BLOCK: Social Media #3 (14 page)
“Where are we going?”
“I know someone here, Grace. We can go stay with him until we figure out what to do.” She reaches over and pats my hand. “We’ll get through this. Don’t worry.”
I settle back in my seat as she gets on the 15 freeway heading south. “I can’t believe that just happened. My life is over.”
And then I realize who I’m saying this to. A pregnant woman who just walked out on her wedding. I reach over and pat her hand and her tears roll freely down her face. “We’ll get through this. Don’t worry.”
She nods at me as she tries to control her sniffles, and then she starts shaking her head no. “What just happened to you back there, with the cameras and stuff…” She looks over at me and I recognize that look on her face. Fear. “That’s gonna happen to me too. As soon as they realize that Johnny and I have been lying about everything.”
I just stare at her.
I don’t ask her anything else.
Secrets aren’t meant to be shared.
Secrets are meant to be buried and ours are perilously close to resurfacing right now.
So we do the only thing we know how to do. The same thing people with secrets the world over do once bits and pieces poke through the surface.
We throw more dirt on top and hope for the best.
Chapter Fourteen
I
MANAGE
to get back to my room after Grace takes off in that SUV. I don’t even know who was driving, but it was someone Grace knew.
I call Conner and he picks up on the first ring. “I need help, dude.”
“I just saw it, Vaughn. You’re all over the fucking news already.”
“How the hell did they find her? How the hell did they even know we were dating? It was all very discreet. Last night was the first time I’ve seen her in weeks.”
“It was Sam’s dickhead of a husband, Tray. I just got off the phone with him. He’s blackmailing us. He says he’s got a list of your past girlfriends on record about your nondisclosure agreements and he knows what happened to Grace ten years ago.”
“What the… Did he tell you?”
A pause on the other end.
“Conner, dammit. Did he tell you?”
“He told me some. And believe me, V, you do not want this to get out. I think we should pay him. I think Grace might actually be in danger.”
My whole world spins. Just when I think I’ve got it all figured out, bad luck can’t touch me and life is good… it knocks me down and kicks my ass.
“Is it bad?” I ask in a low voice that betrays my fears. “I need to know, Conner, even though I really don’t want to know.”
“It’s bad. It’s so, so fucking bad. I’ve already called Felicity and she’s on her way to Vegas now. She’ll meet you in your room in a few hours. Just hang tight until then.”
I end the call and slump back into a chair that has a view looking out over the Bellagio fountains and I sit for a few minutes. Running last night over and over in my head.
It was
so
perfect.
Conner was right. Life has been too easy for me. No one should have such an easy life.
But it’s all coming due now. Because last night I did something I will most certainly regret and when Grace finds out, she might never speak to me again.
Buy Book Four
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End of Book Shit
So Jana got herself named after a character in my sisterwife CD Reiss’ book Use (Songs of Perdition Book 2) and she was quite happy with that! It really made her day! Jana is my assistant, BTW, and half the mastermind of this whole Social Media series. But I have a lot of people who help me, a whole street team of them to be exact. And I have the BEST street team out there. There is just no contest. We rule. End.
But besides helping me out with the promo stuff, I have three ladies who also help me out with my book blog, New Adult Addiction. It’s gotten kinda big and I’ve gotten kinda busy. So a while back I asked my team if any of them wanted to blog and/or run the Facebook page.
Kristi volunteered to blog with me on NAA and she writes most of the reviews these days. She’s so great and she doesn’t get enough recognition, so I decided to name Grace’s wedding client after her. :)
My street team Kristi is the original Mrs. Shrike. Yes, she was Spencer’s number one fan way back in Tragic. She was oh-so-patient as the books ticked by. She read Ford and did the appropriate amount of swooning, but her heart was with Spencer. She’s been a friend, a fan, and a co-blogger. She so deserves this character. Thank you, Kristi! I really appreciate all your help on the blog! We’d be dead if not for you!
Two more ladies who help me are Leah and Amber. They run the NAA Facebook page. I actually have almost nothing to do with that page at all. I pop over once a week to like a post or put up the Friday Night Freebie, but that’s about it. They do all of it. And one thing they’ve been doing every Wednesday is the Hump Day Hottie. They stalk male models on book covers and get them to do a “naughty and nice” interview for us. In return, we promote them by offering up a ten dollar gift card and have people like their Facebook page. It’s a huge hit! And the guys are so much fun!
The other person who helps me out is Ali. She runs the street team. My team is pretty low maintenance, but if I ever need an opinion on how to handle something, I go to Ali and she’s always got a sane solution for me.
The rest of my team is just as important. I have the Queen of Promo Graphics Michelle N, although my team is obsessed with promo graphics and they are all so good at it. But Michelle blows us away with her beautiful creations.
Veronica is the Queen of Twitter, and Katie is the Queen of Stalkers. We just call Chelcie #Nuts. Lindsey got pregnant while she was reading Ford, so we call her bun #FordBaby. A lot of them are bloggers/reviewers – Christy, Reanell, Heidi, Kara, Jennifer, Laura, Janice, Kassie, Brandee (who lives very close to me and we are driving to Penned Con together next week – well, if you’re reading this on release day, two weeks ago!), Tiffany H, Michelle T, and Krista. Some of them are just regular people who find our team to be a place they can come to have some fun – Sandra, Trisha, Tami, Paige, Ashley, Tiffany R, Misty, Nicole A, Jessica, Sarah, J Banks, Nicole T, Kim, and June, our rebellious teenager who loved Junco hard and knew me before I ever wrote about a tragic girl named Rook.
And we have a special guest member, Shay Savage! One day, I swear to God, I woke up and Shay was in the ST. I think Katie was stalking her cover model, The Savage Trainer, at the time, and all of a sudden Shay was piping in with comments! It says I added her, but that must be the “other” me. At any rate, I love it when we’re all chatting about really important shit like grapefruit blowjobs and unigoats and Shay pops in with her opinion. ;) It makes my day because I love me some Shay Savage pretty hard.
This is what it takes for me to be successful. ALL of them. I need them all and no matter how much or how little they do, I appreciate that they take time out of their lives to be friends with me and with each other. These are Hangover Crew friends. These are bail-you-out-of-jail friends. We are—as Grace talks about in the next book, Status – sticky.
Thanks for being sticky, Team. :) I love you all and I hope we grow old and are still stalking hot dudes and droppin’ f-bomb together for decades to come.
I’m going to show my appreciation for my Team by throwing them a party in Vegas next May. We are already planning our “Hangover Crew” picture. ;) . I don’t normally accept new members but I’m going to take at least four new people this December and those new teammates will be invited to the party and will have a room paid for at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. I want new members, but you have to earn it because what we have is special and I don’t feel like ruining the friendship we’ve forged just to get more promo buddies.
If you are a super fan – i.e. you’ve read most of my books, fell in love with Ford, love baby goats and cats, think you are a unicorn, or are convinced Vaughn Asher is real and are disappointed that there’s no Invisible Man 2 movie—we might be your tribe and you might be a good candidate for Street Team membership. Read the rules and
enter my contest here
.
Thanks a bunch for reading, see you again in two weeks.
Julie
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Also, I have a very cool Facebook group called
Shrike Bikes
where I hang out every day. My street team is in there too, along with some crazy fun ladies. So if you’re a Facebooker,
request to join
and we will add you. We also have a group just for the Social Media series called the
Filthy Blue Birds
. Ask to join and we will add you there too.
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