Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Judgment and time of day have zero correlation.
John Kater does not unnerve me.
I am terrible at hiding.
It was two hours past midnight when I reassessed my situation.
I was beyond the midpoint of my story, and the second half had far fewer notes. I still had a full day and a half to polish and write a killer blurb. Maybe—maybe—my chances of making it to the next round of the retreat weren’t completely abysmal.
I’d skipped dinner, unable to face the embarrassment of the photo incident.
It probably hadn’t made the best impression on Charlene, but there was zero chance I could sit across from John Kater without choking on a drumstick. The moment of him looking over my shoulder would haunt me for years.
Unplugging my laptop, I tore two Post-its off the wall—my next steps—and went in search of tea. And liquor.
Luckily, I found both. Plus a stash of chocolate bars.
The scent of black tea and whiskey curled into my nose, the warmth of the cup seeping into my palms as I padded toward the big fireplace. I had my eye on a ridiculously comfy setup—cushions, plush rug, fluffy blanket. I was ready to dig in, refocus, and—
“Shit.” I stopped dead in the doorway.
Blue light glowed against John’s face as he stared at his screen, headphones over his ears.
He was wearing vintage half-rim glasses I hadn’t seen before. I did a double take.
He looked… smart. I hated it.
He was slouched in a leather armchair, feet propped on an ottoman, hair tousled like he’d raked his hands through it one too many times. Tired, but still stupidly catalog-level attractive. Pajama model chic. Effortless and annoying.
I tried to quietly back out of the room. His gaze flicked up.
Crap.
“Nora.” He tugged his headphones down, resting them around his neck. I could swear I heard the fading bars of Lullaby by The Cure.
A fluke. No way he had good taste in music.
I realized I was standing frozen in the dark, staring. Like a creep.
His eyes swept over me. I resisted the urge to tug my shirt down.
My outfit: Otis-stretched Bowie T-shirt, oversized cardigan, woolen knee socks.
His expression shifted—disapproval? Annoyance?
Well, excuse me, Mr. I-Can-Wear-Cashmere-To-Bed-And-Not-Go-Broke.
His gaze snagged on the twin rose tattoos above my knees. His frown deepened. Great. He was one of those.
He turned back to his laptop. “Missed me, did you?”
I blinked. “Yeah, because I have absolutely nothing better to do than stalk you.”
I wanted to cross my arms for effect, but I was holding tea, and that would turn this into a wet T-shirt contest followed by a trip to the ER.
He smirked. The kind that said I know what I saw. Incriminating photographic evidence.
“I’ll go. Didn’t realize this room was taken.”
“Stay,” he said, oddly fast. When I glanced back, he’d taken off his glasses and was rubbing the bridge of his nose. His voice was thick, like he’d had more than one drink.
I squared my shoulders and headed for the sofa. The room was warm, dimly lit by the last embers of the fire. Woodsmoke and golden light. A writer’s wet dream.
If he wanted to leave this slice of heaven, fine by me.
I sank into the cushions. The leather gave a soft sigh as I pulled a plush blanket over my legs.
“You write at night?” he asked. Yes, there was definitely a lull to his voice.
“I’m a write-whenever-I-can writer,” I said, setting my cup on a coffee table that looked like it had been sliced from an ancient tree.
I opened my laptop.
John nodded and shut his. The blue glare was replaced by amber, softening his face. It caught the curve of the heavy silver watch on his wrist. I wondered if I’d ever be able to buy frivolous things.
Not that I wanted to wear a watch like that. I had no outfit to match.
Still, the idea of that kind of money—no rent stress, no late notices, no worrying about the shop’s future—was thrilling.
My chest tightened at the thought of the bills waiting for me at home.
He shifted, halfway out of his chair, then sank back, rubbing his face again. He looked… tired. Maybe even a little sad.
Something in John’s face made me do a thing normal-Nora would never do. Strike up a conversation with an almost-stranger.
“This house is too quiet,” I said, peeking out the window. The forest was thick, black, and still. “It’s unnerving. I can’t sleep.”
“You do look exhausted. Maybe you’re still sick,” he said, voice lighter now.
I flipped him off.
He laughed. Really laughed. Not one of his curated chuckles.
A dark, surprised sound.
I looked up over the edge of my screen. He was still sitting there, still in the dark.
“I thought you wanted to leave.”
“So impatient. Do I unnerve you?”
“Your watch is ticking too loud. It’s the size of a baby’s head. You compensating for something?”
He did unnerve me. A little. Who wouldn’t be, sitting across from someone who had everything you wanted? Who carried himself like the world bent in his favor? A tall, wealthy, generally-attractive middle-aged man—not that I cared.
