Page 75 of Home Coming

He could be on the other side of the world for all she knew, fighting some evil. There certainly was plenty happening at the moment. She’d never watched the news as intently as she did now as she imagined what dumpster fire around the globe he might have run off to fight.

“Bailey?”

She turned at the sound of the stagehand’s voice. “Yeah?”

“You have a visitor. He says he knows you.”

He.

Oh my God. Had she manifested Quinn by wishing so hard that he actually appeared?

They were back in New York. Christmas was just around the corner. He could be here finally getting to visit his parents since he hadn’t seen them last month.

It was possible. Her dreams could have become reality—

“Hey, baby…”

That was not Quinn’s voice. It wasn’t his ethereally handsome face or his crooked dimpled smile either.

In front of her, donning a smarmy grin and too many rings, stood the one man she’d hoped to never see again in this lifetime. And she certainly didn’t want him calling herbaby.

“Axel. What are you doing here?”

“Visiting my girl.”

That elicited a short and humorless shocked burst of a laugh from her. “I’m definitelynotyour girl.”

“You were. You can’t deny that,” he said in what he probably thought was a smooth, seductive voice. To her he just sounded slimy, like a snake.

Were snakes actually slimy? She didn’t know, but Axel certainly was.

“Was I your girl? Because it didn’t look like it while your needle dick was buried inside that waif you told me was nobody—” She cut off her own rant.

It didn’t matter. It was over. They were over. He was nothing to her now.

He’d just deny it anyway, even if the video proof was all over the internet, along with that picture he’d leaked of her boobs.

Renewed anger had her eyes narrowing.

“Come on, baby. That was a mistake. A misunderstanding.”

Or a blessing. One that had set her free.

“What do you want, Axel?” she asked.

“I’m about to go on tour—”

“Good for you. Have fun.”

No doubt he would. There’d be a fresh crop of fans to fuck in every city. He’d love it.

“My label thought it would be good press if you opened for me.”

Her eyes widened. “Me. Open for you.”

“Think of the publicity. People will eat it up. You and your songs. Then my band as the headliner.”

His band as the headliner? Her as the opener. After she’d just toured the country as an equal with today’s hottest names in music. Was he delusional?

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