The Write Chemistry

Prologue

Huxley Ambrose glared at his mother’s back, arms crossed, and wished — not for the first time — that his mother wasn’t Eleanor Ambrose.

Yes, the Eleanor Ambrose.

The woman that everybody wanted to hire to fix the Star Trek franchise.

The woman who got an executive producer credit on the biggest science fiction show to hit network television in two decades.

The woman who had more than 100 writing awards.

That Eleanor Ambrose.

Being her son was not as cool as everybody assumed. In fact, it was the exact opposite.

“I don’t want to hang out with her,” Huxley argued. Why couldn’t his mother understand where he was coming from? “She’s weird.”

“She’s 16,” Eleanor replied as she fussed with her eyelashes. They weren’t popping enough for her way of thinking. “All 16-year-old girls are weird.”

“She’s especially weird,” Huxley growled. “Like … she keeps batting her eyelashes as if they’re going to fall off or something. I swear they look like caterpillars.”

“Hey, when you’re first getting used to false eyelashes, they can be a chore.” Eleanor shrugged. “Is that really the end of the world?”

“It’s weird,” Huxley insisted.

“It just means she likes you.”

That was the last thing Huxley expected his mother to say. He was struck dumb as he watched her move to her lip liner, his mouth hanging open. Eventually, after what felt like a really long time, he found his voice.

“She does not like me.” That was all he could think to say.

Eleanor gave her only son an exasperated look. “Of course she does. Don’t you see the way she looks at you whenever you’re around one another?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s not your fault.” Eleanor patted his cheek. She really did delight in everything he did, despite the fact that he was always full of complaints. “How do I look?” She did a circle without Huxley’s prompting so he could see her outfit.

She was dressed in what Huxley described as a catsuit.

It was tight and looked metallic, which was appropriate since they were at a science fiction convention in Atlanta.

Eleanor and her writing partner, Agnes Quincy, had a huge panel starting in 15 minutes.

It was completely sold out — standing room only — and they would be making a big announcement about a movie franchise for their joint series. It was expected to be a big deal.

Huxley knew his mother didn’t have time for his complaints — this was possibly the biggest thing that would ever happen to her — but he couldn’t get past his part in the entire thing.

“Why do I have to hang out with her? Why can’t I just stay here, in the dressing room, during the panel?

” To him, that was a perfectly acceptable turn of events.

“Wylie is nervous,” Eleanor replied, looking back at her reflection. Her eyeliner was much heavier than she normally wore, but she was going for a certain aesthetic to charm the fans. “You know she’s an excitable girl.”

“Oh, I know,” Huxley agreed dryly. “That’s one of the reasons I can’t stand to be around her. She talks about Star Trek as if it’s a religion. Do you know she actually blogs about what Captain Kirk would do in juxtaposition to what Captain Picard would do?”

Eleanor paused a beat, then grinned. “That’s kind of cute.”

“She pretends she’s them when answering questions.”

“So? She’s not hurting anybody.”

“She wants to adopt a tribble. They’re not real.”

“Good grief.” Eleanor gave him a biting look, which told him he was treading a very fine line. “Wylie Dixon is 16. She’s an awkward 16 at that. She’s still all elbows and knees.”

Huxley had no idea where she was going with this, but he didn’t like it.

“She isn’t a threat to you,” Eleanor continued. “Yes, she has a crush, and that means she gets a little exuberant. It’s not a big deal. She’s just a late bloomer. Before you know it, she’ll be fixated on someone way hotter and buffer than you.”

Huxley’s mouth fell open, and he found himself looking at his reflection in the mirror just to reassure himself that he hadn’t somehow brushed up against an ugly tree or something.

He looked the same as he always did, though.

He was tall — still growing, actually — with floppy black hair and shoulders his mother insisted would get him any girl he wanted when he was in college.

Despite what his mother did for a living, he had no interest in science fiction.

He’d tried to talk her into writing a superhero book more than once, but she’d shot him down each time.

“I’m hot and buff,” Huxley said in a surly voice.

“I’ve been working out.” He held up his arm to prove it.

And, yes, he had muscles. They weren’t movie star muscles, though, no matter how hard he tried.

His mother had explained that comparing himself to television high schoolers was a bad idea, because they weren’t really teenagers, but he was pretty sure she was placating him.

