Chapter Two
Nick
One of those hideous red cups, printed with snowflakes and confetti, with a handwritten note to have a “happiest of holidays” lands on my desk, pulling me out of my writer’s-block-induced haze. I only grimace slightly, mostly because I need the caffeine and I don’t care much what kind of capitalistic bullshit it’s encased in, though if I had my choice, I would never see a Christmas-themed coffee cup ever again.
I fucking hate Christmas.
I push my glasses on top of my forehead, rubbing at my screen-tired eyes while inhaling at least a third of my black coffee in one long swallow.
It’s only after I’ve set the cup down that my assistant, Hilary, sits in the chair in front of my desk, iPad at the ready. “Looks like you needed that.”
“I pretty much always need that.”
“I know.” Hence why she delivers me fresh coffee at regularly scheduled intervals throughout the day. “How are the new pages coming?”
I groan, pinching the bridge of my nose. “They’re not.”
Hilary has been with me two years and knows me better than my closest friends, not that I have many of those. She handles my moods with just the right balance of indulgence and intolerance. “You’ll get there. It just takes some time for the ideas to flow.”
“Unfortunately, time is one thing I’m running short on.” The first draft of my next book is due as soon as my editor is back from her holiday break, which means I only have about a month left.
Normally a month would be plenty of time for me to finish up a draft. If that draft had already been started. Which this one has not. The strict schedule I’ve kept ever since writing my first contracted book has been thrown out the window, buried in a pile of the ever-present garbage on the city’s streets, and confiscated by a family of rats to use as insulation for their little rat house.
I’ve been staring at a blank computer screen every day, for hours a day, for the past two months, and have nothing to show for it. My eye doctor is going to kill me.
“Maybe you need to take a real break, Nick. Sitting in front of the computer all day is clearly not working for you.” Hilary runs a hand through the long side of her hair, the other side buzzed in an undercut. Her pale cheeks have turned a bright pink, which means it must have been cold outside when she went on the coffee run.
Her words irritate me, even though I just thought a similar version of them myself. “This is my process, Hilary. I sit down and I write. It has worked for me for every book I’ve ever written.”
She shrugs, her fingers stabbing at the screen of the iPad as she answers emails or responds to DMs or solves world hunger. “Well, it’s not working for this one. And you do know the definition of insanity , right?”
I lean back in my ergonomic chair. It cost a fortune and was one of my first splurges after my advance check cleared. “So what do you suggest, I just not write for a while?” The thought is almost unfathomable. Ever since I decided I wanted to be a professional author, I have always been working on something. If I’m not editing, I’m drafting. Sometimes I’m doing both. Writing has been the one constant in my life for almost as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, it was my shield from a family I never quite fit in with, an escape. Now as an adult, my success is justification for leaving behind the family business I was supposed to join, which might account for the frenzied pace at which I write and publish my books.
Some might say I struggle with work/life balance, but for me, even though it’s now become my job, writing remains that escape. It’s the way I work out my frustrations and deal with my problems—by burying myself in my characters’ issues instead of my own. Theirs are much easier to solve.
My therapist tells me I should work on that, which might explain why I haven’t reached out to her in a while.
“I’m just saying, I think taking a break might give you the time and space to find the inspiration that you need.”
“Deadlines don’t wait for inspiration.”
“You’re Nick Matthews. Not only have you never once ever missed a deadline before, but you’re SVP’s highest-selling author. If you need an extension, they’ll give you one.” She pulls out a stylus. “Now, can we turn our attention to more pressing matters?”
“Nothing is more pressing than the writing, Hil.”
“It’s cute that you still think that’s true after all these years in publishing, Matthews.”
“Fine. Hit me.” I sigh, making it long and dramatic so she knows I’m agreeing under duress.
“The SVP annual holiday ball is in three weeks.” She barrels on before I have the chance to groan in protest. “You are going, as you are receiving an award. I’ve already booked your room at the inn.” She looks up. “Do you want me to book a couple of extra nights? Built-in-vacation-slash-brain-break?”
“Sure. Why the hell not?” I cross my arms over my chest, already hating the idea.
“Great. So as I already mentioned, you’ll be receiving the Romance Author of the Year award, which is the highest honor recognized by SVP.”
I snort. “The highest honor they bestow upon themselves.”
She ignores me, wisely. “And it looks like they’ve asked another SVP author to present the award to you—give a little speech and go over your career highlights, that kind of thing.”
That little tidbit forces me upright in my chair. Of course, there are plenty of other authors at SVP. And as far as I know, she’s never once deigned to attend the holiday ball, though it’s possible I might have missed her since I usually dip out after five minutes and a brief handshake with the president of the company. That fact doesn’t do much to calm the waves of coffee sloshing in my stomach. I infuse a sense of calm into my voice. “Did they say who it is?”
It couldn’t be her.
It won’t be her.
Even if they asked her, she would never agree.
Hilary frowns, tapping some more at the screen and taking her sweet-ass time, as if the future of my mental health doesn’t lie in her answer. “Someone named Jessica Carrington? Never heard of her.”
My elbow knocks into my still-half-full coffee. Luckily, the puddle of brown liquid lands on the rug and not my computer. “Shit.” I jump up, ready to run to the kitchen for paper towels.
But Hilary has already managed to procure a stack of napkins, soaking up the majority of the coffee before I even have the chance to move. She really is the Wonder Woman of assistants. I make a mental note to increase her holiday bonus.
