Chapter 2
TWO
“I’m being serious.” I studied Nathan with unrelenting focus. “I’m not being dramatic.”
Around us, people chattered away and ate their expensive salads and wraps as if the world wasn’t about to be plunged into Armageddon.
“Oh, not you.” Nathan laughed and shook his head before reaching for his cocktail. He was the only guy I knew who drank a cocktail with lunch and expected to be productive after. “You would never be dramatic. That’s not in your DNA.”
I wasn’t always great with people—I had terrible anxiety in crowds, which had only grown worse over the past two years—but I could read sarcasm as well as the next person.
“Whatever,” I grumbled and went back to looking at the menu at Deer Creek A Coastal Grill, one of the most poorly named establishments I’d ever visited.
Fortunately, what it lacked in a name was made up for with amazing food.
“Oh, I love that.” Nathan laughed. “You remind me of teenage Nathan.”
“I’m assuming teenage Nathan was a joy,” I said dryly.
“Oh, he was a complete and total asshat. My mother still holds some of the stuff I did against me. Of course, since I’m a world-famous author now…” He offered a ridiculous wink at a passing woman who perked up at the “author” part.
I managed to hold back my disgruntlement until she’d passed and then made a hand twirl to remind him we were in the middle of a discussion.
“Where was I?” Nathan asked, looking over his shoulder again to track the woman’s progress.
“You were telling me teenage Nathan was a sociopath,” I replied, not missing a beat.
He choked on a snort. “I wasn’t a sociopath. I was a pain, though. My mother swears she didn’t think I would make it out of my teens because I was wild … and a real ladies’ man.”
“You were a real ladies’ man at fifteen?”
“I was a real ladies’ man at thirteen.” He winked again, which annoyed me on every level.
“I’m getting the farmer’s market quinoa salad,” I announced.
Nathan’s dark eyebrows hopped. “Wow. Party time.”
I ignored him. “Quinoa is supposed to be really good at cleaning you out.”
“Well, that’s just what I want to think about when I’m eating,” Nathan drawled, shaking his head. “I’m getting the lobster BLT because whoever decided to put those two things together was a genius.” He sipped his cocktail again. “You’re paying too.”
I didn’t argue with him. I’d been the one to invite him to lunch under the guise of talking out a problem. It was only fair I pay.
“Fine.” I smiled because it felt warranted.
“Great,” Nathan said in his easygoing way. He leaned back in his chair and eyed me. I could see the gears in his mind working.
“So, how are things?” I asked, determined to change the subject. I was crap at small talk, so this conversation was going to be all kinds of awkward.
“The book is going great. All I have to decide is if the clown is going to turn into a demon or if a demon tried to possess the clown but got trapped because there was something scarier inside the clown. I’m working it out, though.”
I blinked. Then I blinked again. Horror was not my genre. I didn’t want to watch horror movies. I didn’t want to read anything darker than Goosebumps. Nathan loved it all.
“Well, I guess that’s good,” I said. “Just out of curiosity, why a clown?”
“Because people are terrified of clowns.”
“And rightly so.”
He shrugged. “I haven’t done a clown before. I’ve always wanted to do them. Terrifier made clowns popular again. I figured I should just ride the wave.”
I nodded. That made sense. Tropes were important to our jobs for a reason. “When do you think you’ll finish?”
“A couple weeks. Then I need a solid read through on it. Then I’ll send it to the editor, and we’ll go from there. I don’t think it will need a lot of work beyond the first draft. I’ve been editing as I go, and it’s good.”
Nathan never suffered a crisis of faith. He always knew that what he wrote was good. I was having the exact opposite problem.
“And how are things going with you?” Nathan asked when I didn’t say anything for several beats.
I wasn’t prepared to get into my problems just yet. I needed more time. Fortunately, the server swooped in at that moment to take our drink orders. Nathan had the attention span of a gnat. I figured he would move on to something else as soon as she was gone. I was wrong.
“Are you still not writing?” Nathan asked, his gaze never leaving my face. His tone wasn’t accusatory—the smallest of miracles—but I could read the worry in it, which did nothing to ease my anxiety.
“I’m writing,” I countered. “I’m just throwing it all away as soon as I finish.”
“And why are you doing that?”
“It’s crap.”
“How do you know it’s crap?”
“Because when I read it, all I think about is a toilet.”
