Chapter Twenty-Three
Has Maggie gotten back to you yet?
My heart sinks when I find a text from Hayley, which is different since I usually love it when she texts. But she’s not the person I’ve spent the last five days waiting for word from. She’s not the person who has me pacing the floor and rearranging the books and scrubbing the grout in the bathroom.
Grout-scrubbing is truly the bottom of the barrel when it comes to finding ways to distract myself. That and, like, cleaning the oven. But I don’t use the oven that much, so …
No, I type back. You’ll be the first to know, I promise.
What the heck is taking Maggie so long?, she replies.
I roll my eyes. Yeah, I’ve been asking myself the same question. Maybe she’s preparing a speech to let me down gently, I suggest with a bunch of throw-up face emojis.
Not a chance. And if she wanted to let you go, she’d just drop you, Hayley texts back, trying to be encouraging.
Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel much better, I reply. I’ll let you know.
I then toss the phone aside because I can’t even stand to hold it in my hand. I’m too jittery. It’s a good thing I don’t have an appetite since I’d probably upchuck anything I tried to eat.
It’s clear Maggie has no idea what it’s like, being in this position. With her career on the line. Not just a career either. My book is something that came out of my head, completely mine. My thoughts. Heck, even my experiences, to a degree.
There’s nothing as harrowing as handing something that came from you off to somebody else and then waiting for their judgment. I might as well have handed off my heart.
Though my heart’s a little sore right now, even a week after ending things with Blake. I should be grateful that I had the opportunity to date somebody like him—and not because he’s a billionaire.
Because he’s wonderful. Because he has so much to offer. I only wish it were me he was offering it to.
I’ve only asked myself, oh, three hundred times this week whether I made the biggest mistake of my life when I ended our strange, sporadic relationship. If I should’ve held out longer. If I was too demanding, if I expected too much.
It’s easy to think things like that in weak moments.
When I’m feeling more clearheaded, like after a walk in the park or after doing my yoga practice in the morning, I know I did the right thing for me by agreeing that there couldn’t be a future for us as things currently stood.
Blake is amazing and sexy and sweet, and if he got his personal life figured out, I’d be glad to take another chance at us being together.
But that’s not the way things are right now, and I don’t know if I want to wait for what could be years until he finds balance and comes to terms with his success.
The phone rings. I trip as I throw myself across the room and land face-first on the sofa while still scrambling to reach the stupid thing.
“Oh jeez. Oh jeez.”
It’s Maggie.
Now that she’s calling, I wish she hadn’t. Was I seriously hoping for this moment to arrive? What the heck is wrong with me? Have I been a masochist all along, and I’m only now just finding out?
“Hello?” I whisper on answering, pushing myself up into a sitting position. Please, please, don’t let her fire me for good. Please, let her tell me we can work with what I gave her.
Nobody wants to hear their writing needs a lot of work, but that’s still better than having it rejected full-out.
“Kitty. Antoinette. Valentine.”
I squeeze my eyes just as tightly shut as I can. “Does that mean this is a good phone call?” Please, please, please let this be a good phone call.
“Where have you been hiding this filthy mind of yours for so long?” Maggie asks with all the pride of a mom putting one of those My Kid’s an Honor Student bumper stickers on the back of her minivan. It’s a little weird, frankly.
My eyes slowly open as hope sparks in my chest. “Uh, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t know it was there in the first place.”
“Well”—she laughs—“don’t lose it. Because this is gold. We can pretty much print money once this is published. And your readers are going to be thirsty for the next one and the one after that …”
“So, you like it?”
“Like it? I love it! Oh, when he fingers her in the car? I could barely breathe the entire scene, waiting for somebody to come up and open the door on them. It was so exciting!”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “It was pretty exciting.”
She doesn’t need to know just how true to life that scene was—and now that she’s brought up the idea of somebody opening the door, I’m super glad that never occurred to me at the moment. Talk about a mood killer.
“And when they first did it on the jet? Please tell me that actually happened.”
“Uh, Maggie”—I chuckle—“this is getting a little personal.”
“You’re right; you’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just so thrilled at how hot the book is. I didn’t want to have to part ways with you. It was keeping me up at night, the thought of having to let you go. I think this is a great new direction for you. You can only get more popular after this.”
“I hope you’re right.” My fingers are certainly crossed.
“So, what’s your plan for the next book? Typical advance—though I’m sure that’ll change as this new brand takes off.” She’s so confident; it’s almost enough to make me feel the same.
Almost.
“Let’s take a minute to breathe, please,” I beg with a hollow laugh. “My brain is basically mush right now.”
“You’d better un-mush it soon, young lady.” Yes, there’s the Maggie I know and only somewhat enjoy. She likes me again, which means we can be friends and she can pretend to chide me. “Readers are used to books cranking out a lot faster nowadays.”
There’s nothing to do but bite my tongue and pray it doesn’t fall off. “Sure. I get it.” Just like I get that she thinks I can go from one man to another the way I change underwear. I don’t know if that’s an insult or what.
