidis has offered to be with me when Paxton can’t. And because Rhett is gone, we have a pharmacist from the next town over filling in.

I’ve been helping Felicity set up my table for my signing today. It feels a little weird without Emiko here. But Artemis, Giovanna, Isabella, Fiorella and Luciana are going to be with me. They’re all here helping us set up and my table has even more stuff on it. It’s so much fun to watch them.

“I can’t believe we know an author.” Giovanna smiles.

“I can’t believe I know the wives of my favorite hockey players.” I chuckle.

“You realize that they’re not as much fun at home. I mean they burp and fart…A LOT. And they try to do it while walking past you. I thought my brothers were bad. But Cillian? Holy shit.” Fiorella wrinkles her nose.

Fiorella has been with Cillian McGregor, captain of the Chicago Redhawks for four years. Meeting the three Redhawks players has been a dream come true.

“No way. They’re angels, I saw them. There’s no way they do things like that.” I laugh.

“Well, they’re your family now. So they might crop-dust you too.” Fiorella laughs.

I laugh more as we finish setting up my table.

“Thank you so much. I was so worried that I would have to cancel today because Emiko isn’t here. But having all of you here—thank you so much.”

“We’re family. This is what we do, no matter what. If you need any of us? You call and we’ll come,” Luciana says.

“The same goes for us, if we need you, we hope that you’ll come too,” Artemis adds.

“Definitely,” I say as we all hug each other.

“So now what do we do?” Giovanna asks.

“Now we wait for people to come and see me.”

“Okay, while we wait, why don’t you tell us about your books. That way if you have to leave the table, we can tell people about them.” Artemis smiles.

I spend the next five minutes telling them about my books. They all take one of each book and Giovanna grabs my credit card reader and starts to scan my books.

“What are you doing?” I laugh.

“What does it look like? We’re buying your books.” Giovanna raises an eyebrow at me.

“Duh,” Luciana says.

“Hey! That’s mine,” Isabella says to her.

“They’re the same book.” Luciana rolls her eyes at her twin sister.

“Well I want that one,” she says, and sticks her tongue out.

I can’t help but laugh as I listen to them. Makes me wish I had grown up with sisters.

“We also need you to sign each one,” Fiorella says as she stacks them in front of me.

“But don’t mix them up. That’s my set,” Isabella says.

“Omg. They’re the same books.” Luciana rolls her eyes again.

I chuckle as I start to sign each book. It takes me a while because I’m trying to personalize each one.

And I have to stop every so often to talk to people that are stopping by my table.

A few even buy some books. I’m still amazed when people buy one of my books.

It makes me feel like crying. That someone who doesn’t know me is willing to take a chance on something I wrote. It’s humbling.

“I need to run back to the house and get more books. I never thought I would run out.”

“Well I would’ve told you to bring all your inventory if you asked.” Fiorella winks at me.

“So should we just sit and tell people you’ll be back? Or I can go and get them.” Luciana says to me.

“It’ll be faster if I grab them. But you guys don’t have to sit here, we can put a sign up.”

“We don’t mind sitting here, makes us feel like we’re famous too.” Luciana smiles.

That makes me laugh even more.

“I wish I was famous, maybe one day.”

I walk over to Georgíos.

“Would you be okay taking me back to the house? I need to grab more books.”

“Of course. You want to go now?”

“Yes, let me just tell Paxton and then we can go. Thank you.”

“No problem. I’ll wait here.”

I head over to Paxton to let him know what I need to do.

“It won’t take me long to grab my books.”

“Is Georgíos going with you?” he asks.

“He is. I just wanted to let you know in case you didn’t see me at my table.”

“Thank you.” He smiles and kisses me.

“I love you. Let me know when you’re back.”

“I love you too. And I’ll come see you when we get back.”

It doesn’t take me too long to grab a bunch of my books. And we head back to the store.

“Thank you again for driving me today—” I say just as we hear a pop and then a flapping sound.

“Shit. That sounds like a flat,” Georgíos says as he pulls over to the side of the road.

“Do you need help?”

“Nope. I got it. You relax, I’ll have it done fast.”

I can feel him jacking the car up to change the tire. It’s an odd feeling and it makes me giggle. I pull out my phone to text the girls and let them know about the flat.

Piper: Got a flat. We’ll be back ASAP

Luciana: Wow. Your books are that heavy that you popped a tire?

Giovanna: *snicker*

Fiorella: HAHAHAH

Piper: Goofball

Isabella: Be safe and hurry back. There’s been some customers and they said they’d come back

Piper: Thank you all so much. See you soon

I look up and see a car parked behind us. But I don’t hear Georgíos fixing the tire. He was making a lot of noise and then nothing. I get out of the car and walk around to the rear driver tire and see Georgíos on the ground.

“Georgíos!” I yell as I crouch down and feel for a pulse.

He has a pulse and I start to pull out my phone to call Paxton.

“It’s nice to see you again, baby.”

Holy shit. I stand up and see Harris.

“What are you doing in Wintervale?” I ask him.

“I came to see you. I realized something these last few months. I was stupid to let you go. We were meant to be together. So I started looking for you.”

“What are you talking about? We broke up over a year ago.”

I start to back away from him and see Georgíos starting to wake up. Harris notices too and leans down and pulls a needle out.

“What are you doing? Leave him alone.” I yell at him.

I start to grab my phone again and I feel someone grab it from behind. I turn to see Marc.

“You know my brother. He’s been keeping an eye on you for me.”

What in the fuck is going on? I never knew that Harris had a brother.

“We need to leave before that monster wakes up again.” Marc says to Harris.

Harris nods and grabs me, throwing me into their car. Harris gets in the back with me and Marc gets in to drive.

“Why are you doing this? You can’t force me to be with you.”

“I’m not forcing you. I’m just giving you time to remember how much you love me. And how much I love you.”

I feel like I’m in a twilight zone. When Paxton asked me about Harris, I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t think he’d do anything. But here he is kidnapping me and talking like a lunatic. I’ll never love him again.

“Aren’t you with Morgan? You told me you were having a baby with her. Your baby should be over a year now.”

“That bitch. She told me that the kid wasn’t mine. And we did a DNA test and he wasn’t mine.”

Karma. I love when I see it work.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Don’t worry, you’re gonna love the place I found for us.”

I don’t understand what the fuck is going on. But I hope someone notices Georgíos and I aren’t back. And I hope that he’s okay. I don’t think I can handle it if he’s not.