The Romance Writer
SHE’S HEARD IT SAID THAT IN LIFE, as in love, chemistry is everything.
And chemistry begins with first impressions.
The average person takes approximately ten seconds to form an opinion, which is why the meet-cute holds so much power. A moment of eye contact, a disarming smile, an aura of welcome, can set the tone for everything that follows.
Unfortunately, the moment Penn Stonely enters the drawing room, Priscilla’s mind is somewhere else.
Specifically, it’s on the collar of her dress, and the bit of paper tickling her neck. She can’t believe she forgot to take the tag off. It’s new. Save for the gold flower pin, everything she’s wearing is new, from the fuchsia dress to the matching heels to the polish on her nails.
Pink seemed rosy.
Pink seemed bright.
Pink seemed confident and approachable and all the things she wants to be.
Or at least, wants them to think she is.
Now, the outfit strikes her as a bit much, but it’s too late—too late to do anything about the color, or the tag, so she tries to ignore it, lacing her hands in her lap to keep from fidgeting as Millie’s chipper voice leads the final author into the drawing room.
Well, authors.
“A writing team,” says Millie. “How neat is that?”
She offers the two with a flourish to the three already in the drawing room, as if they’re a piece of show-and-tell.
Priscilla only half listens as Millie makes the introductions. She’s already sized the other two up. There’s Jaxon, a jockish white guy with a faint Texas twang. He’s in his mid-thirties—though the sweatpants, cropped brown hair, and hipster glasses say he’s trying to pass for younger.
And Kenzo, an Asian guy—Japanese, if she had to guess—around the same age, and the only non-white person aside from herself in attendance. Dressed in black jeans and an AC/DC shirt, he’s currently losing a battle with the hungry sofa he made the mistake of sitting on.
As for Millie’s show-and-tell, the woman is trim in a Pilates-twice-a-week way, flashing a nervous smile.
The man beside her is easily a decade older, with salt-and-pepper hair, radiating the smugness that seems to surround most white men in publishing.
The assumption that you already know who he is.
Priscilla does, but she allows herself a private smile when Kenzo says, “So which of you is Penn and which is Stonely?”
The man’s face falls in a satisfying way. But the woman chuckles good-naturedly.
“Neither, I’m afraid,” she says. “I’m Sienna. This is my husband, Malcolm.”
“We’re partners in crime, in more ways than one,” adds Malcolm, delivering the line with a curious accent—something between English, Scottish, and mid-Atlantic—and a well-practiced air that earns an eye-roll from Sienna and a polite chuckle from everyone else.
Well, everyone but Millie, who puts her hands on her hips and says, “Don’t spoil the game! ”
Priscilla sighs, wishing she could disappear into her chair, that it might swallow her up, the way the couch seems intent on consuming Kenzo.
The room is full of furniture, none of it matching.
Since she entered the room first, she had her pick, and opted for the high-backed chair.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, compared to the sagging sofa and the stiff little ottoman, but now makes her feel like she’s somehow in charge, presiding over this strange assembly instead of simply part of it.
The whole drawing room is . . . aggressive. Hunting trophies decorate the walls, though she doubts anyone would be able to find a moose on Skelbrae, let alone kill and dress it. But atmosphere clearly trumps authenticity. At least in here.
Priscilla was actually the first one to arrive at Fletch’s house.
Her voice echoed through the halls, but no one answered, and she spent the next twenty minutes wandering from room to room, savoring the quiet and Arthur Fletch’s other, less morbid trophies: the relics from his work.
It was a thrill, to see the gun at the heart of Ashbolt’s first case.
The infamous hatchet used by the killer in the Bellamy books.
People are always surprised to find out she’s a fan. But that’s what she loves about novels. They’re not like prescriptions. A good story is a good story, regardless of who it was written by, or for.
Millie’s high voice pulls her back.
“Okay, so the game!” she says, sinking cross-legged onto the ottoman with the casual limberness that ends at thirty. “I thought we could guess what kind of books everyone writes!” She talks in a way that adds exclamation points, excitement brightening the end of every sentence.
Malcolm and Sienna settle on a loveseat that would be big enough for both of them, if Malcolm didn’t sit himself squarely in the middle.
Sienna ends up squeezing herself into the corner.
“Ah,” he says, “tipped the cards on that one, then. Penn Stonely is a thriller writer. But can you guess what kind?”
Jaxon looks over from inspecting one of the dead animals on the walls and clears his throat.
