19. Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Milo
Back at Rose’s apartment, on the living room floor with Callum and their golden retriever, Rose looks up at me, her hair piled in a messy bun on the top of her head, a look of defeat in her eyes. “I can’t believe my kid did that to you.”
I chuckle. “He did it to you, too.”
She presses her eyes shut and adjusts the hem of her grey sweatshirt. “I keep reliving it in slow motion. Me turning around from the car seat, to seeing him vomit all over you, to me grabbing him from you and realizing, mid-stream, that he wasn’t done.” She looks at me again, shaking her head back and forth in disbelief. “I’m glad you didn’t get the full brunt of it, though.”
I laugh again and scrub Thorin’s ears. Thorin is her golden retriever, and she said she named him after Thorin Oakenshield from The Hobbit . I swear, I wanted to fan my face like some Victorian gal when she said that. It’s hot that she named her dog after a fantasy character, okay?
“I feel like it’s a badge of honor, though,” I say. “Like Callum and I imprinted. He’s my dude now.”
“You’re being chill about it all.” The look on Rose’s face is like she’d just been through a war—wan and tired. She also seems embarrassed.
I have to admit, it was a shock to be thrown up on without warning. Being the youngest, I’d never had that happen before. After it happened, I ran up to my suite, changed my clothes, and then brought down some towels and a T-shirt for Rose to change into if she wanted to, so she wouldn’t have to drive all the way home in her dirty one. She had a change of clothes for Callum with her, so by the time I got back downstairs and out to her car, he was cleaned up and in his car seat but still fussy with huge tears pooling in his eyes.
And Rose was upset. Her forehead knotted up—the stress coming off her in waves. She looked both defeated and ramped up, like she needed a good weeping session in a sound-proof chamber, followed by a nap.
I couldn’t leave her to deal with all that on her own, so I sat in the back seat next to Callum while she drove us all to her apartment. When we arrived, she checked out his ears and throat with her otoscope. “Everything looks clear, there,” she’d said.
I like watching her be a nurse.
“The thing that impressed me was the way you changed out of your shirt,” I tell her. I’m laid out on the floor of her apartment now, playing with toys with a freshly bathed Callum and the dog. I suddenly realize how my comment sounds.
“Out of context, that sounds kind of funny,” she says with a grin. She’s lying on the couch near us in her open plan family room that’s connected to the kitchen. It’s all very cozy. Very familial.
I like it.
“I’d just never seen someone put a T-shirt over their head, do something magical under the shirt, and voila! Their baby-vomit-stained shirt is whipped out of the bottom of the clean T-shirt.”
“You don’t have sisters, so . . .” She shrugs.
“And that explains it how?”
“It’s dance lessons one-oh-one. My mom would pick me up from school to take me to dance at the YMCA, but we were always in a rush, and always late, so I didn’t have time to change at the school or at dance lessons. I had to change in the car on the way. You learn some vital skills doing that.”
“Necessity is the mother of invention.”
“Yep. And full disclosure, I wasn’t a very good dancer, so I didn’t take lessons for long. It was a good thing since they were expensive.”
“That’s too bad.”
“It was fine. Like I said, I didn’t love it. The only times my mom’s tiny bank account bothered me was when I couldn’t go to science camp in the summers like my friends. That sucked.”
“Science camp?” I hand Callum another large plastic ring. He’s stacking them on a plastic cone.
“Don’t you judge.” She lifts a finger. “It’s the scientists who rule the world and you know it. I’m a nerd, and I live it proudly.”
“I bet I’m more of a nerd than you are.”
“Oh? Is this a contest, Milo?” She runs her hand down her thigh to scratch the smooth fabric of her sea-green leggings, but I’m tripped up by the movement. “Cause I could run circles around your nerdhood all day.”
“I go to comic cons every year,” I shoot back.
“Please.” She scoffs. “Lots of non-nerds go to comic cons. That doesn’t prove anything.”
“I wouldn’t say lots.”
She laughs. “Okay, maybe you’re right. So would you classify your nerdhood as more science fiction, comics, gaming, fantasy novels, stuff like that? Or actual science?”
“You know I’m no scientist. Battlestar Gallactica. Wheel of Time. I went through a Marvel Comics phase.” I swallow hard. “And fantasy fiction. Can’t get enough of the epic saga stuff, you know?” I want to tell her that I actually write it, but the words jam up inside.
Her mouth curves into a smile. She stands, tucks in an escaped lock of hair, and walks over to a cupboard in the corner of the room. “You know you’ve gained a certain level of trust when I allow you to see my secret stash.” She tugs open the cupboard and does a flourish with her arm. “Tada! Who’s the bigger nerd now, huh?”
