Chapter Twelve
Nick
I have made a huge mistake.
Jess is pissed.
Jess is beyond pissed.
Jess is fucking livid.
The second the door to our room shuts behind us, I hold up my hands to ward off the attack. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything without checking in with you first.”
“You think?” Her voice is so loud it makes me wince. “What the fuck, Nick? You think we can write a book together? You think we can just put everything that has happened between us aside and write a whole fucking book? Together ?” She emphasizes the word with venom and menace.
“Okay. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t think it through.” I keep taking the blame, knowing it’s what she needs in the moment. Once she calms down—not that I am going to advise her to calm down because I’m a big fan of breathing, and I can’t die while Survivor is still on the air—she’s going to see that this is really the perfect solution. I want to point out all the reasons why this could work, lay out my argument with clear and precise logic, but it’s not logic that’s holding her back. It’s feelings.
And maybe I’m a delusional fool, but I can’t help but think that her emotions about the proposition are actually a good thing, for me. She doesn’t trust herself with me.
Because she still has feelings for me.
But I don’t let myself follow that train of thought, focusing instead on the work. The book we’ve both been working on, and struggling with, from the sounds of it. Between the two of us, it sounds like we have almost a whole manuscript already written. Obviously merging our stories is going to take some finesse and a lot of editing, but when we’re done, we’ll have a book. A damn good book, if I know Jess’s writing.
She spends a few minutes pacing around the small room, muttering to herself. I sit on the edge of the bed and observe, trying not to smile because I know the turmoil she’s working through right now is real, and she deserves to feel it.
She’s just so fucking cute when she’s angry.
I don’t give myself the time to puzzle through what it is that I’m feeling in the moment. It’s obviously not great that I went and did something to make her furious—again—but I still don’t think I would change anything about the situation. Sure, there’s a good chance that working on this book together doesn’t bring us any closer to forgiving one another and moving on. But there’s also a good chance that it does.
I don’t keep track of the time, but it doesn’t take as long as I expect for her to collapse into the armchair with a defeated sigh. I open up my laptop, copying everything I’ve written so far and pasting it into a Google doc. Her phone chimes with an alert when I send her an email with the share link.
Glaring at me, she reaches for her own computer. A minute later, I receive a link to Jess’s work in progress.
A tense silence fills every corner of the room as we read through what the other has written. I get lost in the story, in the world and the characters Jess has created, but that doesn’t stop me from searching her face every so often as she reads my work. She tries to hide it, but I see the smiles, the suppressed giggles, the squishy eyes I know signal she’s reached the point where the hero declares his love for his former girlfriend.
It should be unbelievable, how closely linked our stories are. But between our history and the DMs and everything unresolved between us, it’s like we knew somehow this is where we would end up.
I was never one to believe in fate, but if I were arguing in support of it, this would be some compelling evidence.
“This is really good, Nick,” she says, not entirely unbegrudgingly, an hour later.
“Thanks. Yours too.” I move my computer to the bed so I can shift my position, so we’re directly across from each other. “Your voice is so sharp, and your characters are perfect.”
“Our characters are perfect, you mean.”
So she caught that, that both of our female main characters are funny and sassy, with a supportive family and a clear sense of purpose. Our heroes are both more withdrawn, outsiders, with a sometimes-gruff attitude hiding a sensitive soul.
“If you really don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. I’ll take the blame. Say the whole thing was my fault, and a terrible idea.” I suck in a deep breath. “I’ll write something else, come up with something completely different. Even if it means missing my deadline.”
She looks up from her screen for the first time. “You would do that?”
“Of course.” I try not to lose myself in the emotions swirling through her eyes. She was never very good at hiding her thoughts, especially not from me.
She sets her computer on the small side table, leaning forward, her elbows resting on her knees. “If we do this, Nick, I need for one thing to be clear.”
“You have no intention of giving me a second chance.” It hurts just to think the sentiment, let alone say it. But if the past couple of days have shown me anything, it’s this.
I didn’t come into this whole thing expecting a second chance. I didn’t even know if I really wanted a second chance. I couldn’t even allow myself to really want it, because I knew it would be so far out of reach.
And now I know, whether I want it or not, it’s not on the table.
“I have no intention of giving you a second chance.” She doesn’t sound so sure, but I don’t let myself linger on what could be wishful thinking.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” She nods, rubbing her palms against the tops of her thighs. “Let’s get to work.”
The next few hours play out like our own little movie montage. We start in separate corners of the room, communicating in grunts and eye rolls and the occasional sarcastic comment.
When Jess starts arching her back, I offer to switch places, letting her sit on the bed while I take the chair so she can be more comfortable but still keep the space between us.
