Chapter 5
?
Dare I say, the plot thickens.
August
I…am rich.
Baffled, I stare at my Kindle Direct Publishing Dashboard, or more specifically I start at the over a hundred sales it’s reporting. It has to be a glitch. Except…it’s a very odd glitch, if it is. Sometimes, will lag, and I’ll see an odd uptick, but it never lags like this.
Moving to the Orders tab, I discover that not only is this every single one of my books, but it’s also not the ebooks. Someone has ordered one of all one hundred twenty-six of my novels…in paperback.
That’s over two thousand dollars in market value.
“They spent over two thousand dollars,” I whisper, aloud, to see if it sounds any more or less real in audio. Over two thousand dollars for them and nearly eight hundred in royalties for me.
A violent shudder rocks my whole entire body, and I gulp. Who in their right mind…
Maybe Mirabelle did this?
She did just marry a billionaire last month, but we don’t exactly see each other all that often and there’s no real reason for her to decide to support me like this all of a sudden if she hasn’t previously.
Still, she’s the only reader I can think of who’d have this much disposable income and know who I am…
It occurs to me that I’ve just ordered a casket for approximately the same amount of money, and I certainly don’t have what I’d call the disposable income for it. I merely had a savings. And a whim.
Maybe someone else with a savings and a whim found my work and resonated with it enough to make an impulse decision like this?
Even though I’m not interested in building a career out of my writing, I do have a tiny pool of readers who have found me one way or another through organic algorithms and my publishing frequency.
Despite not focusing on cultivating this into a career, I do know a thing or two about placing myself well enough in SEO, so even with muddy genres and unclear branding, each book is positioned for its genre with applicable keywords and a polished blurb.
It’s not impossible that someone new found me and decided to splurge.
It’s just…uncanny.
Especially given how convoluted my backlist is.
Hopefully it’s not a mistake that gets returned in a few days. I think seeing the negative income would gut me regardless of if it’s just my Dashboard balancing back out or not.
Anyway, whatever happens, I guess it’s not really in my control.
So I should focus on what is.
Today, 10:24 a.m.
FROM: awinslow@
TO: alim@
SUBJECT: Unsolicited anime recommendation
Ali:
Watch I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magic Ability immediately. Work no longer matters. Only this anime matters.
You’ll thank me later.
So glad you’re never ever busy,
August
(This is why you hired a) Virtual Assistant
P.S. - Please see the attached list of proof of all my good work instead if you hate joy.
Once I’ve done my true job of enlightening Ali’s world to the wonders of anime, I get back into the side quests that are the job I’m paid for. All the while, my mind drifts through the possibilities of what my next story might hold.
I’ve already decided that my male lead is a pretty blond vampire who sleeps in a pretty pink coffin—or casket, since Walmart does not actually carry the proper definition of a coffin.
I looked it up, for educational purposes.
The difference is the shape. A coffin is a six-sided box that tapers toward the legs while a casket has four sides and no taper.
Pretty blond vampire boy’s girlie should absolutely mistake his casket for a coffin, and he should explain the difference and how having a little more leg room is nice. That could be a cute scene. Funny, too. Clearly, I’m dipping my toes in paranormal romcom.
Hm.
If I’m doing vampires, I need to identify the lore I’m keeping or scrapping.
Sunlight. Garlic. Crosses.
Only blood, or food, too.
Whether or not animal blood satiates.
Ah.
Pausing, I blink at the email I’m writing to one of Mont Business’s clients. It’s a reply on when the next course update will be. And I’ve just typed: Hi, Martin, the next update to your Mont Business course will be going live on animal blood.
And this is why we proofread, ladies and gentlemen…
After correcting the email, I compulsively check my inbox.
It is silent. And cold. And empty.
I check the time on when I sent Ali the anime recommendation, then I check the clock.
Thirty minutes have passed.
That’s…odd for her.
I may not know a great deal about the head honcho of the Mont Business company, but I do know that she works. All day. Every day. It’s constant. Practically a disease. No matter when I email her, she answers. Within minutes.
It’s been that way ever since my first email reached her personal company inbox three long years ago.
I have always suspected that she clears every email she receives immediately, downs her eighth five-hour energy in a row, and has my anime recs running constantly on her sixth monitor.
