Chapter 2
Rohan
“Let’s play drunk, insane, or writer on no sleep...” Humming the Jeopardy theme song as I read through the strange email for the third time, I shook my head. “The answer is all of the above. Thank you for playing.”
His slightly rambling message in the group before explaining that he should probably get some sleep also helped me win.
I’d clearly been watching way too many game shows lately, but I decided to worry about that after I focused my energy on a certain slightly distracted writer. One who was incredibly entertaining, sober or drunk, and wrote the best dirty books I’d ever read.
Originally, I’d worried it was some kind of stunt, but the way his editor laid into him in a comment said it’d been real...and she thought he was insane and that he was going to end up on a milk carton.
Did they still do that?
Either way, I was glad to see the original message had been real and I was concerned the reply had been real too.
I was technically on Team Lori because she was right, it’d been dangerous, but he’d very neatly thrown her under the bus when he commented that it’d been her idea to begin with.
It seemed like neither of them could be trusted to make safe decisions...and that was either great for me or incredibly dangerous.
Both?
The comment section was a fabulous mess with people guessing what he’d done and if they were arguing about a plot point or something real. Sometimes it was very hard to tell with those two because reality wasn’t their strong suit.
And if I hadn’t been the person they were not-so-subtly arguing over, I’d have guessed it was about the plot of an upcoming book too.
But it wasn’t.
I was very real and slightly confused.
There was a bigger part of me that was curious, though.
Did he really want someone to clean his house?
Had I been reading too much into the slightly suggestive wording?
Had he really started Teddy’s book? He’d been teasing it for a while and it’d been all talk, no teasers, so I was a bit skeptical about how much progress he’d made.
And even in his politely but confusingly worded reply, I still couldn’t tell if he just knew what was going to happen with Teddy or if he’d put words on the page.
Some authors didn’t seem to understand that it didn’t matter if the whole story was in their head—it only counted if they put words on a fucking page.
..screen or paper, I wasn’t going to be picky.
Yep, I still had questions before I was going to clean his house.
But since I could read directions and was a hell of a lot more sober than a certain curious writer, I commented on the bottom of the post with a tag to him and his editor that was short and slightly cryptic.
I promise I’m not a stalker or a serial killer.
It wouldn’t mean anything to the readers in the group—especially since my real name wasn’t on my profile—but it would to Knox Whitaker and his editor.
Hopefully.
I still wasn’t sure how sober he’d been when he’d responded to my email, so there was a distinct possibility I’d get booted from the group because they thought I was insane...or at least more insane than Knox.
That was an interesting threshold, though, which didn’t make me any more confident about what would happen. But it was turning out to be a fascinating way to pass the time, so I was going to play along even if it turned out to be some kind of stunt for a new book.
But something told me it wasn’t a game to Knox.
I just wasn’t sure what he thought would happen when someone agreed to clean his house in exchange for copies of his books.
Authors were strange creatures.
I liked interesting—and I liked books—so it seemed to be a good trade-off for me as long as he was actually writing Teddy’s story.
All bets were off if he wasn’t writing that particular one, though, so I went back to the email and hit reply.
I was sober last night, so you don’t have to worry about both of us being drunk. Thank you for the compliment, though.
For being drunk as a skunk, he’d been very articulate too.
The proposed mix of WIP chapters, ebooks, and paperbacks (once the box is found and yes, I remember that story) is very fair depending on how much work needs to be done.
The number of times he’d announced he’d lost something important was too many to count, but the way he’d accused his smiling mailman of possibly stealing a box had been too good to forget.
As for the word you were missing, one of these might be what you were looking for: trade, exchange, swap, barter.
I’d played that game in several author groups before, so I was now an expert at quickly using a thesaurus.
But I was also an expert at deciphering Knox Whitaker, and his table comment seemed to be about it being buried under a mile of crap. So there was no way in hell I was planning on promising anything about that.
He’d mentioned that before and I was too smart to fall for it.
I was, however, too curious for my own good, so I kept typing.
I want to make sure you understand that I’m serious about the exchange. I don’t have any work going on at the moment and I’m bored. I also don’t have anything I’m reading at the moment (and I won’t point out how long it’s been since you released a book).
So as long as sober you wants to keep going with this as much as drunk you did, please let me know when you can meet.
My schedule is fairly open and I can meet you at the coffee shop you prefer if you’d like.
(No, I didn’t stalk you. Please remind Lori that you post pictures from the same coffee shop every Thursday when they come out with the new donut flavor.)
Deciding that I was starting to sound like a stalker, I did my best to politely end the email and not come across as completely insane.
Knox wouldn’t mind me sounding nuts, but Lori was the type to think the whole thing was ridiculous once she was sober...which just showed how drunk she’d been too.
They both needed more adult supervision.
And I needed lunch before I ended up staring at my email all afternoon, so I sent my response and got up from my desk, walking away from the temptation to watch for his reply. Knox might need more common sense, but I seemed to be lacking it too.
That might’ve been because I was so fucking bored I was starting to pull my hair out, though.
Who’d ever said that retiring early would be fabulous was insane.
I had the money to travel and do what I wanted, but I’d spent too many years focusing on work to have anyone to do shit with. It was a rock and a hard place that I should’ve thought about before, but I’d been too busy working and then selling the business to notice.
Yep, I was not that bright.
But luckily for me, Knox Whitaker wasn’t looking for a genius...just someone to find the bottom of his house.