“I’ll go with police procedural,” he says, leveling a finger gun at the loveseat. “I’m thinking a rogue FBI agent. A woman. Doesn’t play by the rules, but man, she gets results.”
Malcolm shakes his head, laughing. “Always a pleasure to meet a fan!”
The guy guffaws. “Oh shit, was I right?”
Malcolm’s face falls, just a little. Sienna pats his back.
“Who’s next?” asks Millie, looking around.
Kenzo wrests himself free of the sofa and stands, cracking his neck.
“Let’s see,” he says, pointing at the jock. “Jackson, was it?”
The gym bro bobs his head. “Yeah,” he says, crossing his forearms. “With an X.”
A small bark of a laugh cuts through the room, and Sienna’s hand flies to her mouth. Priscilla smiles, stifling her own amusement.
“Sorry,” says one half of Penn Stonely, clearing her throat as if it was a cough.
“Jaxon, with an X,” repeats Kenzo, “is clearly sci-fi.”
Jaxon lets the theory hang a moment before he smirks. “What gave me away?” he asks, and if Priscilla felt like wading in, she might say he looks like someone who invests in crypto and reads articles on biohacking, and says things like “Science fiction is the precursor to science fact.”
But she doesn’t. And apparently neither does Kenzo, since he only shrugs and says, “Just a hunch.”
Jaxon nods, clearly taking it as a compliment, before swiveling his blue-eyed gaze on her.
“And what about Priscilla here?”
She resists the urge to rearrange herself in the high-backed chair.
She’s always been a fidgeter, much to her parents’ chagrin.
They could sit still for hours, reading books or grading papers, but she has the kind of energy that bubbles up like steam.
A pen tapping restlessly against a notebook.
A knee bobbing beneath a desk. Her fingers inch toward the flower-shaped pin above her heart before she forces them back into her lap, trying to exude a calm she doesn’t feel as the other writers study her.
Their collective gaze, plucking at her pink edges, skating over her brown skin.
Kenzo meets her eyes and smiles, almost gently, as he says, “Romance.”
It’s not a question, but at least there’s no disdain in it either.
“That obvious?” she asks, trying to keep her voice light, even as she spots Malcolm’s brows go up, and Jaxon cocks his head, and she can practically hear the room of writers wondering what she is doing here.
Kenzo breezes on, like an unnervingly sedate Poirot.
“Millie’s young adult. Which she’s already told each of us by accident.” Millie blushes, and buries her face in her hands. “And Cate . . .”
He looks around, noticing the youngest writer’s absence for the first time. It’s terrible, but Priscilla nearly forgot about her, too.
“Well, Cate’s not here, but she writes crime, like Fletch,” he says, before putting his hand to his own chest. “And I’m Kenzo.” He gives a small bow, like a magician’s flourish. “Horror. In case it wasn’t obvious.”
“You cheated!” declares Millie, even as she applauds. “You’ve been googling us.”
Kenzo drags the phone from his back pocket with an apologetic smile. “No signal,” he says. “And I don’t have the Wi-Fi yet.”
“There’s no way you just guessed,” says Jaxon.
Kenzo shrugs. “I’ve got a good eye. Horror, like thriller, comes down to the details. A killer, tucked into the cast, a weapon, planted and forgotten. Danger hidden in plain sight.”
Jaxon snorts. “Maybe that’s why I always guess the bad guy in the first chapter.”
Kenzo cocks his head. “Maybe you need to read better books.”
“Nah, man.” Jaxon stretches, lacing his hands behind his head in a way designed to strain the too-small shirt. “You can keep your masked slashers and jump scares. You want a real puzzle? Try planning a war between societies in space.”
Priscilla watches the two bicker as if it were a tennis match, the conversational ball being swatted back and forth.
“You know that the vast majority of science fiction is actually science fantasy,” says Kenzo, and Jaxon recoils as if slapped.
Millie’s brow scrunches up. “Hey! What’s wrong with fantasy?” she asks.
“Nothing,” says Kenzo with a one-shouldered shrug.
“I’ve never understood the hostility between genres.
They have more in common than people think.
Fantasy. Horror. Thriller. Crime. They’re all just different versions of the same game, varying backdrops for the characters and the conflict, constructs for the fear and the need and the suspense. ”
Millie nods brightly. “Totally,” she says. “Young adult is all about the suspense.”
Jaxon rolls his eyes. “I’m not sure will-they, won’t-they qualifies.”
Millie crinkles her nose. “Excuse you. More like, the stakes are super high.”