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)
“Hit me up,” says my bestie. TJ and I write together a few days a week, on our own stories. He’s my work husband and he calls me his work wife.
“In Manhandled, one of your heroes hates musicals,” Melissa says. “And I know—since I’m a big fan of your books—that you don’t care for them either. I would love to know what other personal traits you give your characters.” Her wide-eyed enthusiasm hints that she’s been dying to ask this question for years. She quickly adds, “And I’d actually love to know that from everyone here today.”
Oh, the book-boyfriend claimer is clever, sneaking in a question for everyone. I like her even more.
“Good idea. Let’s go on down the row, and everyone can take a shot.” Luciana looks to TJ. “And you can go first.”
My friend flashes an easygoing grin. He leans forward, almost conspiratorial, then stage whispers into his mic, “You want to know, Melissa? You really want to know what traits I put into a story?”
“Yes!”
“All right. Here you go,” he says, holding up his hands like he’s saying you asked for it. “Some of my heroes have a thing for guys with British accents.” He finishes with a wink.
I pat his shoulder. “Gee, I always wondered where that came from,” I say dryly. His husband is an Oscar-nommed English actor, and TJ was in love with him from afar for years before they got back together.
Melissa points to me. “What about you, Hazel?”
“Of course I love English accents too,” I say, but that’s a chicken’s answer.
There are so many ways to answer this truthfully. Many of my heroines are terrified of true romance. They’re scared to pieces of getting hurt. They don’t trust love. And they’re convinced they choose badly.
Well, just look at their track records of terrible exes.
But no one wants to hear that on a panel. Or, honestly, at all.
Quickly, I cycle through the details I’d be willing to dole out.
Do I tell Melissa I like to shop at thrift stores? And that yes, one time I did in fact make out in the dressing room with a hot guy I met at Champagne Taste, inspiring a scene in Sweet Spot? Or that at another time, my phone decided to spill all my secrets when it acted like an asshole and began playing a dictation file of mine while I was on the subway?
Yeah, that was a good one.
“Melissa,” I say, leaning closer, even though she’s many feet away, then I reveal a little behind-the-scenes detail. “Remember when Colby’s audiobook started playing at the silent auction?”
Melissa’s jaw drops, then she closes it to speak, a little awed. “Right during the get on your knees, pretty baby, and take it deep scene in Plays Well With Others?”
“That’s the one,” I say, then I shrug, owning my foible and the inspiration it provided. “Happened to me while I was on the subway one afternoon. Only it was with the dictation file for a sex scene I had spoken into my phone earlier that day,” I say, giving them a little piece of me—the piece I’m willing to share. The one that makes me seem human. But never too human, never too raw, never too wounded.
This is just enough, I hope.
And enough works, since laughter ripples through the crowd, then Luciana chimes in with, “Show of hands. Has that happened to you with your audiobook?”
Hands fly high.
A throat clears from right next to me. “Hazel, are you leaving out an important detail?”
Tension slams into me from Axel’s question. Is he going to dress me down onstage? “What do you mean?” I ask carefully.
He shoots a c’mon smile. “Tell them the rest of the story.”
Shit. Fuck. What am I leaving out? Dread crawls along my skin. I part my lips, but I’ve got nothing to say.
Only, he does. “That happened when you were on the subway at three-thirty, and it was filled with school children.”
I breathe a thousand and one sighs of relief.
But I’m also shocked. I’d nearly forgotten that detail.
I stare at him, a little amazed he remembers that. He wasn’t even with me on the train that afternoon a few years ago. Now that he’s mentioned it though, I must have told him the story the next day. Maybe when we were plotting our second forbidden romance in the Ten Park Avenue series. I told him all the little details of my days then—like the woman who walked her German shepherd past my apartment each morning as I was leaving for my run. Soon, she started wearing the same color workout clothes as I wore. We decided she was trying to steal my identity, so we called her The Hacker, and I wrote her nickname on my whiteboard.
I blink away the fond memory then focus on the here and now. There’s little an audience loves more than an embarrassing tale, so I pick up the conversational baton as smoothly as I can. “And if you think having a sex scene from an audiobook play out loud is bad, imagine if it’s you dictating a rough version of the sex scene,” I say.