“Luca, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
After several seconds, I finally mustered the ability to answer him. “I don’t even know what to say . . . I . . . Griffin is . . . he’s . . . he is Cole Archer. That’s why he lives in a place like this.” I put the laptop down and covered my mouth. “He’s famous. This is . . . unbelievable.”
Doc covered his mouth. “Oh my. Are you thinking this explains why he didn’t want you to know his identity?”
I thought back to the words in his last letter: Sometimes when you follow your dreams, you realize they aren’t free, and the cost is far greater than you’d ever anticipated.
It was a figurative cost he’d been referring to, not a literal one. He wasn’t poor, but perhaps he had paid a price for fame.
“That’s it, Doc. It’s starting to make sense now. He must have thought my knowing would change the way I saw him.”
The reality of this situation was hitting me in waves. Griffin is a rock star.
A fucking rock star.
I could only assume his lifestyle is one of fast cars, sex, and crowds of people. It was likely the polar opposite of my secluded existence. Truly understanding this also meant realizing that we very likely couldn’t ever be anything more than friends. That epiphany was heartbreaking. Could we BE more different? Why am I hearing Chandler Bing from Friends at a time like this?
Panicking, I asked, “What now? This was the last thing I ever expected. What do I do, Doc? I seriously feel paralyzed.”
“We came all the way out here, Luca. Now that you know what he’s hiding from you . . . why not just go to him, tell him the truth, and nip this in the bud? It’s going to come out eventually. I think it would be extremely hard for you to hold in what you know now and to pretend that nothing has changed.”
Doc was right about one thing. This did change everything.
“How do I even access him? There is no way his security will let some crazy girl anywhere near him.”
After I grabbed the laptop again, he asked, “What are you doing?”
“I just need to watch him a bit more.”
I kept scrolling through the videos. I became transfixed whenever I looked into his eyes and realized this man was my Griffin. Come to think of it, the more I watched, the more I could again see glimpses of the face I remembered from that photo all those years ago.
There was one video that showed Griffin—Cole—signing a bunch of autographs in the midst of a swarm of sex-crazed women. He seemed frustrated and tired, yet he signed every single one until there were no more people waiting.
Not to mention, any one of those women would have been happy to stand by his side while he performed the duties of his job. Me? Just the thought of being in that crowd made me start to panic.
I swallowed hard. It felt like I had the heaviest weight on my chest. I was suddenly in mourning, having to say goodbye to the imagined future I had with Griffin. There was no way to make this work. I could totally see now why he felt the letters were all there could ever be between us. Honestly, it might have been better if I’d never uncovered this.
Just when I thought nothing else could surprise me today, my eyes landed on one of Archer’s music videos. It was the title of the song that caught my eye: “Luca.”
What?
Before I could click on it, a loud knock on the RV door startled me. Upon peeking out of the window, I felt my heart fall to my stomach. The most beautiful man I’d probably ever seen in the flesh was standing there with his arms crossed, wearing—a bathrobe?
Oh no.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
“Who is it, Luca?”
Feeling ready to collapse, I looked over at Doc and cried, “It’s Griffin.”CHAPTER 12
GRIFFINOne Hour Earlier
I hadn’t heard from Julian in two days. When I hired him, I’d figured he’d snap a few pics, maybe tail Luca for a bit to see what her daily life was like—nothing too crazy. Yet my little snoop job had turned into a cross-country expedition at this point.
Luca hadn’t mentioned in her last letter that she’d been planning a road trip. So when Julian called to say she’d gotten into an RV carrying a suitcase with the old guy, I told him to follow her and see where they were heading. Twelve hours later, he called and said he’d just crossed over the Ohio state border. I figured I was in this far, might as well see where the two of them were going. Plus, I was curious. So far, they’d gone to three different national parks, spent two days in Nebraska at some crazy-looking lady’s house, and then hit the Grand Canyon. Not that Luca owed me any explanation for her whereabouts, but I thought it was screwed up that she’d tell me her fantasies but not mention an upcoming fifteen-state road trip.