She learned Japanese purely to streamline the intake of media without needing to focus on the subtitles while she’s working.
In my brain, Ali Montgomery is a girl boss to the nth degree. As the only daughter in her family, she was discouraged from going to business school, but instead of giving up, she instead took it personally and built an empire out of spite without the help of any formal education.
Her mother, desperately, wanted grandchildren and to bake pies with her daughter on weekdays while the grandbabies milled about in her living room watching Bluey.
But Ali would not have it.
She hit the books and the gym and all her meals are protein powder packets that she takes straight. She lost her mother’s approval the minute Mont Business took off. She’s still vying for her father’s. But he’s as old fashioned as her mother, so it’s not going well.
She drowns her sorrows in extra protein packets and even more work.
It’s tragic. Very, very tragic.
Which means I’m the only bright spot in her entire world, so it’s my job to remain a positive influence.
Today, 11:00 a.m.
FROM: awinslow@
TO: alim@
SUBJECT: RE: Unsolicited anime recommendation
Hey, boss:
Are you dead?
Concerned,
August
Virtual Assistant (who also does wellness checks at no extra cost, what a stellar employee, give her a raise)
If she doesn’t reply by noon, I’m working my way through the corporation until I find someone with her personal phone number, then I’m using the area code, her full name, and an online phonebook to locate her address, then I’m arriving on her doorstep…
with I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magic Ability loaded up on my CrunchyRoll.
She’ll open the door.
I’ll hit play.
She’ll call security.
I’ll turn up the volume as the sirens close in.
Heh.
What a positively hilarious way to become both fired and receive my first restraining order.
All things considered, I probably shouldn’t do anything that might get me fired, though. It’s actually such a shame how attached I am to the financial security trope I have going on as Ali’s employee.
Like with most things, money is the root of all problems.
Alas, alas.
As the clock crawls forward with no response, I lose some of my humor.
It’s midday on a Friday. If it were really late, I’d be able to convince myself that Ali Workaholic McGee went to bed early for once in her life.
But it’s not late. It’s not early. It’s almost lunch break, which has never stopped her from replying before.
This is odd. Uncomfortable. A break in the pattern we’ve held for three solid years.
Come rain, or shine, or weekend, or holiday, Ali replies promptly and sarcastically.
It’s a law of nature.
Which makes this unnatural.
I find myself staring at my inbox, willing proof of life to appear while my gaze perpetually trails toward the chat function. I’ve never used it before. I figured being a menace in the inbox of a woman who is neurotic about her work was enough villainy…but…
It hits noon.
I click.
I type.
I press enter.
Me: Are you okay? It’s been over an hour and a half since I sent you an email, and I know that would be perfectly normal for most people, but you are not most people, and you’ve never taken more than ten minutes to reply to any of my emails in the past three years.
I apologize if I’m out of line, but I just want to make sure you’re all right.
I know I’m out of line.
Despite our less-than-professional work relationship, it is still very much a work relationship. I throw her unprofessional anime recommendations on the regular, and she responds with similar lack of hinge, but that doesn’t mean we know anything personal about each other.
In three years, there has never been a how are you or a what are you up to?
She knows I like anime. After my years of bombardment, I know she also likes anime.
That’s the extent of our personal connection.
Huh.
Worry eating away at me, I stare at the chat I’ve just started and feel the profound loneliness of this situation as it seeps into my bones.
I know nothing about the person I would consider my closest friend after December.
That realization causes a tsunami of unwelcome and unidentifiable emotions to flood into me, so I’m almost grateful when my doorbell rings and distracts me from them.
Taking a breath, I stare at my emails and my email chat for three more silent seconds, then I head out of my office to meet whoever’s at my front door.
The moment I eliminate the barrier between me and the outside world, heat whacks me, fogging my glasses—a testament that summer is in full swing as the early days of July overtake us.
Promptly following the heat and the fog, I find myself blinded by a man who has absolutely no reason at all to be on my doorstep four days after he started living with my brother.
Afternoon sun hits Dominic’s head, casting rays around him in a way that suggests Catholics painted him. Pristine and glowing like he is, I wonder if I’m peering at a man or a stained glass window in a cathedral.