3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Shared walls definitely have their disadvantages.
The next day, Simon put away his tennis ball. He honestly hadn’t realized it had been bothering his neighbor. He was so used to bouncing it off the wall at his house in Tennessee that he hadn’t thought of it when she mentioned hearing a noise.
Or perhaps it was because he was so distracted by her. Even with the scowl on her face, she was beautiful. Too bad she’d been too upset for him to catch her name. But with her being his neighbor, he didn’t think it would be too hard to learn her identity.
He’d put Gus in the bedroom when she’d knocked on the door the first time. Gus could be overly friendly at times and last night, Simon wasn’t in the mood to be disturbed.
He was stuck.
Or rather his mind was blocked.
He had no idea where to go with this new book. Every time he tried writing a page or two, something about it didn’t work. So far, he had published seven books. Each one had been a bestseller.
Now he was three months behind on turning in the next book, and he didn’t even have an opening chapter.
Of course, he’d turned in a brief synopsis to his agent, Gwen, who had turned it in to his publisher.
But that brief synopsis wasn’t much help.
It didn’t tell him things like: what was his superhero’s weakness or his greatest desire?
The problem was that this was the first book in a brand new series, and that left him getting to know a whole new cast of characters.
And after seven books with characters he’d grown to know inside and out, he was struggling to build a new cast. Now he was starting to wonder if he was a one-series wonder.
Of course, it might have something to do with some of his readers turning on him after he’d killed off the hero of his prior series. He gave himself a mental shake. He didn’t want to think about how his whole life had been upended.
Even though it had happened months ago, he still hadn’t gone out in public without some sort of disguise. It was usually dark sunglasses and a ball cap pulled low. He didn’t know if he’d ever kill off a hero or heroine again. Lesson learned.
After he sold his house, his agent had suggested Bluestar Island as a way to wipe his slate clean. She told him it would be nothing but the sea breeze, sunshine, and hopefully, an abundance of words flowing onto the page. She failed to mention that his neighbor would be a bit of an annoyance.
Still, with some help he’d sold his house—his furniture—and most everything else. All he had left was what fit into twenty-three moving boxes, which were stacked in the spare room that he planned to use for an office.
Twenty-four hours on the island and he didn’t have any words written—not so much as a the, but, or however.
Every time he opened his laptop and stared at the blinking cursor, his mind went blank.
A half hour later, he’d realized that somewhere along the way, he’d started surfing the internet and totally lost track of time.
So far that morning, he’d tried working at the small island in the kitchen, followed by a stint on the couch and then the front porch. But there were too many distractions with people walking by and carts zipping up and down the road.
And he might have caught himself glancing at the neighbor’s door a time or two, wondering if they might run into each other again. Not that he was anxious to see her or anything.
That was when he decided to head for the back door. Unlike the front porch, the rear deck had a dividing wall to allow for a bit of privacy. So, he grabbed his stuff and moved.
He stopped on his way through the house to trade his laptop for his keyboard writer.
It was a keyboard with a digital screen that showed a small portion of what you wrote.
It was painful to edit on, so it kept him moving forward instead of looking back.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
With his keyboard writer in hand, he settled onto one of the deck chairs. To his surprise, it was comfortable. The late morning sun warmed his face as he stared down at the little screen where there should be words. He would not be defeated.
And so, he shifted in the deck chair to get more comfortable, and then he gave himself permission to write garbage. It could have misspellings, run-on sentences, or whatever. All of that could be fixed later. He just had to get to the heart of the story.
It could just be long-running narrative—backstory—that he could delete later. Anything so he could get back into the swing of things.
And so he started to write...
The world was ending. The Zorzens and the Hazwicks had been battling for centuries. But alas, they had stripped Aedor of all its natural resources. The planet was now dead, and both of their races were dying.
Simon was excited. It was one paragraph, but still it was the most he’d written in...well, in months. It wasn’t until much later that he looked up and noticed Gus wasn’t by his side. Simon had left the sliding glass door ajar in order for Gus to go in and out to get a drink of water.
