Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Fun. Just fucking fun.
But I’ve never met an argument I won’t turn inside out as I hunt for holes. “I’m not that great with public appearances,” I say, but it sounds like a feeble protest even to my ears.
Linus shakes his head in a firm, clear you’ve got that wrong style. “I beg to differ. You’re actually quite good at them, Axel. You’re smooth, sharp, and just the right kind of sarcastic. It works great in front of a crowd,” he says, and damn him for the compliment. Damn him too for catching me in my attempt to slither away from the tour. Damn him most of all for saying something nice.
“Thanks,” I say, though it’s more like a grumble. I’m busy searching for another tactic. “It’s just I worry readers are going to ask about our unfinished book.”
I offer that nugget like I’m trying to be helpful when I’m really trying to save my own ass.
I cannot travel with Hazel Valentine and play nice for a week. I just can’t. Besides, she can’t stand me, and neither one of us is an actor, last time I checked.
No, we’re over-actors, since that performance at the expo got us into this stupid predicament.
“You handled it so well at the expo,” Linus points out. “And it makes good business sense to send you and Kennedy and Hazel. All of your recent books are set in Europe. And as for you and Hazel, you two get along so well. Tacos. Am I right?”
“Yeah, tacos,” I say, leadenly.
Fucking tacos.
At least there’s Kennedy as a buffer.
I cling to that as he tells me the rest of the details about how I’m supposed to spend a week with Hazel. The woman is still too hard for me to be around.
I’ve got a long list of regrets that I update regularly.
I don’t want to forget all the shit I need to fix in my life, so I write each misdemeanor on a digital Post-it note tucked away in a folder on my laptop labeled Naked Photos of Mom. Just another alligator in the security moat, after my ninety-five-character password.
The list includes but is not limited to: Taking mock trial in high school, asking out the sexy brunette in tight black pants at the bar that night a few years ago even though tight black pants are my weakness and wow, did Sarah ever turn out to be a heartbreaker or what, and helping my dad with any of his cons, not that I had much of a choice at age seven.
Now, at T-minus-three days before the Trip to the Bottomless Pit of Torment begins, I click open the file on a Monday afternoon. I’m in my apartment, my brother’s newest playlist blasting in my earbuds, draining an afternoon coffee as I add another regret.
Taking Spanish in college.
I close the laptop, turn off the music from my phone, and finish the last dregs of fuel.
Here I go again.
Four weeks of twice-weekly language lessons end today. I’ve learned how to say in Danish and Italian: please, thank you, nice to meet you, plus why yes, that’s where my hero Jett raced against the clock to solve the crime like the rock star he is, and no, you can’t run through the Trevi Fountain, unless you’re vanquishing the worst kind of bad guys and then it’s totally okay. But we’ve spent the last two weeks on French, since we’ll be in France half the time. If only I’d taken that language in school, I wouldn’t have had to spend these extra days with Hazel. Kennedy, too, but Kennedy doesn’t shoot death rays from her eyeballs into the center of my heart.
Or at my dick.
Though honestly, I’m not sure Hazel even looks my way anymore, but still I’ve got my emotional Kevlar on whenever I see her, so I fasten it tighter before I go.
I take off to meet the French tutor, dropping on my shades once I leave my building. I still don’t have a survival plan for this train trip, and I need one badly. I really should ask Carter how he handles cornerbacks barreling at him on the field every Sunday when he plays football before millions. Surely that’s similar to the kind of hard defense I’m up against now.
As I walk, I fire off a text to that effect. He answers immediately.
Carter: Fleet feet. Nerves of steel. Also, pads. Those football pads fucking work!
I laugh as I reply.
Axel: Noted. I’ll invest in shoulder pads for the trip.
Carter: Consider a cup too.
I wince in sympathy, then text goodbye as I bound down the steps to the subway, hopping on. As the train slaloms through the tunnels, I survey the passengers. A college-age dude with huge headphones and a goatee is bopping his head. Bet he likes craft beer and playing guitar with his buds. The harried mom with one kid in her lap, and two hermetically sealed to her death grip hands, probably needs a stiff drink, but not a stiff anything else.