But it doesn’t take long before my own back starts aching. I’m accustomed to my ergonomic chair, and yes I know exactly how spoiled that makes me sound.
Jess watches me suffer for a few minutes before letting out a long sigh. “Just come back to the bed.”
I do, cautiously, like she might change her mind and whack me in the face with a pillow. Because we’re using the pillows to prop up our backs and our laptops, the barrier down the middle of the bed has disappeared, leaving just a foot of open space between us.
We write in silence for a few minutes.
“I really like the idea of the musical revue. It’s a fun way to bring them together.” It’s a partial lie, I actually hate that part, would never dream of writing about something so outwardly cheesy, but Jess’s unique voice—sharp and witty, fully indicative of her humor—has made it fun. And I need to say something to break the tension between us.
“Thanks. You’ve created some really good side characters. I love the family dynamic, especially the way the siblings interact with one another.” She sounds like she actually means it too.
“Thanks.” In the past, it was hard for me to write sibling relationships, since my own were so strained. But over the years, as the disappointment of me leaving Ohio and the family business has abated, it’s become much easier for me to relate to my brothers, and for them to relate to me.
There’s a few more minutes of quiet, each of us working in the Google doc, changing names and filling in missing details.
Jess stops typing, the silence much longer than it would be if she just needed to find the right word or come up with a transition. I chance a glance over at her and find her cheeks flushed a bright pink.
I scroll through the doc, finding her place and realizing exactly why she’s so flushed. “Maybe we can work on the sex scene later?” I suggest.
“Yes, definitely,” she agrees before I can even get the full thought out. She clears her throat. “But maybe this is a good time to talk about the ending?”
“The ending?” We’re only about halfway, still have at least a dozen scenes to get through before we get to the final act.
She pulls her lip between her teeth. “All of my books have happy endings.”
“But you’ve been struggling to see how this one would come together?”
She nods. “But that doesn’t mean I feel okay with no HEA.”
“My readers will be expecting the book to end with the couple not together.”
“And my readers, like all romance readers, will be expecting them to overcome their problems and find a way back to each other.” Her brown eyes meet mine. “The problem is, I don’t know if that’s realistic. Sometimes when people break up, it’s for a good reason.”
I pull in a calming breath, knowing this is about so much more than what’s happening on the page. “And sometimes people need time to grow and change, before they find their way back together.”
She raises one eyebrow. “So you think this book can end happily?”
I force my eyes back to the screen. “Honestly, Jess, at this point, I don’t know what I think.”
It takes twenty-four hours, both of us working on different sections of the now-combined manuscript, each of us taking turns raiding the almost-empty vending machines, neither of us catching more than a couple of hours of sleep. But by the evening of the next day, we have it.
It’s still rough and probably riddled with plot holes, and not actually finished—we haven’t talked about the ending again—but Jess and I have taken our two separate stories and merged them into one.
She collapses into a heap on her side of the bed, slamming her laptop closed and shoving it (gently) to the floor. “Are my eyes bleeding? They feel like they’re bleeding.”
I pretend to give her a cursory eye exam, really using the time to unabashedly stare. “I think you’ve managed to escape with both eyeballs firmly intact.”
“What a relief.” Her eyes flutter closed, giving me even more space to watch her.
Okay. That sounds creepy, but I can’t help it. She’s got that expression, the one that made me fall for her in the first place. The creative spark is lit, and though she looks as exhausted as I feel, there’s still a soft smile etched on her lips.
I jump up from the bed, knowing this train of thought can only derail and run into the side of a building and burst into an explosion of flames. “I’m going to use the bathroom. Want me to start the tub while I’m in there?”
“Ohmygod, yes. My hero.” She groans and it goes straight to my dick, and I scamper into the bathroom before she can catch me.
I take way longer than I need to, waiting for the water to hit just the right temperature, filling the tub with the vanilla-scented bubble bath the hotel provided. When I open the door to the bathroom, she’s standing right there and she looks so beautiful it makes my chest ache, and holy fuck what have I done? Writing this book together doesn’t just mean spending the next few days hashing out plot points. It means copyediting questions and promotional appearances and signings.
More time with Jess trying to deny what’s becoming more and more obvious.
I clear my throat, shoving down any and all traces of emotion. “All ready for you.”
“Thanks, Nick.” Her voice goes soft, and so do her eyes.
I make myself repeat the refrain. She has no intention of giving me a second chance.
I move out of the way, sweeping my arm in a wide arc like the fool that I am. “Your bath awaits.”
She slips into the bathroom and closes the door behind her.