Maybe he should go check on the dog. He closed his keyboard writer and got to his feet. He walked to the door and poked his head inside. It took a moment for his vision to adjust to the dim lighting inside the duplex. When he could finally see, there was no sign of Gus.
He stepped inside and moved to the water bowl. There were no droplets of water on the floor to show that Gus had recently gotten a drink.
Simon stepped farther into the duplex. There was no Gus on the floor, on the couch, and after jogging up the steps, he found there was no Gus in either of the bedrooms.
Mildly alarmed, Simon jogged back down the stairs and back outside. Gus was an explorer. Maybe he was just walking around the house and taking in his new home.
He walked around the house and down onto the beach. There was no sign of Gus anywhere. Simon’s blood pressure shot upward. His dog was missing.
It was a beautiful day.
And it was her day off.
Jenna wasn’t happy with her job. She felt like just another employee, instead of a member of the founding family. It’d been that way since her father had suddenly died the prior year.
Their family was still grieving—each in their own way.
She supposed her way was wanting to prove herself.
Her father had given her the promotion of front end manager shortly before his death.
And now that she wanted to make her mark by reorganizing the front of the market, her brother—the store manager—was holding her back.
And she didn’t know what to do about it—except to leave.
The question about her future weighed heavily on her mind. And so, when the walls of her duplex felt as though they were closing in on her, she went for a walk along the beach. It always helped soothe her.
As the water washed over her feet, she tried to think of something that she would enjoy more than interacting with Bluestar’s residents on a daily basis.
By working the frontend of the market, she always knew when someone was having a birthday because they would be checking out one of their cakes or candles.
She also heard the latest gossip, not that she passed it along, but she wasn’t going to lie—it was interesting to hear.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a blur of activity. It drew her from her thoughts. She turned her head in that direction to see a big dog running through the sand. It looked to be a golden retriever.
She looked around for its owner but didn’t see anyone. She stopped and turned around to see if the owners were behind her, but there was no one there either.
The dog came to a stop a short distance from her. For a moment, they quietly stared at each other.
“Hey, there.” She sent the dog a warm smile. Then she knelt down. “Come here.”
The dog didn’t move, as though he hadn’t made his mind up about her. Then he slowly made his way toward her.
“That’s right,” she said in a cajoling tone. “Come here.”
And then he was standing in front of her. They were practically eye to eye. She reached out and pet his soft fur. He was definitely well-cared for.
“Where did you come from?” she asked.
Buried in his fur was a red collar, but before she could grab hold of it, the dog jerked away. Then he took off running along the beach in the direction she was headed. Hopefully, he was going home. His tail wagged as though he were living his best life. That made one of them.
Where was he?
Simon’s writing was long forgotten. Instead, he was worried about Gus. It wasn’t like him to take off and stay gone. Sure he was curious and liked to investigate his surroundings, but he didn’t normally wander far from home...until today.
Simon looked all around the duplex. He’d even knocked on his neighbor’s door and was willing to have her glare at him again. He wasn’t sure what his neighbor’s problem was, but she sure didn’t like him. She didn’t answer the door.
With a frustrated sigh, he jumped into his golf cart and drove around the area. He looked high and low. He stopped and showed Gus’s picture to people, but no one had seen him.
Then Simon had a worrisome thought. Gus had been curious about the ocean, but surely he wouldn’t have gone into the water alone. Would he?
Simon turned his cart around. He wished he was driving a car, then he could go much faster. When he pulled up at the duplex, he took long, quick strides to the front door. He’d been in such a hurry that he hadn’t even stopped to lock the front door.
He rushed from the front of the house to the back. When he stepped onto the deck, he came to an abrupt halt. There was Gus lying on the deck. The dog innocently lifted his head and looked at Simon.
“Don’t do that,” Simon grouched. “Don’t try and act innocent. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. In the process, I didn’t get any work done.”