Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
It’s… not ideal. Embarrassing is a better word. Especially since she’s pretty much my beta reader too, so sometimes she wants to give me pointers.
I can’t, man. I just can’t. These days she tells Mike if she has an issue with a scene in the book and he tells me.
Needless to say, I never sat down at the signing table again after that first year. Mike sits with her now. The fans love him too. He looks like a soap opera star. They flirt with Mike non-stop.
I’m the guy behind the curtain. Kind of literally. Every author gets a table and they bring banners with them. Some banners are big, some small, but ours is huge. I mean, like fifteen feet long and eight feet tall. We take up double the normal space because—well, it’s my convention.
All the authors keep boxes of books behind the banners, so when you’re back there, it’s a like an alleyway. Like a little secret passage in the middle of the convention room. And that’s where all the second-string assistants hang out, waiting for the first-string assistant to peek her head around the banner and bark out book titles. Then we dutifully hand them over and go back to organizing swag.
When Essie, Mike, the parents, and I enter the Aria signing hall on Wednesday just before noon, this is where I’m headed. I already know where our table is, so I’m aimed in that direction, focused and intent on getting there so I can start organizing my books and get back to pretending Mom and Dad aren’t here. It was a rough four and a half hours from Malibu.
But on my way to the table, everyone starts saying hi to me.
“Hey, Steve! We need to catch up at the mixer tonight!”
I raise a hand to Winter Page, but keep walking.
“Steve!”
“Fuck.” I mutter this under my breath. “James. How’s it going?” This is Audrey Saint’s husband. For some reason, he thinks we’re friends. Every year he’s trying to fist bump me. I point at him, evading the bump. “I’ll catch ya tonight at the mixer.”
He raises his hand. “See ya then, bro!”
I’m tracking our huge banner in the middle aisle of the signing hall when, all of a sudden, a familiar voice calls out.
“Excuse me.”
I keep going. Because I’m clearly delusional. I’ve been in the truck with my parents too long. I didn’t get enough sleep last night.
“Excuse me!”
I’m on drugs. Maybe. It could happen. Because that’s the only way this voice is invading my privacy inside my signing hall.
“Steeeeeeve! I know you hear me!”
I stop. Take a deep breath. Close my eyes and ask for patience. Then I turn. “Hello, Leslie. Why are you here?”
She hisses at me. “It’s Raylen, Steve. Not Leslie.”
“Right.” I force that smile. People are watching us. There’s a BookToker with a phone at three o’clock and a Bookstagrammer right behind her. And even though I’m Steve, not Essie, they will virtually crucify SS on the socials if I make a scene. “Sorry, Raylen. What can I do for you?”
She starts talking and I just stare at her mouth. It’s bright red. Like… candy-apple Corvette red. It’s not even noon yet. Even I know you don’t wear bright red lipstick for brunch. And all I keep thinking is… Why is she here? We banned her eight years back.
“OK?”
I blink. “Sure. You bet.” Then I turn and keep walking. I don’t acknowledge anyone else. I just hit the booth and slip behind the banner.
I stop short because there’s a woman back there. She’s got her head buried in a box of books and she’s simultaneously scratching her arm and muttering to herself. Grumble, rumble… “Where the fuck is it?” More grumble rumbles. “I know I packed it.”
“Hello. Did you lose something?” I say this in my booming narrator voice. I’m not sure why, but it’s deep and commanding. I made this voice up when I narrated all my Master Choke books years ago.
She looks up, wide-eyed and startled. “Oh.” Then her eyes go even wider. “Oh!” She stands up, wipes her hands on her jeans. “Sorry. I did. Or no, I didn’t. It’s here. You’re…” She squints her eyes at me, confused, I think.
I smile. Kinda big. Because maybe she doesn’t know me, but I know her. I’m the one who got her invited this year. Someone canceled last-minute and Essie asked me if I had a preference, and as a matter of fact, I did. After I gave up on Leslie Munch as an idol, I gave up on professional idols altogether. Until Luke, of all people, sent me a free book saying it was ‘right up my alley.’
It was a romance by an author calling herself Cynthia Lear, aka Cordelia Serendipitous. But it wasn’t like any other romance I’ve ever read. It was… literary.