I make a squeak. A very non-manly squeak, but I don’t have time to be embarrassed about it because I’m up off the floor and to the corner cupboard. “Robert Jordan? Joe Abercrombie? Patrick Rothfuss?”
“It’s a signed copy, even.” Rose slides The Name of the Wind off the bookshelf and opens up the front cover. “I’ve read this series five times, at least. Which is saying something because I usually don’t have time to do re-reads.”
My heart’s pumping like crazy again. A woman as incredible as Rose reads fantasy? Could a guy get any luckier? I sit on the floor near her, stretching my legs out long so I can better see the titles.
And so I can better see Rose.
We talk about our favorite characters and storylines for that series and a few others, talking over each other, reminiscing when certain bestsellers came out.
“Do you have memorabilia or any fandom type things?” I ask her.
“I work in housekeeping at a resort, have a kid, and am trying to save up for nursing school, so no.” She makes a face, which makes me laugh. “Most of these paperbacks I got from the used bookstore. Do you have any memorabilia?”
I rock back and forth on my heels. “Not really. It’s sort of a secret hobby. Not many people in my life know about it.” No one who knows my real name knows I write fantasy. All my online friends and readers know me as Thaddeus Blackthorn.
“Oh. You keep secrets, huh? Have to hide who you really are, huh? Interesting.” She rests her hands in her lap as she sits cross-legged on the other side of the bookshelf.
I can’t tell how serious she is, but knowing how much Blaine hurt her—and I’m assuming her father by his abandonment—I can see how that might be a sticky thing.
“I totally would wear it more proudly, but I’m sort of . . . biding my time a little bit. I’ll come clean soon.”
“Come clean?” She clicks her tongue. “Like it’s something to be ashamed of.” She gently pushes my shoulder.
“It’s just that . . . my brothers don’t read much. And as I got older and more and more of my siblings left home, I had to find something to do to occupy myself. And when I read Sanderson and Jordan, that was it for me. It was the escape I needed.”
Rose holds up a finger. “Oh. Speaking of escape, I have to show you my latest obsession.” She grabs her phone off the sofa and swipes through an app before showing me the screen. “If you like Brandon Sanderson, you’re gonna love this.”
My mouth drops open. I can’t believe it. It’s Zehma of the Night Loch , my own serial story, the one I’ve been posting on Turnip every week.
Rose reads my stories? And likes them? A low hum of panic filters through me. What are the odds?
I should tell her it’s me. It feels strange not to. She deserves to know the truth. Still, I’ve been so used to having this be my secret for so long that I panic.
“ Zehma of the Night Loch ? Huh. Where’d you hear about this?” I take the phone from her and scroll through, reading the very description I wrote months ago. It sounds so foreign in my head right now.
“I think it was a customer at the restaurant who told me about Turnip in the first place. I did a free trial, saw this story was a top trending one and got hooked. So I pay the subscription fee now. He posts a new chapter every week. It’s my one guilty pleasure as a mom.”
“That’s great. Of course you need to do things that make you happy and are just for you, you know?” My mouth is like sandpaper. This is strange.
She nods, trapping her bottom lip between her teeth. “I figure I’m going to have to give up the subscription when I start school, though. I can’t fathom how I’ll have the time. So I’m enjoying it while I can.”
I’m tempted to ask her more, to find out what it is about the story that she likes, if the plotlines are satisfying, if the character arcs feel right, if the timing and pacing are working for her.
But I can’t, because I might accidentally give myself away.
I wasn’t kidding when I told Rose I was preparing to come clean about my fantasy fiction hobby. What she doesn’t know is that includes my writing fantasy fiction. I want to tell my family about it, I’m just not quite ready.
I need to before I start the Professional MFA Program at Greenleaf in September.
But every time I think of mentioning it, that’s the prevailing feeling. I’m not ready yet. Maybe that’s my whole problem at this point. Maybe I’m waiting for some sort of outside validation, like hitting number one on Turnip or the Top 100 on Amazon to be like, See family? See? This is legit. I’m not just a fantasy writer. I’m a good fantasy writer.
I got another rejection from a literary agency today, which stung. My brothers and my parents seem to be good at whatever they try. Whether it’s playing sports or growing their wealth, they’re naturals. So it tracks that I’m going to want some outside validation before I admit my secret.
And I’ve gotten that validation from the readers of Turnip. Somehow it doesn’t feel like it’s enough yet.
Rose loves my work, though. How wild is that?
And how’s she going to feel when she finds out it’s me?