John twisted the oversized watch on his wrist, his expression unreadable. “I don’t think you’ve ever seen a baby. And…it was a graduation gift from my father.”
He rolled his shoulders, the cashmere stretching across his collarbones.
His hand brushed his chest, slipping casually into the neckline of his shirt.
The fabric pulled, revealing the start of pectoral muscles.
A lock of dark hair dropped over his brow.
He tilted his head and smiled—crooked, dimpled, maddening.
“Your Flynn Rider bullshit doesn’t work on me.”
A beat passed.
Another.
“I have no idea what that means,” he said finally. But his voice held a trace of amusement.
“If you’re trying to charm me, you’re wasting your time. You’re not my type. Not even a little.”
“What reason would I have to charm you?”
To annoy me. To fluster me so I’d lose my will to win. To prove you could. But I didn’t say any of that. I just shrugged.
After a beat of silence, he said, “What’s your type then?”
I scrunched my nose, searching for features John definitely didn’t possess. “Short. Ginger. Funny. And tanned. Very tanned.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat.
“Am I distracting you from your work?”
“No. But your gigantic body is sucking all the oxygen out of the room and, frankly, it’s a waste of perfectly good air.”
I said it too fast. Way too fast. Which made it obvious: yes, he was distracting me. I wondered if this was how he’d made it so far in life—charm, a husky voice, and an annoyingly lucky set of genes.
“Don’t you have work to do too?” I asked. He still hadn’t gotten up.
He shrugged. “I’m nearly done.”
Crap. He was gliding through his revisions like butter on hot toast, and I was… not. Panic prickled beneath my skin. Imposter syndrome knocking, hard. Of course I wasn’t going to win this thing. Had I ever really believed I could compete with John Kater?
But I shook it off. I had made it this far. Top five out of over ten thousand. I could do this.
I would do this.
I closed my eyes and emptied my head, counting backwards from twenty. 15, 14, 13… 9, 8, 7…
“Did you fall asleep?”
I groaned. “If you don’t mind, I’m trying to concentrate.”
He tilted his head, thumb dragging over his lips, one elbow on the armrest. “Looked like sleeping to me.”
Before I knew what I was doing, I tossed a pillow at him.
He caught it, of course. And smiled like the devil.
“This is pointless,” I muttered, slamming my laptop shut and kicking the blanket off. “Good night.”
“What did you need the picture for?”
I froze. “I don’t know what you mean.” My face went hot.
“Sure you do.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “I wanted a group picture for social media, like I said.”
“You don’t have social media.”
My spine snapped straight. “How do you know?”
He tapped a finger against his lips. “I looked you up.”
That… felt... weird. “What? Why?” My words came clipped, armed to the teeth.
He shrugged. “Just checking out the competition.”
I crossed my arms, which pulled my shirt up. Cool air brushed the tops of my thighs. I pretended not to notice that John probably had a perfect view of my polka dot underwear. It was laundry day when I packed, okay?
“If you say so.”
He sighed and leaned forward. “Why don’t you stay and drink your tea, Nora?”
“It’s gone cold.”
“I’ll make you a new cup,” John offered.
I raised a brow. “Why are you even here?” I finally asked the question that had been burning on my tongue since he walked through the door.
His smile faltered.
I leaned in, sensing something shift. “You have a career. You could write literally anything and people would buy it. Your readers would follow you anywhere. So why this?”
He leaned closer too. “Why the little Photoshop?”
We stared at each other in the low firelight. The house was silent except for the wind rustling the trees and the relentless ticking of his damn watch. I wanted to press. To figure out what he wasn’t saying.
“Why did you pretend not to know who I was?” The words shot out before I could stop them. I’d been sitting on them for two whole days.
He leaned in until our knees touched. “Nora, be smart. If I’d told everyone you showed up to the convention wanting to meet my manager, they might’ve called foul play. Technically, you gave me your manuscript after the deadline.”
“But it wouldn’t have mattered,” I said.
He rubbed his jaw, silver glinting in his stubble. “Why not?”
“Because you didn’t do it.” My voice cracked a little with the weight of it.
“Didn’t do what?” He reached for his glass, downed the last inch of amber liquid.
I huffed. Tired of being grated like cheese. I stood. “I should go to bed.”
He gave a deep sigh, as if to say Don’t be a killjoy. Then his hand wrapped around my forearm. Hot against my bare skin. I looked down at where he touched me.
John Kater let go. “Tell me, Nora.” The way he said my name should have pissed me off. It didn’t.
He was too close. His eyes too dark. Too… whatever.