Chapter 2
I sit up, stretch, locate the hacky sack in my tangled sheets, and place it safely on the nightstand beside my phone.
Next week is the last week of the school year, so I have only one Monday left after this one.
I consider my workday. Tenth grade has a test on Romeo and Juliet.
My twelfth grade novel-writing elective has a write-in.
All in all, it should be an easy day. When I started teaching ten years ago, I quickly realized Mondays would forever suck unless I carefully constructed a schedule that would make them a little more bearable.
Especially at the end of the school year, when spring fever turns teenagers into feral wildebeests.
And so, I have done that. This Monday should be no different than any other.
I make the bed and head straight for the bathroom. Shower, teeth, hair, makeup. Brew the coffee, make the oatmeal. My life is an endless loop, an uninspiring reel on repeat.
Because he’s my friend as well as my literary agent, I don’t get the same kind of nervous butterflies I used to get when faced with his name in my inbox or on my phone.
That was replaced with kinship about two books ago and more recently has been traded again, this time for some variety of anxiety.
Today’s gut instinct is more dread than butterflies.
Butterflies are hopeful. Flying around in my belly are the Japanese lantern flies that littered the city not too long ago.
An invasive species appropriately matched with my current writerly state.
I love him; it’s not that. I just… I know him. Evan’s a fixer.
“Hey, Ev,” I say.
“Mel, sweetie. How are you?”
“Hanging in there. You? How was your weekend?”
“No. No deflecting—although I will share that Oliver and I went out to dinner at Becco and I sat right behind Neil Patrick Harris.”
“For real?”
“Mm hmm. He is tall.” He says it as if this is a secret but also as if the adjective “tall” is a filthy word.
Only Evan can make me laugh when I’m in the midst of staving off a full-blown meltdown. “For real?”
“Endless pasta and eye candy?” he asks rhetorically. “Total dream come true. But anyway. You know that’s not why I’m calling.”
I gulp. “Yeah. I know.”
“I’ll ask again. How are you?”
“Not great, if I’m being honest.”
“You staying off Goodreads?”
“Nope. I’m a masochist. I check it every night. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Have you seen the latest?”
“Not sure. I think so?”
“They’re saying I plagiarized Beckett Nash’s book.”
“Oh. That. Yeah, I know. You’ve got to stop looking at that swill, though. It’s poison.”
“I can’t help it. I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know?”
“Well, that’s why I’m calling. Me and Jax have been talking about this. We think it’s important to get out ahead of it.”
Jax. As in my editor, Jackie Girardi. “Too late, don’t you think?”
“No way. Never too late. Anyway, we might have done something.”
The lantern flies morph into pterodactyls. Angry, hungry, loud ones. “Go ahead. Spill it.”
“Last week, Jax reached out to his agent.”
And just like that, I am extinct. I swallow the heartbreak-sized lump in my throat. “I’m sorry. She did what now?”
“She called Shelby Finn, who, by the way, I’m told is really quite lovely.”
“Wait. Jax called his agent? Like, on the phone?” I ask, my pulse pounding in my neck.
“She explained the situation and said that she thought the best course of action would be for the two of you to do a bit together.”
“A bit? What does that mean?”
“You know, Mel. A piece. A segment. An article. Whatever type of press we can get. He used you to get where he is. There is literally zero shame in using him back to clear your name. You think people are paying attention now? People will really pay attention if you’re facing each other, telling your truth together as—”
“Evan,” I interrupt, “you can’t be serious.”
“Melody,” he says with a sigh. That’s all. Just my name. As if I’ve exhausted him with my mere existence.
I blink back the stupid tears that have egregiously decided to spring to my eyes. “I can’t do this right now. I’m at work, Ev.”
He must hear it in my voice, the fact that he’s pushed me to the brink. “I’m sorry, hon. I don’t mean to upset you.”
I take a breath, but it sounds like a small gasp. “It’s okay. I just—I gotta go.”
“That’s fine. Just know that Jax is working on something. It’s a favor to me,” he admits. “She doesn’t do shit like this for just anyone.”
“Okay,” I manage to squeak out.
“Please. Call me after school. I should have more info by then.”
“Uh huh.”
“Okay. I want you to listen to me, though. Keep calm and soldier on and all that. Everything’s going to be fine. You have my word.”
Famous last words, I think as I hang up the phone.