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)
Then, she remembers her breathing, some advice given to her by some quack fucking shrink she’d been ordered to see once as part of a plea deal to help her avoid jail time for…
Know what? Doesn’t matter. The point is that this fucking quack was part of an anger management agreement thing and even though he was a fucking quack, he had given her exactly one tool she could add to her toolbox for when things got too stressful to manage.
Breathe. X number of deep breaths in. X number of deep breaths out.
She can’t really remember the exact number, but whatever. Some dumbass approximation will be adequate in this case.
So in, out, she breathes. In. Out. And, sure enough, her oxygenated lungs seem to help her calm and still enough so that the pain isn’t quite so debilitating. Okay. Very good. Everything will be fine. All will be good.
And then...
She looks at the clock.
“What the fuck?” she exclaims to no one.
Three o’clock means the day is almost over. The signing is almost at its end. The entire convention is almost at its end. Her plans, her best-laid fucking plans are about to be null.
Is Essie behind this? Steve? The parents? That little bitch Cynthia Whosehertoes? All of them? Probably! They are likely all working in cahoots! Cahoots, Leslie will tell you!
If she hurries downstairs right now, she might still be able to engage in her action. She might still have time to write her crowning chapter. Put the coda on the story of betrayal and avarice and sheer… fuck, what was a good word for douchebaggery? There might be no better word than the word itself. Fuck it. Douchebaggery!
She can get editorial notes later. (Not that she’d take them under consideration. No one, no one edits Raylen Star. Raylen’s words should be able to stand on their own and no half-assed, couldn’t-make-it-as-a-writer-so-now-they-just-give-critique-on-other-people’s-shit editor will tell her what to write.)
There is still time to force the deceitful douchebags known as the Smith Twins into something like a reckoning.
And so Leslie Munch looks around for her shoes. Where the fuck are her shoes? Goddammit! Does this conspiracy extend so far as to have someone abscond with her footwear as well? Are they so degenerate as to have broken into her room while she was convalescing and made off with her Jimmy Choos? Apparently.
No matter. All more fodder for the cannon. Kindling for the fire. Fuel for the… well, probably also fire, but fine! A war they have demanded, and so a war they shall receive.
With dried blood well and truly gathered around her gauze-wrapped nose, Leslie now darts, barefoot, for the door to her suite.
(And, to be honest, it’s the barefoot thing more than anything else that is responsible for what happens next.)
Because as she steps on one of the desiccated mini whiskey bottles that has rolled off the bed and onto the floor… she trips, stubbing her toe on the edge of the desk, and smacking her forehead into a framed painting on the wall of some abstract what-the-fuck-ever-it-is, causing it to fall from its precariously nailed perch and come crashing down onto the very same toe she just stubbed.
“COCK-SMOKING DICK-TICKLING FUCK-LUCKING SMUCK-RUCKER!” she might or might not shout. But it is, at the least, some combination of those sounds.
And some further combination of those sounds is what she continues bellowing as she stumbles and limps to the elevator bank, the clamoring of her incoherent blasphemy echoing down the hall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I let out a long breath as I take in the convention room.
Most of the readers have left—gone back to their rooms, to the bar, to early dinner or late lunch. But there are still about a hundred of them in here, all grabbing up the sale books. Authors hate to lug boxes of unsold books home, so if you stay ‘till the end you will often be rewarded with sale books.
But a lot of authors have sold out, so they are packing up banners. Essie is still signing, so I can’t start breaking down the backdrop, but I can start packing up some of the smaller banners.
I head that direction feeling very, very satisfied. What a great convention. The best, I think. It just… really came together.
“Oh, hey. Excuse me. You’re—”
I turn in the direction of the voice and find a well-dressed man in a gray suit. “Tank. Yep. That’s me.” I smile at him. “Does your wife need a narrator? I don’t have a website yet, or anything, actually. But—”
The man stops me with a palm pressing in my direction. “No, no. I’m not an author. I mean, not an author’s husband. I’m Gary Pritchard. From North Star Author Agency?”
“Oooh!” My eyes go wide and I point at him. “You guys have some good books. I love that new space opera series, Galactic Spin. Fantastic.”