5. Chapter Five
Chapter Five
Ethan stepped into Gino’s Pizzeria, the smell of bubbling cheese and tangy tomato sauce hitting him instantly.
The low hum of chatter, punctuated by occasional cheers from Cubs’ fans glued to the TVs on the walls, filled the packed place.
It was loud, chaotic, and exactly the setting he could get lost in if he wasn’t worried about the conversation he was about to have.
Scanning the dining room, he spotted her—Paige Moon, tucked into a booth at the back, a soda in hand, her head bent over her phone like it was the most interesting thing in the whole place.
Paige had finally called after two days of silence, but her message had been maddeningly vague.
Let’s meet. We need to talk. Ethan hated loose ends.
He didn’t like to feel out of control. And Paige Moon was another fraying thread in his unraveling life.
She hadn’t signed the contract yet, and without her, his shot at finding the necklace was as good as dead.
Why hadn’t she signed it?
His mind cycled through worst-case scenarios. Maybe she’d decided she didn’t need him. Or to go solo and keep the necklace for herself. Maybe she thought he was nothing more than a washed-up reality star with a lucky book deal. The last idea stung more than it should have.
Weaving through the maze of tables, Ethan dodged servers with trays of deep-dish pizzas, until he reached Paige’s booth.
She didn’t notice him at first, too busy sipping her soda and scanning her phone.
But when he cleared his throat, her dark eyes flicked up, widening in surprise before narrowing with sharp, feline focus.
“Not a Cubs fan?” he asked, trying to break the ice between them, which was about as thick as a concrete wall.
Paige blinked. Her black hair was pulled into a ponytail, but a stray wave had escaped. She tucked it behind her ear, then spared a glance at the nearest TV, where fans were roaring over a double play. “I’m not not a Cubs’ fan,” she replied, her tone breezy. But her gaze pierced him.
“Double negative? Bold choice.” He shrugged off his bomber jacket. It wasn’t cold enough to need it, but his grandpa’s jacket was a habit—like a piece of armor he couldn’t leave behind.
Paige lifted a shoulder in a half shrug, but the corner of her mouth twitched, the smallest hint of a smile. Ethan considered it a win.
“If I watch baseball,” she started, twirling the straw in her soda. “I’d rather do it at Wrigley Field. With nachos. And a hot dog.”
“Hard to argue with that.” He slid into the booth, setting his jacket on the black vinyl seat.
“For once, we agree,” Paige said, though her tone suggested they wouldn’t agree on much else. The doubts in Ethan’s head recharged.
He straightened, pressing back against the seat. Folding his arms across his chest, he zoned in on Paige’s skeptical face. “You haven’t signed the contract.” No point dancing around it. What was she waiting for?
Paige released her grip on the straw, setting her hand on the red-checkered tablecloth. “Not yet.”
“Is there something in the terms you’re not comfortable with?” His voice was even, but questions burned inside him. Was she angling for more money? More control? He could be flexible. To a point.
Paige shook her head. She leaned forward, her expression unreadable. “It’s not the contract. It’s you.”
That caught him off guard and then hit on quite a few insecurities. “Me?” He jabbed a thumb at his chest, hoping she was referring to his stupid tweet. He braced for another round of apologies. At least that was something he could fix, hopefully.
“Before I sign anything . . .” Paige paused, assessing him with sharp scrutiny. “I need to know what I’m getting into.”
Ethan furrowed his brow, scrambling for answers and assurances. “I thought the contract laid it out pretty clearly. Equal work, equal royalties, and—”
She held up a hand, cutting him off. “This isn’t about royalties.
It’s about us. If we’re going to do this, I need to know more about you.
What you’re like as a writer. How you see this partnership working.
” She pushed her phone aside, revealing a notebook filled with scribbled notes and underlines.
The entire page. Like she’d been taking notes at a seminar.
“Okay . . .” He blinked. “What do you want to know?”
Paige pursed her lips. She glanced down at her notes, suddenly looking like a detective ready to grill a suspect. “I’m going to give you rapid-fire questions. No overthinking. Just answer.” She glanced back at him, waiting for him to respond.
For a moment, he just stared at her. “This sounds intense.”
“It is.”
“Should I be nervous?”
“Only if you’re going to tell me what I don’t want to hear,” she said.
He suppressed a smirk. Paige Moon had nerve.
A flicker of amusement cut through the tension, momentarily distracting him from the weight of the necklace, the book, and the contract. She was intriguing . . . and a challenge. Like a steaming cup of coffee—small, barely contained, and more than capable of scalding him.
But he liked coffee.
“Fire away, Ms. Moon.”
Paige poised her pen at the top of the page. “Why do you write?”
Ethan set his forearms on the table, clasping his hands in thought. “That’s a big question.”
Paige squinted at him. “Answer quickly. I have a lot of questions.” She moved her pen down the page like a pointer, demonstrating what lay ahead.
“I like the challenge of creating a world and characters,” he replied. “Of piecing together an adventure.”
Paige’s pen scratched across the paper, her face unreadable. She should’ve been an FBI negotiator.
“Plotter or pantser?” she asked, still writing.
“Plotter,” he answered, without hesitation.
Her pen stopped mid-word. She grimaced. So did he.
“You’re a pantser, I take it?” he asked, realizing their writing styles were very different.
She made a succinct note, underlining it. “Yes.” She looked up at him. “Don’t you think that would make it incredibly hard for us to write a book together?”
It would. Ethan liked to plot out his story, chapter by chapter, before he started writing it. Pantsers—as the writing community referred to it—liked to discover the story as they wrote it. The idea of that gave him heart palpitations.
“No,” he lied with a concise shrug. “We could figure it out. It’s just one book.”
