Chapter 19
Nineteen
AVA
It’s been a week since our Thanksgiving visit. A week since a one-bed trope, mashed potatoes, treehouse kisses, and a viral video–the one where Soren had me lifted off the ground, legs wrapped around his waist, my back pressed to a wall, one thrust away from total indecency.
The internet went sexually ballistic. Comment sections melted. Reaction videos flooded ShelfSpace. And, because the universe enjoys my pain, couples everywhere started recreating it.
Bell and The Blade is a full-blown trend, complete with slow-motion thirst edits, bad lighting, and a few ER visits from overzealous reenactments.
Our farewell from the Bell household included my mom tearing up, Emily emailing Soren a copy of her manuscript with a wink emoji, and G-Ma whispering, “Don’t come back unless you’re engaged or she’s glowing—and I don’t mean from bronzer. Create a scandal, Soren!”
Little does she know we already are.
Fisher filmed the whole goodbye scene and posted it with the caption: The In-Lawlessness.
The internet didn’t just eat it up—they licked the plate clean and asked for seconds.
But the real breakout star?
G-Ma.
Within twenty-four hours, she launched her own ShelfSpace account–@GlitterAndGumption—and gained over two hundred thousand followers.
Her tagline: “Hot takes, hotter grandmothers, and arthritis-friendly spice recs.”
She’s already reviewing both our books, giving unsolicited sex advice in the comments, and threatening Soren (affectionately) in DMs. She’s somehow better at social media than all of us.
After that, Soren flew home to Seattle, a city wrapped in mist and contradiction. Rain-slicked streets, neon signs buzzing in the dark, indie bookstores tucked between glass towers, and coffee shops named after sea monsters or obscure literary references.
I flew back to my little neck of the woods outside Boston, to the cottage I bought when my first advance cleared. I call it solitude. Emily calls it avoidance. Tomato, to-mah-to.
Point is, I’m home. That should bring comfort. Familiarity. Safety. But, truthfully, all it’s bringing is a quiet that curls around my ribs like fog, making me restless, and lonely.
Outside my floor-to-ceiling windows, the world is soft and still. Pale blue sky painted with lavender streaks. The tree-covered hillside below is dusted in the last whispers of frost, the lake at the bottom shimmering like it’s been brushed with silver leaf.
There’s a mug in my hand, steam furling into the air. Almond milk latte. Homemade. Overpriced beans and a dash of cinnamon. Exactly how I like it. The tiny indulgence feels similar to control, even if it’s one that can’t patch a hole in your chest.
My phone buzzes from where it’s sitting on the kitchen countertop. I set my mug down and pick it up, moving over to the window seat at my breakfast nook. Victoria.
How are the pages coming?
Translation: I know they’re not coming but give me something to work with.
I told Hope to give you a month. That was two weeks ago.
Clock’s ticking, kid.
I stare at the phone screen, thinking it might magically auto-fill with a brilliant response. No such luck.
So good. So many pages.
Overflowing, honestly.
How many of those pages contain actual words?
Semantics.
If those semantics aren’t swoony and sex-positive and ready to print, I can’t help you. Are you okay?
I don’t reply to that one right away. I don’t know if I am or not. I’m not sure what okay looks like when my entire brain feels wrung out and hung over a wood-burning fireplace.
So I type what I know won’t set off alarm bells and, with my free hand, start rearranging the throw pillows lined up along my nook.
Working through it. I’ll send them soon.
That better not be code for “I’m rearranging my throw pillows again.”
I snatch my hand back before I touch the next pillow, and type back.
Rude.
And no. That’s not what I was doing.
(Anymore.)
Ava…
I got this. Promise.
I need to write. For the deadline. For the people waiting on me.
For me.
And for the ache that’s camped out inside my heart, humming his name.
Soren.
Once I slip my phone into the pocket of my cardigan, I head toward my office. Every surface of my house twinkles. There are not one, but four themed trees—each with its own aesthetic.
The main tree in the living room is what I call “Nostalgia Chic” with mismatched ornaments, family photos, and glittered macaroni frames from elementary school.
The second is a romance book tree, naturally, covered in mini paperbacks, tiny fake candles, and a sign that reads: All I want for Christmas is fictional men with emotional availability.