“Take a few days,” she offers, generous as always. “Once you’ve decided who you’re dating next, let me know. I might be able to get a cover worked out in advance this time, knowing which trope you’re writing.”
“Got it.”
“Keep it filthy.”
“Will do,” I sigh.
“Maybe a threesome this time?”
“Maggie.”
“Okay, okay. Just a suggestion. Don’t knock it ’til you try it.”
“Maggie!” I gasp.
I can imagine her sitting at her desk, the city laid out behind her, laughing merrily.
“I’m just saying. You don’t know whether or not you’ll like something until you try it.”
I’m going to pretend she’s not speaking from experience—and that she wasn’t imagining me and some guy having sex throughout the book, which is a thought so icky that I don’t know what to do with it.
“Okay. I’ll keep an open mind.”
I most certainly will not.
Though who knows? I didn’t think I could manage to write something half as graphic as I did. There’s a whole world out there I haven’t come anywhere close to experiencing.
But a threesome? Maybe I can imagine one and just pretend I went through it for real.
The second we’re off the phone, I do a little victory dance across the apartment, pumping my fists. “Yes! Yes, yes!”
It occurs to me after I work myself up into a sweaty mess that there’s somebody I should be thanking for real.
If it wasn’t for Blake, there wouldn’t be any book at all.
We haven’t spoken in a week, and I’m running the risk of tangling with his new assistant, but I figure, calling his cell and leaving a short message can’t hurt.
“Hi. I was hoping you’d call, so I wouldn’t have to get up the courage to call you.”
I should have known better than to think he’d let it go to voice mail.
Gosh, I’ve missed his voice. The little touch of humor in it is so him too.
“Then, you’re lucky I got good news today since that’s why I’m calling.” Then, it occurs to me. “But if you’re busy, I won’t keep you.”
“I’m not, if you can believe that. I decided to take a little time off and lick my wounds. I’m at my mom’s house.”
“No kidding! How is she?”
“When she’s not smacking me upside the head for letting you get away? She’s great.”
I know he’s kidding—mostly—but my heart sinks anyway. “Blake …”
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad, I swear.
You were right. I need to find a way to sort my life out.
I can’t keep up the pace I’m working at now.
I don’t wanna be the guy who dies, feeling like he didn’t leave a legacy, but I don’t wanna be on my deathbed, wondering when life passed me by either. ”
“I’m really glad to hear that,” I murmur. It’s getting dark out now, the city coming to life the way only New York can at this time of day. “You deserve it. You’re such a great person, and you deserve to be happy.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you feel comfortable with what you wrote? Does that make you happy?”
“Oof. With the difficult questions and everything.”
That warm laughter of his. It’s so nice.
“I mean it. What do you think?”
“Well, that’s the good-news part. My editor adores the book, and I have you to thank for that as much as anybody else. It turned out well. Even I like it, which is saying something. I never like my finished product when I first read it.”
“That’s great, and I’m glad for you, but that’s not what I asked. How did you feel about writing it? Does the final product make you happy?”
Does it? I wish there were an easy answer.
“I mean, once I got into it, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I’d thought.
I was being stubborn. A little snobby too.
If readers are as voracious when it comes to this writing as my editor makes it sound, there’s gotta be value in it.
And the readers are what matter. I’m doing this for them, not for my ego or my bank account.
I guess I lost sight of that. Maybe I never had sight of it in the first place. ”
“You live a charmed life,” he gently points out. “We all need a challenge now and then, something to shake up the way we see things.”
“This was definitely a challenge. I think I could get used to writing dirtier romance. Though honestly, you made it easier.”
“Tell me you didn’t get too specific, please.”
“You can read it!”
“Tell me.”
“I mean … I changed some circumstances,” I squeak, squeezing my eyes shut again.
“If you tell me all you left out was that burp you laid down—”
“Blake!”
“Is it?”
“No! I mean, yes, I left that out. But no. I changed a bunch of things. Jeez.”
“Okay. I’ll take your word for it. But if my sister throws her copy in my face and accuses me of being a pervert, you’ll be hearing from me.”
“I hope I hear from you regardless,” I murmur, leaning against the window frame.
“You will, for sure,” he promises before saying good-bye.
It doesn’t seem like we said everything left to be said, but I don’t know if it would be possible to do that. There’s too much in my heart.
I really hope the next person I date doesn’t have me falling. There’s no way I could handle this again.
“Hayley?” I ask when she answers. Sure, I told her I’d call her first, but I think she’ll understand. “Could you spare an hour or two tonight?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” she groans. “I’m so sorry. I made sure my schedule was clear tonight, just in case.”
“Wait. What?”
“What?”
“That’s the faith you had in me, huh?”
“You sounded sad!” She laughs. “What was I supposed to think? So, you got the green light? You’re getting published?”
Maybe I was sad, just a little, thinking about Blake. But it’s time to start moving on, and tonight’s as good a place to start as any. “We’re going out. My treat. Look hot.”