Eleven
Noa
Chewing the tip of my pen, I stared down at the notes I’d written. My block was just getting worse. It wasn’t like I could scrap forty thousand words and start over. Those had been hard words. The struggle with this one was real.
My eyes shifted to my annoyingly silent phone. It had been that way for three days. Since the Breeders’ Cup race.
Sure, other people had called or texted.
Jellie did both. My editor texted, and the random spam calls came in, but not one text from Ransom.
And let’s be honest here—that was who I was talking about.
I shouldn’t have said I bet on horses because of him.
I’d probably weirded him out. He was afraid I’d gone stalker girl or something.
This was not helping my current writing dilemma. I had a book to finish and staring at the screen was getting me nowhere.
Maybe I should text him. No. I’d sent the last text, and he’d not responded. I wasn’t going to send another until he said something first.
Groaning, I threw my abused pen and dropped my head into my hands. I shouldn’t have taken the advance before this was written.
Bad advice, Arden. Bad freaking advice.
Maybe that was it. Maybe it was the pressure. I could give the money back and then try to write it.
Did they let you do that? My agent would flip out. She’d already gotten her cut. Probably would have to return her portion myself. My eyes scanned the room. Yep, couldn’t do that. I’d bought this place, and I needed the money to live on until this one was published.
“Ugh!” I shouted, leaning back in my chair and staring at the ceiling.
I needed more Twizzlers.
The ringing of my phone wasn’t the sound I wanted to hear. It wasn’t a text alert. Glaring over at it, as if it were the phone’s fault, I saw Jellie’s name and reached to answer, pressing speaker so I didn’t have to actually pick up the phone.
“Hello?” I said, waiting for the sound of her always-chipper voice.
“Am I interrupting your writing?” she asked, sounding cautious.
“I wish.” The frustration was clear in my tone.
“Uh-oh. Still got writer’s block?”
“Yep,” I replied with a pop of my lips. “Tell me something good. I need it.”
She blew out a breath, and I knew she was thinking about a positive tidbit to share.
“Oh! I don’t have cavities!” she said with fake excitement.
I laughed. “That’s good, but now you don’t get to go to the hot dentist for another six months.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “What about the fact that I didn’t eat the entire container of icing last night, watching season five of Grey’s Anatomy ? You know, George getting hit by the bus gets me every time.”
I grinned up at the ceiling. “How many times have you watched that series?”
“I hear judgment in your tone, and I was telling you something good!”
“Okay, fine. You are a warrior.”
“What do you think is blocking you this time?” she asked me.
“I do not know. The others came out so fast. I think maybe the advance.”
“You got an advance last time.”
“That was after I wrote the first one and the story just poured out of me. This one isn’t.”
“Hmm,” she replied, and we both sat there in silence for a few moments. “What was it that you loved so much about the other couple’s story?”
I wasn’t going to answer that one truthfully. Explaining that the hero was Ransom, and … well, in my head, the heroine was me, although it was a fictional story, was my secret.
“I felt like I knew the characters.” That was close enough to the truth.
“Can you write characters that you feel like you know again?” she asked.
I straightened and looked at the screen. The cursor blinking on the white page that started a new chapter was mocking me.
It hadn’t been the knowing the characters; it had been that we were the characters.
I was living out my fantasies on paper while adding angst to it.
This couple wasn’t us. I didn’t sit and daydream about them the way I had the others.
But what if I changed them to us in my head?
Altered their personalities to fit. Took it for a best-friends spin maybe.
The first spark of excitement hit, and I wished I could hug Jellie.
“I think I got it,” I told her. “I need to go.”
“You got the story?” she asked.
“Yes. I know what to do. Thank you!”
“Oh! Uh, you’re welcome! This one is getting dedicated to me!” she called out as I reached to hit End.
“The first one was dedicated to you,” I reminded her.
“So? I can have multiples!”
“Okay, fine. It’ll be dedicated to you. Talk to you later,” I said before cutting her off and turning to my screen.
I didn’t even wince when I moved the manuscript to the trash.
“Let’s make it a masquerade ball …” I said, finally excited to put words on the screen again.
Ten thousand words later, and I was relaxing in a bubble bath with a glass of my favorite cabernet.
Being able to create a world I could escape into again was a high I’d missed.
I wouldn’t think about the fact that, once again, I was writing Ransom, but with another name and storyline.
It was frustrating, to an extent. So far, my writing success had been because of that one man’s inspiration.
Doubt about my writing capabilities started to edge their way in, and I shoved them back. Every writer had a muse. Why not accept the fact that Ransom was mine and not stress over it?
Picking up my glass, I took another drink, sighing with pleasure. I didn’t drink it often because of the high calorie content, but after the past couple of weeks, I needed it more often than not.
The text alert had me scrambling so fast that I sloshed water off the edge of the tub, cursed at the mess, then put my glass down and picked it up from where I’d laid it on the accent table that stood to the right of me.
Ransom’s name knocked all other thoughts from my mind. Sinking back down into the water, I slid my finger across the screen to read what he’d said.
Ransom: Whiskey is the official state beverage of Alabama.
Me: Whew, I can sleep better tonight, knowing that.
Ransom: I knew that was going to ease your mind.
Me: Absolutely. I was currently trying to relax in my bubble bath while worrying over the state beverage of Alabama.
Dots appeared, then paused, stopped, started again. I waited while he was typing with a big, cheesy grin on my face.
Ransom: Let’s add *do not tell me when you’re taking a bubble bath* to the list of things I don’t need a mental image of.
Well, Ransom, you shouldn’t have told me that.
The idea of him imagining me sent a pleased shiver through my body even if the water was hot enough that my skin was pink.
Me: I said bubble bath. Which means the bubbles cover me up.
Ransom: That’s not helping, Shakespeare.
I bit down on my bottom lip, enjoying this more than I should. It was borderline flirting, and I’d envied every female I’d watched him flirt with in my youth.
Me: Cows have best friends.
I reread my weird fact before hitting Send.
Ransom: And why did you research cows? Did you write a book about a farmer?
Me: Nope. I wrote a paper about it in the sixth grade. They’re very social creatures, and if you separate them from their best friend, they get stressed.
I’d told Jellie about this once, and she had threatened to steal my favorite pillow if I started referring to her as a cow.
Ransom: And here I thought, the fuckers just cared about eating.
Me: Poor fellas have always been underestimated due to their love for food.
It was why I’d written the paper about them. But then Barney Hickler had started calling me a cow, and several of the other boys in class had joined in.
Ransom: How’s the manuscript coming along?
Great now, thanks to him—a masquerade ball and a girl from the past that the hero didn’t remember.
Me: Ten thousand words today. My fingers were on fire.
Ransom: What’s this one about? Not that I know what your others are about.
You. Always you.
Me: I don’t talk about them until I finish. Messes with my mojo.
Dots appeared, then stopped. After several minutes, I put the phone back down. Something had come up in his life. Like always, I wondered if he’d gotten a call or another text from a female.
Groaning, I took another drink. Why did I have to care?