The third is all gold and white, strictly for ShelfSpace. And the fourth? That one’s for spite. Red, black, moody ornaments, and a garland that spells out: Jingle Hell.
Every door frame is wrapped in garland. Every candle smells of pine, or gingerbread cookies, or one named “Snowman’s Balls” that Fisher sent as a joke.
There are seven throw pillows on my “way too big for one person, but I love it” sectional couch, all holiday themed. I bought them in a fugue state at three a.m. while watching The Holiday, drinking two bottles of wine, and eating mini candy canes like they were painkillers.
I sit at my desk, open my laptop, and stare at the screen. Taking a sip of my coffee, I think maybe that will help.
Nope.
I survey my Christmas crime scene that is my house, breathe in the cookie scented air, glance back at the screen.
Nothing.
No matter how much tinsel I string or how many sugar cookies I stress-bake, the words won’t come. My document remains blank. My brain is static.
I’ve never had writer’s block this bad. It’s not only the story I’ve lost, but also the thread that ties me to my work. Who I am. Who I was in those quiet, solitary moments with him.
Free.
Unmoored from the past that’s kept me caged, the hands that once pressed me small. With Soren, I wasn’t measuring, second-guessing, shrinking myself to fit someone else’s needs. I was flame and flood. I was hunger, unashamed.
For the first time in nearly a decade, my body wasn’t something to guard, to silence, to barter away—it was mine. And in his hands, in his arms, it became more than mine. It became infinite.
In theory, the distance sounded like a relief. I could finally breathe without his gaze heating me.
Except now, my thoughts surround only him, remembering back to how he watched me across the dinner table, sizing up my every reaction. He never flinched when my family grilled him and swooned over him. He kissed me. I wanted–no, let’s be honest, want–more.
I take another sip of my coffee and exhale. I’m not built for this. For high heat and emotional vulnerability. For slow-burning sparks that are starting to develop into a raging inferno. I’m built for edits and deadlines, and I fall for fictional men who can’t disappoint me in the end.
I wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, I believed in love.
Until Jon Perry happened.
Literary agent. Smooth talker. Promiser of the world. Destroyer of innocence.
I was a senior in high school when he found me on InkWell, a digital playground where authors uploaded half-finished chapters at midnight, and by sunrise had entire fandoms arguing about ships, tropes, and cliffhangers in the comments.
Jon Perry slid into my DMs and told me I was a genius. He was a twenty-five-year-old, fresh-faced literary agent—or at least, that was his story—who was scouting hidden talent, building a roster of voices the world hadn’t heard yet. Mine, apparently, was the one he’d been “waiting for.”
He said he’d help me shape my career, protect my art, guide me through the noise. He played the long game with patience and praise.
I mistook manipulation for mentorship. I was young. Hungry. Desperate to be seen and make a name for myself. I didn’t know what red flags looked like yet. I thought attention meant progress. I thought charm meant respect. I thought being chosen meant I was something special.
That’s what I was led to believe, anyway.
Everything between us was strictly professional.
He was the teacher and I was the eager student, sending him pages and waiting for his praise like oxygen.
He spent time challenging me to hone my craft.
He’d mark my stories up with red ink and notes that made me better—tighter pacing, sharper rhythm, cleaner tension, taught me how to trust my voice, and for that time in my life, I did.
Not so much anymore. But other than that, he showed me that my stories were worth finishing.
Once I graduated from high school and became a freshman in college with a laptop, a dream, and no clue how cruel life was about to become, Jon signed me, called me his star, his prodigy, the next big one.
After that, things between us mutated. The compliments started to drift.
They weren’t about the writing so much anymore.
They were about me. My smile. My voice. My body language in social media photos.
Lines dissolved quietly, so quietly I almost didn’t notice until it was too late.
What once felt like mentorship morphed into ownership.
And by the time I realized what he’d taken from me, he’d already convinced me I’d offered it willingly.
Which leads me to the night I lost my virginity to him. I met him at a hotel outside of Chicago, still believing the promises he whispered into my skin. Still believing I was the exception. Still believing he’d make me a household name, build an empire around me.
Still believing he loved me.
That hope held my dream for the remainder of my college career. Three whole years of missed opportunities. Of silence instead of submissions. Of being told to wait, to trust, to stay small and grateful while he spun elaborate stories to cover his tracks.