Chapter 15
RINGING REGRETS
15
My phone’s ringing. I swear I’m going to destroy that wretched thing. Crush it under a hammer. Pancake it under a bulldozer.
I snatch the phone from the nightstand ready to throw it down the fire escape but answer by accident instead.
“Leigh? Hello? Are you there?” Ivy’s voice drifts up from the speakers.
“Ivy, hi.” I do my best to keep the extreme annoyance out of my tone. “What can I do for you?”
“Are you okay? Am I interrupting something?” She screeches enthusiastically. “Were you having morning sex with Oliver?”
More I was about to have fantasy sex with Killian.
“Of course not.”
“Oh. But the date last night went great.” She sounds downcast now. “Didn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I say sincerely. Oliver might not be my one true love, but I’m happy to have a new friend. “Oliver is wonderful.”
“Are you going on a second date?”
“I need coffee before we have this conversation,” I stall.
I lower the phone from my ear and shoot a quick text to Oliver:
To Oliver
SOS. Ivy is asking if we’re going on a second date. What should I tell her?
As I wait for him to reply, I shuffle the five steps from my bed to the kitchen, actually making coffee while Ivy drawls on and on about what a great guy he is.
Oliver’s reply arrives shortly after.
From Oliver
Please say we’re going on a second date. At least my family will back off me for a short while
I hardly suppress a smile.
To Oliver
Fake dating, uh? Why, Oliver, we might still fall madly in love after all
From Oliver
If only we could
I know exactly what he means. It seems unjust that we like each other so much and still have no spark.
I give Ivy the happy, fake news and after a million other questions—the only one I can answer truthfully is if Oliver and I kissed last night—she lets me go.
I sit on one of the two stools at the impish kitchen bar—which doubles as the only table in the house—and stare at the mug of coffee in my hands.
Long.
Dark.
With just a splash of sugar.
I can almost feel Killian’s fingers at my throat.
Real life sucks.
I want to go back to sleep.
Then I probably shouldn’t drink coffee. I empty the mug in the sink and hop back into bed. But before I try to sleep again, I check the book. And sure enough there’s a new chapter. Cornfield escape, hot kisses, shirt ripping and all. The last passage before the blank pages ends on a sexy cliffhanger.
I grab my phone and check my picture of last night. These words definitely weren’t there yesterday. What is going on?
Sleep now is the furthest thing from my mind. I go down a rabbit hole of researching legends and folklore about magical books that write themselves. But all I come up with is either more non-fiction books on writing advice or straight-out fantasy novels.
Next, I google: signs of a nervous breakdown, hallucinations, hyper-real dream states, schizophrenia, water pollutants causing hallucinations, possible causes for distorted reality.
Unless the local water supply has been contaminated by heavy metals there is no plausible explanation for what’s happening.
I take a picture of the book and send it to Ivy.
To Ivy
Is this yours?
My phone pings two minutes later with a negative response.
I keep staring at the book. “How did you get here? Are you magical?”
The book, of course, doesn’t reply.
I give up trying to find a logical explanation a couple of hours later. I should probably book a psych evaluation. But I’m afraid that if I tell a doctor what I’m seeing, they’d just lock me up in a mental institution. And, frankly, I don’t have the time for a sojourn in an asylum.
So, I do what I do best and bury all my worries in my work.
I soldier through the day in a zombie haze; I stay up until late. At this point, I’m equally eager to go back to Lakeville Hills and scared of what will happen if I do.
I’m half-convinced I’m losing my mind. Should I throw the book away, never to open it again? Make it someone else’s problem? Destroy it?
But the thought of never seeing Killian again is impossible to bear. So is the idea of never again being able to escape to an adventurous dream world where I’m happy. Where I can have third-date, guilt-free sex. No chance of Killian losing my number because I never gave it to him. This is my fantasy, so he’s stuck with me.
I sigh and pick up the book, decided to give in to my madness. As I lie down to sleep, I keep my fingers crossed that I’ll land right back in my kitchen with a ripped shirt missing a few buttons and about to have the night of my life.