Paige tapped the pen against her notebook, not looking convinced. “Outlining kills my creative flow. If I plot out an entire book, my brain thinks I’ve already written the story. Plotting gives me writer’s block.” She stared, waiting for his response.
Ethan fought to keep his face neutral. He was the opposite. Without an outline, his writing stalled. That was part of his problem now and why he couldn’t finish the first chapter of his manuscript. “Maybe we’d complement each other?” he offered, not wanting to linger on this obvious issue.
She raised a brow, skeptically.
“We won’t know until we try?” Ethan meant to say it as a statement, but it came out as a question. Paige looked undecided, but moved on.
“Do you prefer to write at home, a coffee shop, or somewhere else?”
“Home,” he replied, watching her face fall again, so he tentatively asked, “How about you?”
“Sometimes I write at home,” she said, “but I also write on the train, in coffee shops, at the park or museum. I’ve even written at Wrigley Field during a game, with a hot dog in hand. Basically anywhere. I can’t write in the same place every day. That also gives me writer’s block.”
Ethan set his jaw, picturing his perfectly organized home office.
Books on tall shelves, organized alphabetically.
His tidy desk faced an enormous window that looked out over a peaceful park.
He thought about how he always walked on his treadmill for twenty minutes before sitting down to write, and that he needed to light the woodsy-scented candle that sat on the right side of his desk.
The rest of his life wasn’t always predictable, so he found comfort in the structure of his writing.
“I like variety too,” he lied straight through his teeth.
Paige took a sip of soda through her straw, analyzing his response.
Luckily, before she could grill him on it, a server stopped at their booth to deliver a steaming pizza, topped with big blobs of sausage and mozzarella.
He slid it onto the table and asked if they needed anything else, before saying, “Enjoy” and heading to the next table.
“I was starving, and the deep-dish pizzas take forever to make.” Paige handed Ethan a plate and silverware wrapped in a napkin. “I took a chance and ordered. I hope you like sausage.”
“Good choice.” Ethan took the plate and silverware from her, and they were quiet as they each pulled a few piping hot pieces onto their plates.
Paige cut into her pizza with a fork and knife. She forked a gooey piece and blew on it, before asking, “Do you write chronologically or jump around?”
“Chronologically,” he said, then added, “Helps me keep track of character arcs.”
Paige paused, finally looking pleased with one of his answers, which gave him a sliver of hope. She popped the pizza in her mouth and chewed, closing her eyes in appreciation. “Nothing like a Gino’s deep dish.”
He took a bite and hummed in agreement.
Paige sliced into her pizza again. “What’s your biggest strength as a writer?”
He shifted, her direct gaze making him uncomfortably aware of how much he wanted this to work, how he wanted to impress her.
Paige was a brilliant writer. He’d read her entire Love, Lies & Alibis series, all the way through the margarita explosion.
She wrote smart, witty characters, fast-paced scenes, plenty of romantic tension, and twists he didn’t see coming.
There were plenty of reasons he’d wanted her to read and blurb his latest book.
And plenty of reasons why it stung when she refused to do so.
“Action scenes,” Ethan said at last.
She nodded thoughtfully, scribbling in her notebook. “I agree.”
He stopped chewing. What did that mean? How much had she read of his book before deciding he wasn’t worth endorsing? Before he could ask, she fired off her next question.
“Biggest weakness?” she asked, and Ethan closed his mouth, wondering if she already had an answer in her head.
He hesitated, the truth lodged in his throat. “Deep emotional connections,” he admitted finally, though the confession felt like exposing a raw nerve. It wasn’t just a weakness he found with his writing. He had trouble with it in real life. Every time he’d let someone in, he regretted it.
Paige looked up at him from her pizza. Her expression looked softer, more genuine. Then she popped a sausage in her mouth, chewing for a long time before she finally said, “This won’t be easy.”
Ethan leaned forward slightly. “Does that mean you’ll sign?”
Paige set down her fork. “I don’t have a choice.” She licked her lips, holding his gaze. “I can’t figure out this clue. I need insider information.”
Relief coursed through him. Finally, progress. “What does it say?”
Paige hesitated. Then she reached into her purse, pulling out a folded piece of paper. She held it between them. “I’ve been here since lunch trying to decipher this.”
Ethan arched a brow. “Can I see it?” He reached for the clue—
Paige yanked it back.
His stomach sank.
“When it comes to the writing, I need the final say,” Paige said firmly. “I want that added to the contract. Non-negotiable. This is not just my career we’re talking about. Writing is my whole life. I take it very seriously.”
Ethan’s chest tightened like Paige had just snagged it in a vise. He took his writing seriously too. But he didn’t argue. “Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll make that happen.”
Paige studied him for a beat, then, satisfied, handed him the folded paper.
As Ethan scanned the clue, Paige launched into her analysis. She thought it pointed to Gino’s—the candlelit tables, the deep-dish pizzas, the old wooden booth top in the entry etched with customer names.
“It’s got to be here,” she insisted. “But I’ve searched this place like a weirdo all afternoon. This is my second pizza. My fifth Coke. I’ll probably be up all night with caffeine jitters . . .”
Ethan barely heard her. His grandpa’s handwriting. The careful slant of each letter. It clicked.
His gaze snapped up to Paige’s. “I know where it is.” Relief surged through him, for the first time in days. “It’s not here.” He grabbed his jacket. “Come on.”
Paige blinked. “Wait—what?”
Ethan was already sliding out of the booth. He tossed a few bills onto the table and jerked his chin toward the door. “Trust me.” His pulse hammered as he turned to her, excitement buzzing in his veins.
Paige exhaled, grabbed her bag, and followed him.