Once the spill has been mopped up, we settle back into our seats. I’m hoping we can move on to the next order of business, but Hilary has other plans. “So you want to tell me why the name Jessica Carrington sent you into a full-body spasm? You guys know each other?”
I swallow, really mad at myself in this moment for the lack of coffee to drown my response in. “You could say that. We signed our deals right around the same time.” Mine came a few weeks before hers, but we debuted in the same year, and had gone on submission around the same time, so it’s not a total lie, though it’s far from the full truth.
“And?”
Damn.
“And we used to date,” I mumble.
Hilary’s eyes widen. “Wait, you mean to tell me you actually dated someone? Like a real live person? You left this apartment and everything?”
“Haha.” I search my desk for something to throw at her before deciding it’s probably not great to assault my employee who also happens to be my closest friend. “Is it really so hard to believe someone would want to date me?”
“No. You’re a fucking catch, and you know how much I hate straight white men, so you know I really mean that.” She studies me in that all-too-knowing way she has. “I’m mostly surprised you took the time away from writing to maintain a relationship.”
My dating life post-Jessica can mostly be summed up with a string of short-lived nothings, probably largely to do with the reason Hilary has just mentioned. The writing comes first, always.
I shrug, though nothing about this conversation is casual. “The two were kind of linked, honestly. We were critique partners who fell in love. We wrote together, reached our first career milestones together. We did everything together for a while there.” A familiar pang thunks me right in the chest. The same one I get every time I think about her. Think about how things might have been different.
Hilary softens her voice. “So what happened?”
I fucked it all up, is what happened. But I can’t rehash that story right now. Or ever.
“It just didn’t work out. Probably my fault.” Definitely my fault.
“Well, maybe seeing her at the ball will give you guys a chance to reconnect.”
I scoff. “Trust me, Jessica Carrington wants nothing less than to reconnect with me.”
Hilary is smart enough to pick up on the truth behind the sentiment—that I wouldn’t mind the chance to reconnect with Jess. I might have even thought about it once or twice, on the rare occasion I allow myself to search for her Instagram. She’s gotten even more beautiful over the years, the warmth in her big brown eyes visible even in the tiny images on my phone screen. The joy in her smile real and genuine, like her life is that much better without me in it.
Perhaps this holiday ball will turn out to be good for something after all. Though I know there’s nothing I could say to erase the past. Maybe enough time has passed that Jess would be willing to listen, hear me out.
Then again, she’s one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever met, so probably not.
“Do you want me to request a different presenter? I’m sure SVP will follow your lead on this one.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s fine. If she agreed to do it, I don’t want to be the one to pull out. Tell SVP I’m looking forward to the event. And book a room at the inn for the whole week after the ball.”
Hilary flashes me a self-satisfied smile before heading out of my office, leaving me to stare once again at the blank screen. This time, not only can I not seem to think of anything to write, all I can seem to think about is seeing her.
“You seem extra tense today, and that’s saying something. Everything going okay with the new book?” Marcus, a friend whose paycheck I don’t sign, lifts the weight from my hands, setting it back on the rack before reaching out a hand to help me sit up.
On a normal day, I would lie and tell Marcus everything is fine, but nothing about today has been normal. So I try something new and talk about my feelings. “I found out I’m going to be seeing Jess at the SVP holiday ball. She’s going to be presenting me with an award.”
Marcus whistles, low and long. “Damn. No wonder you’re in knots. How long has it been since you’ve seen her? In person, not via excessive Instagram stalking.”
I throw my sweaty towel at his face, but he ducks just in time. “I haven’t seen her since we broke up.”
“And how long ago was that again?”
“Five years ago,” I answer, though I know he knows.
“And how many women have you dated since then?”
I glare at him, moving away from the weight bench and making my way to the treadmills. I already did cardio, but I know I need to fully exhaust myself if I have any chance of sleeping tonight. “I’ve dated plenty of women, asshole.”
“Okay, how many have you taken on more than two dates?” He jumps on the machine next to mine, bumping up his speed.
I ignore his question, ramping up my own speed to match his even though he’s a much better runner than I am. He’s always been a little bit more than me in all ways—taller, smarter, more charming. Looks-wise, we could be brothers, but he would be the brother everyone lusts over and I would be the brother everyone forgets about. I’ve known Marcus since college, and even though our lives are incredibly different—he’s in charge of marketing for one of the biggest tech firms in the country and spends his free time socializing and making friends wherever he goes—we’ve remained friends ever since. These days our interactions are mostly limited to meetups at the gym, where I usually manage to deflect the majority of life-probing questions he throws my way.
“So I haven’t met anyone I want to settle down with, big deal. May I remind you, you are also single?”
“Because I want to be, not because I’m still mooning over the one who got away. Who you broke up with, might I add.”
I push the speed button up a couple more notches so I don’t say something I shouldn’t. About how much I regret that decision. And about how Marcus unknowingly played a huge role in it.
We run in silence for a few minutes before I finally bring the treadmill down to a walk, my lungs burning and my thighs aching.
Marcus slows his down too, matching my cool-down pace. “Hey, man, I’m not trying to give you a hard time.”
I shoot him a look.
“Okay, I was trying to give you a hard time, but you know I’m just fucking around. I hate to see you all up in your head about this shit.”
I shut the treadmill off and stand with my hands on my head, my breath slowly returning. “So any real advice for me then?”
“Yeah, man, just suck it up and apologize. Tell her how you feel.”
Ha.
I listened to Marcus once and nothing worked out like I thought it would. I don’t think I’ll be making that same mistake twice.