****
He was excited to see me...the nutty author was wiggling and searching the room like he was looking for Santa at the mall.
Even meeting my gaze across the coffee shop didn’t freak him the fuck out. If anything, he sat straighter and smiled even wider.
We were going to have to work on his self-preservation instincts if meeting a stranger off the internet who looked a bit like a hit man for the mob seemed like a good idea.
Especially when it was clear I knew his favorite hang-out spot and way too much about him to be a stranger who was, in fact, an actual stranger.
He shared entirely too much about his personal life online.
“Rohan?” Knox nearly beamed as I nodded and walked up to his favorite table in the corner. “I knew that was you. You’re definitely a where’s Teddy’s story kind of reader.”
I was?
His brain must’ve been an even more interesting place than I’d imagined.
“It’s good to meet you.” When I held out a hand so I looked like I had manners, it took Knox’s brain a second to kick in.
“Yes, shaking hands. That’s right.” Sitting straighter again, he finally held out his and gave me a very businesslike handshake before standing up. “It’s good to meet you too.”
The curious exchange had me fighting off a smile, but I wasn’t sure he’d have minded.
..or noticed. He was too busy checking me out and letting that fascinating brain of his wander.
“I...I’m supposed to...How big would you say your chest is?
I’m not good at measurements and I’m trying to work on describing people better. ”
I was never going to make it keeping a straight face, so I moved my goal to doing my best not to outright laugh at whatever came out of his mouth.
“Knox?” Letting my voice go deep, I raised one eyebrow as his gaze finally met mine, still wonderfully distracted and sexy as fuck. “You have to talk to me about the trade before you can ask for my measurements.”
Yes, I did mean that as dirty as it’d sounded.
Knox seemed to realize that as he stared at me in silence and licked his lips. “I...”
Swallowing, he plopped down in his chair. “I promised Lori I wouldn’t do anything stupid.”
He was just as adorable as I’d thought he’d be.
“I don’t think you’re going to be able to keep that promise, but I won’t tell if you won’t.” There was no point in pretending I didn’t find him hot. I’d never be able to be around him without at least flirting, especially when I knew he liked men and I knew how wonderfully dirty his mind was.
Had I mentioned he was an oversharer online?
But I wasn’t going to push in where I wasn’t wanted, so I waited to give him a chance to tell me to go to hell.
Unsurprisingly, he didn’t.
“Well...getting to know you isn’t stupid.” The way he started justifying his behavior seemed to be a good sign. “I need to know what it will be like to have you in my house.”
“I agree.” Sitting down across from him, I barely glanced toward the nosy barista to let him know I wanted my usual before looking back at Knox. “You need to know you’ll feel safe with me in...your space.”
He shivered...but he caught the moan before it’d escaped too loudly. “Yes. Yes, that’s very important. I don’t want to rush into...things with a stranger.”
He was definitely the rush into things with a stranger type and we both knew it.
But he was trying to use enough of his brain so his editor didn’t kill him because he shook his head like he was trying to jostle a few fantasies loose and took a sip of his coffee.
He was doing his best to clear his head and I didn’t want him to regret anything, so I nodded toward the counter. “I’ll be right back.”
Nothing.
I managed not to smile as I watched him obsessively thinking about something and headed up to get my coffee. But as distracted as he was, Knox kept his eyes glued to me as I walked over and made small talk with the barista I’d gotten to know over the last couple of years.
He was too young for me and always had been, but I didn’t mind the way he practiced flirting with me. It was cute and even though he looked like one good thrust would break him in half, I liked that he’d never been afraid of me. “Thanks.”
Knox had sorted through some of his random thoughts by the time I sat back down, but he hadn’t found the ones I’d expected. “Are you dating him?”
Oh, interesting.
“No.” Deciding that being honest would be fun, I shrugged. “He’s too young and too innocent. I like my men a bit more worldly...and curious.”
Licking his lips again, Knox was back to staring at me wordlessly, which I took to mean his brain was spinning again. So to give him another moment, I took a sip of my chocolaty heaven and leaned back in my chair to people watch my favorite author.
He was everything an author should be...distracted looking, with a notebook on the table with random scribbles on the open page and a cup of coffee big enough to caffeinate a small country.
“Would it be alright if I made you a bouncer in a book or maybe an assassin? Is it stereotypical to make you a mobster? I don’t want to be rude.” The fact that he was serious and that was where his mind had gone was brilliant.
“I’d love to be a bouncer at a club that’s owned by the mob if I can have my pick.
” And I knew all of his pen names well enough to know that would fit in perfectly in the dark world he hadn’t written in for a while.
“And you can give me a curious slut that loves being used in a back alley for a love interest.”
That’d be fun to read about, no matter what happened between Knox and me.
His mouth opened, but instead of being shocked, he leaned forward and rested his head in his hands. “You’d be big enough to manhandle him and save him from...oh, someone is after him, isn’t he?”
That question didn’t seem to be for me because he immediately sat up straight as an arrow and looked around worriedly.
The notebook.
He relaxed as his vision narrowed down to his pen and paper, and then the rest of the world fell away as the note-taking frantically started.
Well, it seemed like he’d figured out what he wanted to do in that world next, but it meant I was going to have to be patient while he poured every thought he had into his notebook.
Not that I was going to complain.
The coffee was great.
The scenery was fabulous.
And I had a feeling that my day was going to continue to get even more interesting as long as I didn’t try to pull him away from his imaginary world too quickly.
But luckily for Knox, I was very patient.