Chapter Sixteen
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Archie
I’m not sure which is hotter, making out with Sarelia after our meeting or watching Ted squirm as she leans over him to peer at his bindings.
“What brand are these?” she asks, examining a buckle with nary a glance at the man beneath them. “Are they leather?”
“They are,” I answer, clasping my hands tightly behind my back. Snogging over Ted would not be romantic, regardless of how very much I want to kiss her. “I made them myself.”
“Wow,” she whispers, walking around the table to examine the acid collection set up at the end. “You’ve made hoppers!” she exclaims, clapping. “This is incredible!”
I bow, pleased. It is so rare that anyone properly appreciates my craftsmanship.
Even Stryker and Basil shy away from looking too closely at my work station, and Millie and Heidi are strictly allowed over only when I do not have an ongoing project on the sterile side of my basement.
That Sarelia would be the first to truly observe and admire my work shoots tingling currents of electricity through me, enticing me to reconsider my stance on snogging in the workplace.
“This would have made such good research material for one of my books,” Sarelia mutters, moving on from my table to poke around my tool chest. “I was so scared writing that dark romance series because every time I googled something I was just sure that the FBI was going to knock on the door with a warrant for my arrest. But look! You could’ve been my own walking search engine! ”
“You did an excellent job without me,” I reply. “In fact, after reading that series, I went back through my footage of you from Stone to check you weren’t sneaking off to participate in your own corner of the darker parts of the world.”
She turns to me, a pair of blood-stained channel-lock pliers hanging in her grip—a siren if ever I’ve seen one. “You read my books?” she asks.
My brows furrow. “Of course. Didn’t you see them in our meeting room?”
Ted whimpers between us as she approaches, lifting the pliers as she shrugs. “I saw them, but I thought you just bought them to support me, not to read them.”
I tsk. “What a very silly thing to think. Why would I not want to delve into the worlds you create? When they tell me so very much about you?”
Her nose wrinkles. “My stories are not me.”
“No,” I agree. “But your trends are. Your penchant for the found family trope encouraged me to look deeper into the dynamics between you and your parents, while the way you write brothers made it clear that you adore yours. The things you enjoy and obsess over also make it onto the page—namely, me, but other things as well. I learned that your favorite type of games to play on your computer are search-and-find cat games and that you have a deep disdain for bran.” I smile gently at her, my wife.
“Your stories are not you, but you place pieces of yourself within them whether you mean to or not.”
She blinks, resting the pliers against the edge of the table and ignoring Ted’s attempts to wiggle away from them. “Oh.”
“I was sad to hear about your retirement,” I admit. “I didn’t think you ever would, with the fervor in which you write, and I’ve become rather addicted to your stories. It came as quite the surprise.”
“I’m still going to write,” she says. “I’m just not going to publish anymore.
I don’t need to, and it’s exhausting. The writing is the fun part.
But publishing—especially publishing independently—it’s exhausting.
Editing and marketing and worrying about trope trends and cover trends and doing my newsletter and ads and on and on and on until my eyes cross and my fingers bleed.
I don’t want to have to do it all, you know?
But even if I made a try for traditional publishing where there’d be less on my plate, that less is still a lot more than I can handle anymore.
I’m burnt out.” She taps the pliers against the metal table, and Ted loses control of his faculties, the poor, stupid thing.
“There’s a chance I might write something in the future that I think, ‘Oh, yeah, the readers have to have this one,’ but mostly I’ve been using my newfound free time to write stuff for me. ”
“And so, retirement,” I observe.
“And so, retirement,” she repeats.
“Will I get to read any of your post-retirement works?” I ask, enjoying the bolt of uncertainty that follows.
I’m not often in the position of possibly receiving a no that I intend to honor.
The potential that I might not get what I want and the anticipation of finding out sparks goosebumps along my skin even as my stomach riots.
Sarelia, my sweet angel, does not leave me to suffer in such a state for long—something we will have to work on. “I’ll write some just for you.”
Triumph, but not quite. “And the others that you write?” I push.
She nibbles at her lip, clicking the pliers open and shut. “I would have to edit them first,” she says.
Patience, then, because I will not be asking my wife to edit for me when she has just told me she’s burnt out.
I’ll ask her later, when she’s adjusted to life here enough to truly relax and recover.
Until then, it’s not like she doesn’t have plenty of content published. I can reread a book or twenty.
“I can wait,” I assure her.
She sighs and sends me a grateful smile. “Thank you.”
“No, Sarelia. Thank you.” Silly wife. “I’m asking you to do laborious work for me for no reason other than that I am selfish for more of your thoughts, humor, creativity, and inexplicable ability to tug at heart-strings I did not know could be tugged.
You’re agreeing to give me a gift. You should not be thanking me. ”
“I’m not thanking you for the work,” she clarifies. “I’m thanking you for wanting it and for being willing to wait for it. Many of my readers are impatient for the next book, always asking for more and now. I appreciate that you are willing to wait.”
Well. One cannot argue with that.
And so I don’t.
“Are you going to use those?” I ask, flicking my eyes to the pliers she holds tantalizingly close to Ted’s balled fist. “If you’re against the removal of entire fingers, we can start with just the nails,” I offer.
She looks down at her tool with surprise. “Oh!” Her eyes move to Ted, and her nose wrinkles. “Do you have any options that are a little less… bloody?”
My eyes spark as a grin marks my face, an edge of manic delight pulsing through me.
“Let’s get the needles.”