She’d told him more than once that Tom Welling was 24 when playing a 14-year-old on Smallville, but he didn’t think that should matter.

He was ready to be buff … and not for Wylie Dixon.

She was a geek. He wanted someone like Anna Paquin on True Blood.

She was hot and constantly naked on that show, and he was a big fan.

He wanted to be the Eric to her Sookie. Not Bill or anything.

Never Bill. He could be Eric, though. He could even be the new werewolf guy they’d brought in.

He looked more like him than Eric, although he didn’t have the muscles.

“Don’t turn this into a thing,” Eleanor chided, shaking her head and bringing Huxley crashing back to reality.

Unfortunately, it was a reality without Anna Paquin at present.

“All you have to do is sit with Wylie during the presentation, put up with the jokes about our kids being our biggest fans, and then I’ll buy you whatever you want to make up for it. ”

Huxley was used to being bribed by his mother. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a present parent. She’d grown up poor, though, and making the sort of money she made as a successful author meant she never wanted for anything. In return, she made sure that Huxley never wanted for anything.

“I want to not have to sit with Wylie,” Huxley replied. “She’s wearing a shirt that says, ‘Trek yourself before you wreck yourself,’ and I cannot be seen next to her.”

Eleanor snorted, then caught herself. “Sorry. That’s a funny shirt, though.”

“It’s embarrassing.” Huxley crossed his arms over his chest. “She’s embarrassing.”

“She’s a 16-year-old girl who marches to the beat of her own drum,” Eleanor clarified. “She hasn’t quite filled out yet, and she’s self-conscious about it. You have no idea how hard it is for girls at that age.”

“Um … excuse me?” Huxley had no problem talking back to his mother.

She had a permissive attitude about stuff like that.

His father was another story, but he almost never saw his father.

His parents had divorced when Huxley was three, and his dad had moved to Mexico with his new girlfriend.

His father was about five girlfriends removed from the first at this point — that he knew of — but he only called once a month or so to check in, and those conversations lasted about five minutes.

As for Eleanor, she was on her third husband now.

The second one had only lasted three years.

This one, Mick the Dick, wasn’t going to last much longer.

Huxley was under no delusions. Mick didn’t want to live the fast-paced lifestyle that Eleanor basked in.

He preferred a quiet life of tinkering with his motorcycle and going out to the local diner for breakfast on Sundays.

He wasn’t mean to Huxley — in fact, Mick was around more than Eleanor these days — but he also didn’t approve of how Eleanor was raising her son.

He thought she was too permissive and that Huxley was too spoiled.

That meant Huxley had no time for Mick. Huxley was convinced that Eleanor would have a fourth husband by the time he was 21.

There was no reason to maintain a relationship with Mick as far as he was concerned.

“I’m being serious.” Eleanor gave him her full attention now. “Wylie is a free spirit. I can see it in the way she carries herself. Yes, she’s a bit of a geek. Guess what, though?” She was matter-of-fact as she regarded him. “In a few years, every guy you know will be salivating over Wylie.”

Huxley snorted, then caught himself. “She’s … not pretty.”

Eleanor’s expression darkened. “She’s a late bloomer, as I’ve already pointed out. She’s going to fill out in the next few years, though. You’ve seen Aggie. Wylie is going to look just like her.”

That gave Huxley pause. Agnes “Aggie” Quincy was hot.

Like … uber hot. She had a banging body that was long and lean and still managed to have curves in all the right places despite giving birth to two children.

She also had this ridiculous brown hair that fell well past her shoulders in waves.

It was the sort of hair men wanted to run their fingers through, and women wanted their hairdresser to magically provide them with.

She was absolutely gorgeous … and her daughter looked nothing like her.

“Um, no way.” Huxley shook her head. “She doesn’t look anything like Aggie.”

“Yes, she does.” Eleanor let loose a sigh. “Look at her. I mean really look at her. She’s got the hair. She just pulls it back right now because she doesn’t know how to deal with it. She’s long and lithe —”

“And gawky,” Huxley muttered.

“And gawky,” Eleanor conceded. “That’s because she hasn’t come into her coordination yet. In a few years, she’s going to fill out just enough that men are going to start following her around. And do you know what they’re really going to like?”

“That she’s a Star Trek geek?”