Nathan snorted, then he caught himself. “Dude, I think the most important thing is to write. Just get it down on paper. All the crappiness can be smoothed over in editing. That’s why we have editors in the first place, right?” He lifted his hand for a high five, but I didn’t oblige him.
“I’m just stuck,” I replied when he lowered his arm. “I don’t know what it is.”
“When is your new book due?”
There was no hiding my cringe this time. “Six months ago.” I refused to meet his gaze. “I got an extension but … I only have three months to get it to them.”
“And you’re not writing anything?” Nathan was incredulous.
Multiple heads swung in our direction at his screechy voice. I smiled at them before pinning Nathan with a death glare. “Can you keep your voice down?”
I was mortified. I had to see these people on a regular basis. The Landings might be big—really big actually—but it was an insulated community. I saw the same faces more often than I was comfortable with.
“Dude, you need to get it together,” Nathan’s voice was lower, but he didn’t look happy. “If you miss a second deadline…”
I didn’t need him to tell me what would happen if I missed a second deadline. It would be done. All of it. My fledging author career would disappear forever, and I would have to work retail.
Not really. That was just the story I told myself when I was feeling really freaked out.
My mind began to drift, because despite what I’d said to Nathan, I was a dramatic soul.
“Do they still have those people at gas stations whose sole job it is to pump gas into people’s cars?” I asked out of nowhere. “I only ask because I think that might be a job I would excel at when this whole writing thing goes down the toilet.”
Nathan’s lips quirked. “I believe there’s a state with a law that somebody else has to pump your gas. It’s like New Jersey or something.”
“Oh man, I don’t want to live in Jersey.” That sounded like a fate worse than death.
“Um, the Jersey Shore is actually pretty great. It’s beautiful.”
“Doesn’t it snow there?”
He paused. “Oh, right, you have a thing about snow. You’re afraid of it.”
I shot him a withering look. “I’m not afraid of it. I just don’t want to have to deal with it. That was one of the reasons I landed on Savannah.”
“I thought you picked Savannah to be close to your dad.”
That had actually been a mark in the Don’t Live Here column when I was making my decision a year before.
I was familiar with Savannah, though. My parents had moved to the area—albeit the upper-crust downtown area that was full of historic homes and charity tea parties—when I was in middle school.
I had friends—okay, more like acquaintances—in the city.
Savannah was a place where I couldn’t get lost when left to my own devices.
Plus, the weather was right up my alley.
Sure, the hurricanes were no fun, and torrential rains caused flooding problems. But no area was perfect.
So when I’d been panicking about my writer’s block a year before, I decided to move, thinking a change of scenery would help.
Savannah somehow ended up on the top of my list. It hadn’t helped my writer’s block, but the food was great.
“I just like Savannah,” I said smoothly. I did not want to talk about my father.
“Why did you pick this place, though?” Nathan looked around. He lived just over the border in South Carolina but acted as if Savannah was a different country. “Don’t get me wrong—it has an interesting vibe. If I was writing murder mysteries, I would be all over this place.”
He had my full attention now. “Why?”
“Because this is the sort of place where secrets are buried deep, but nobody ever forgets,” Nathan replied.
“Actually, the first time I visited you here, I started working on an outline. The board that oversees this neighborhood is creepy. I have an idea about a demonic community board that loses control and starts killing residents. It was all inspired by this place.”
I looked around blankly. “So … you hate it here. That’s what you’re saying.”
He shrugged. “Listen, it has some nice offerings. The restaurants are amazing. I haven’t had a bad meal here. I like the bars. If I lived here, I would be at those bars every night, picking up a honey.”
I slapped my hand over my eyes. I couldn’t even look at him. “You did not just say ‘a honey.’”
He pretended I hadn’t spoken. “There’s a lot to like about this place.
It does, however, lock you away from the rest of the world.
All the people here are vanilla. Since you’re vanilla, you need a splash of chocolate.
” He seemed to realize what he’d just said.
“I didn’t mean that in a racial way,” he added quickly.
“Not that a splash of chocolate wouldn’t do you good.
You couldn’t keep up with too much chocolate, though.
Maybe you should aim for the strawberry cheesecake. ”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not interested in dating right now.”
“Of course you’re not.” Nathan bobbed his head as if I’d said the most logical thing ever. “I’m talking about me. Plus, eventually, you’re going to get over this writer’s block thing.”
“Not if I decide to chase the gas-pumping dream.”
He waved me off. “This is all in your head.”