3. Willow
3
WILLOW
The next morning, I close my eyes, turn my head and scrunch up my nose as I click on the email I’ve been avoiding for a week. When nothing explodes, I cautiously peek, ready to snap my laptop shut if needed.
Hey Willow! Do you know when you’ll have the draft for the first half ready? I'm doing my best to give you time, but I can only push back for so long if you want to hit the spring release schedule. I know this is your first book with us, so let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, okay?
Uuuuuugh, I feel so guilty.
My agent Colleen is the nicest, most supportive person on the planet and I feel like a big fat phony. What was supposed to be my big break with a major publisher is turning into a nightmare.
I’ve been coming up with stories for as long as I can remember. Books are pretty much my whole personality, and writing was one thing I could always rely on, but now, every time I put my hands on the keyboard, it’s like someone pulled the plug on my word machine. This wasn’t a problem when I was writing my Ice Fairy books, the young adult series that I self-published on a whim and did so well I never looked back.
Sometimes I think I should just go back to what I know. Teenage drama and impossibly cool, magically powerful book boyfriends. But I started writing that series when I was sixteen, and now I’m almost twenty-four. I want to let my characters grow up, too. To swear and fight and have as much dirty, kinky sex as they want.
But my last boyfriend’s words still live rent free in my brain, like a squatter I'm powerless to evict, making me doubt everything I write. Because no matter how much of a jerk he ended up being, he hit me right where it hurt when I told him my plans.
“Really, Lo? You’re so vanilla it’s funny. You can’t even say the word ‘cock’ without blushing. I thought authors were supposed to write what they know.”
Frustrated, I slam my laptop shut and march to the kitchen, intent on a caffeine injection. While I fire up the coffee machine, I tap Grace's number on my phone and put it on speaker. As my best friend, she’s read everything from the insane stories I wrote about my Sims' lives when I was ten, to the cringeworthy first drafts of what turned into my bestselling series. She's one of the few people I trust to give me an honest opinion.
It takes her a few rings but she eventually answers. “Hey, babe. Everything okay?”
“Please, tell me it's good.” I pull my favorite mug out of the dishwasher. The one Grams got me last Christmas with “A GOOD ROMANCE HERO IS HARD” in bold letters, and “to find” in lowercase underneath. “I really need to hear it’s not as bad as I think. Actually, one sec, the coffee machine is starting.”
I haven’t been in this house long enough to update much, so the kitchen is still straight out of the 1900s, but decent coffee is non-negotiable. I used my advance for two things, moving across the country, and a fancy coffee maker. Right on cue, the built in grinder fires up, the sound of beans being crushed making it impossible to hear anything for a good fifteen seconds.
When it’s done, I lean my butt against the deep, chipped porcelain sink in front of my kitchen window and wait for the brew to finish. “Okay. Go.”
“I need to get myself one of those machines. I deeply regret not asking for one in our wedding registry.”
“Pester Terry enough, and he'll get one. You've got him wound around your little finger.” Grace found the kind of love people like me write books about. Her husband Terry might not be six-foot-five, with a trust fund and a job in finance, but I've seen how he and Grace lean into each other, how they smile and throw little glances at each other, and how he's always there when she needs him. A real life romance hero, waving every green flag in the book.
“Maybe,” she agrees with a giggle. Followed by a sigh. “Okay, so about the book.”
Oh no. I know that tone.
“It's bad, isn't it?”
“No! Not bad, just…”
I shouldn't have called. Right now I need her to tell me that the chapter drafts I sent her are absolutely brilliant, the steamiest, sexiest, most compelling romance she's ever read. Not the truth.
“All the elements are there, but… It's missing your usual spark.”
Ouch.
I turn to stare out my kitchen window, not really looking at anything. “Maybe I should try a different genre. Cozy mysteries are popular.”
She laughs. “Lo, I love you, and I’d read anything you wrote, but do you really want to write mysteries?”
“Noooooooo,” I whine. “I love romance. Happy endings are the best.”
“Exactly. But you’ve been in a slump since he-who-shall-not-be-named. I totally get why you wanted a break, and then it was hard with your grandma dying, but you need to get back in the game or you’re going to forget why people love your books in the first place. Get out there, fall in love, or at least into bed a few times. Make it dirty!”
“Easy for you to say. You’re married,” I grumble. “Sorry. You know I’m happy for you guys. You’re my proof that happily ever after isn’t just for fiction. You’re both coming tomorrow, right? It’s nothing big. I just want to make dinner and?—”
Grace laughs. “Stop. We wouldn’t miss it. This is the first birthday we can celebrate together since you moved back! Look, I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll email you my notes on the first couple chapters. Maybe something there will help you get your spark back.”
I put down my phone and breathe in the scent of fresh coffee. Outside the kitchen, a breeze makes the bright spring green leaves rustle. Behind them, the wall around the motorcycle club is just visible, with the top of the old grade school peaking over it, and behind it, the church clock tower. From down here, you’d never know it’s full of bikers instead of little kids in plaid uniforms.
Skyhigh, Blackout and Dragon spring to mind immediately. They're rough, dangerous and the type of guys that wouldn’t look at me twice. Which is fine by me, but I can’t shake the feeling that they are the kind of guys my readers would want to hear about. Not relationship material, but I bet nobody’s accused them of being painfully vanilla.
Too bad my romance isn't about bikers.
Maybe it should be?
I should've told Grace about my short lived true crime drama and how crazy hot they looked jumping over the fence, but I know how she feels about the Outlaw Sons taking over her old neighborhood.
Which… yeah. I don’t blame her, but… she didn’t get to see them up close. I allow myself to smile. Write what I know? Maybe I should find some “inspiration” close to home.
I pour a second mug of coffee, waffling between the physical pain of going back outside to work on the garden, and the mental anguish of pulling words out of my head when they don’t want to flow.
The doorbell rings while I’m still lost in indecision, and I nearly jump right out of my pink striped socks.