My Funny Valentine

By J Linz

On the brink of divorce, Terri Synder decided that the best way to spend her Valentine's Day birthday is at a Black History Month event which her favorite actor, Anthony Mitchell would attend. She never imagined that not only would she meet Anthony, but his wife would give her an offer she couldn't refuse: become Anthony's romantic companion whenever he is in the United States.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J Linz
• Release date: Feb 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386578123

J Linz

J Linz was born and raised in Memphis, TN June 14, 1977. Her love for sports started at the young age of four, where she became a devout follower of Memphis State (now, the University of Memphis) men's basketball. J's love for writing appeared at the age of ten, where she started writing poetry and short essays for school. She has ditched poetry and feels that she has grown as a writer since. J Linz moved from Memphis to Jacksonville, NC in 1993, where she graduated high school in 1995. Instead of going back home to attend the University of Memphis, J enlisted into the Army Reserves, where she served eight years, receiving her honorable discharge in December 2003.  J married the love of her life in November 2003 and the two moved from North Carolina to southern Maryland in 2005. J began writing once more and hasn't looked back. J's interests include rooting for her favorite sports teams, crocheting, listening to music, superheroes and comic books, and enjoying good food. Currently, J is working on other stories to publish, hoping to provide readers more after My Funny Valentine. Her genres of choice are contemporary romance and science fiction.

Book preview

My Funny Valentine

J Linz

My Funny Valentine Copyright © 2018 by J Linz. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. 

Cover designed by Christina Quinn 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. 

J Linz

Printed in the United States of America 

First Printing: Feb 2018

To CL Mustafic, Christina Quinn and Tonna Saunders:

Thank you so much for lending me your skills and friendship. You three rock!

To my #1 guy:

I know you won’t read this but your support has mean the most to me. I love you, always!

To all of the family and friends who supported me through everything: I love you, guys.

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Epilogue

One

The wind whipped around my face, saying fuck you at my feeble attempt of wearing a hood and beanie. The weather wasn’t gonna stop me from attending this... whatever it was. So far, I called it an event. The rain started as I climbed the short steps and went inside what looked like an auditorium. I yearned to stick my tongue out at the heavy drops through the glass: nope, not today, bad vibes.

In all the fuss, I realized I was early. I expected to see ticket takers, but workers scrambled to get things ready and others walked around with urgency. Not even a handful of people milled about, and I figured they were going to be a part of the panel. I didn’t recognize them but they were being fussed over, so I could only assume they would speak or had a big hand in organizing things.

I didn’t care, more or less: I came to watch my favorite actor speak, my Valentine’s present to myself.

Thunder that shook the windows took everyone by surprise and made me thankful I was inside the building. I hoped that no one came by to tell me I needed to wait outside, but I dug in my purse for my ticket just in case. The damn thing cost me an arm and a leg and guaranteed no extra splurging on anything for the rest of the month. A smile eased its way onto my face because I realized it would be worth the struggle. For years, I dreamed of, at the least, seeing the man in person. I felt it was very unlikely I’d be fortunate enough to get a picture with him, but nothing would stop me from getting a picture of him.

It made my day, knowing I’d be in the same room as him.

As I reached for the ticket, my phone chirped, reminding me I would need to put it on silent when the panel started. I looked to see who called and my jaw clenched and twitched. I wanted to ignore it but that meant he would continue to call.

What? Maybe, for once in my life, if I was mean, he wouldn’t want to talk.

Whoa, nice attitude.

What do you want?

I remembered you have that thing today and just wanted to see if you made it there safely. I know you hate driving downtown.

W-What do you care? It struck me as odd that he knew where I would be, but then I realized I bragged about it on Facebook, which meant he still followed me.

Come on, how long are you going to be mad at me?

Forever.

I’m trying to apologize, Ter.

Oh, don’t come at me like I did something wrong. Apologize until you’re blue in the face, that won’t change what you did. I lowered my voice, hearing the slight echo. Brian let out a heavy sigh, a sign of his frustrations.

You’re just going to throw away twenty years of marr–

"No, you did that when you decided to cheat. There is no way you’re flipping this to make me feel guilty."

Terri, I fucked up, okay? Who doesn’t? No one’s perfect. The sooner you realize that, the sooner we can move past this. I lov–

Words, words, words. I hissed. It was the only thing I could think of instead of launching every cuss word I knew at the phone, and I’d learned quite a few in other languages.

What is the matter, my lord? Well, it would be ‘my lady’ in your case but that would be a misquote. Someone behind me said. I was already fuming and for someone to have eavesdropped on my conversation may have been the last straw. Although, he responded correctly to my Shakespearian quote and I’d heard that voice somewhere before, recently.

British accent? No way. What were the fucking odds?

I turned and everything moved in slow motion. Brian was saying something, but I tuned him out as I looked up into the face of an absolute god. His dark brown eyes shone as his full lips curled into a small grin. He wore business casual attire: a simple white button down with charcoal slacks tailored fit just for him. His long and lean legs drew attention to his torso, and while you couldn’t tell if it was muscular because of the way the shirt hung, I already knew it was. Anthony Mitchell recently did a shirtless spread to promote cologne or textbooks or something, I wasn’t interested in the what, honestly. The picture served as my wallpaper for every device