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)
Apparently, this character matchmaking is shocking to her too, since she’s shaking her head. Then she asks, “You think Noah has been into Lacey?”
Jackie nods, big and long. Maria chimes in next with an oh yes.
But Alecia tuts her friends, before she says to us, “I’ve got a dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House that says these two are wrong, so could you please, please, pretty please with a well-done ribeye on top write the dang book with Lacey and Nate? So I can say I was right, I was right, I was right.”
I flash a smile at Hazel, who flings one right back at me. They say in our secret writer code that the readers are wrong but we don’t want to be rude to them. We mastered the signals when we worked together.
Funny to be using it again.
Though, funny’s not the right word. More like warm, or even…comforting.
“Those are the three most satisfying words in the English language,” I say, deflecting for both of us. I’m not going to tell the Book Besties that they’re dead wrong about Lacey’s love interest. We were writing her with Nate, not Noah.
But Lacey’s fictional guy hardly matters since her book is dead.
I’m relieved that Steven the Nikon Man has no interest in Ten Park Avenue. He motions me closer once the servers have cleared the table. His wife must have taken off, since he’s alone. “Been dying to ask you something. It’s about the scene in Vienna in A Beautiful Midnight when the hero races through the city center on his Vespa.”
“Hit me up, Steven,” I say. One table over, the college gals chat with each other, seemingly uninterested in this book dissection.
“Now, I did a simulation on whether it’s possible to reach all those locations in ten minutes, like in chapter twenty-two.” Steven breaks out his phone and shows me a map of places in my book, then spends several minutes telling me that it’s not possible to pull off the chase scene from my story on a Vespa.
He’s engaging enough to distract me from Jackie’s far-fetched idea. “That’s all plausible, Steven. But the thing is,” I say, pulling the ace from my sleeve, “his Vespa was souped up.”
I’m about to tell him where to find the mention of the tricked-out vehicle when the redheaded college gal—Uma is her name—pipes up with, “It says so in chapter fourteen, paragraph four. That’s how he pulls it off.”
Damn. She has a steel memory and bionic ears. “Uma’s right,” I say.
Steven’s eyes flicker with you’re kidding me. “No way!”
“Yessss,” Uma says, then since she’s done correcting him as he reader-splains to me, she returns to her conversation with her friends, whipping her gaze back to them.
I clap Steven’s shoulder. “Yes. Check it out. It’s a quick mention but it’s there.”
Scrambling, he flicks through the book on his phone, and when he discovers the little detail, he whistles appreciatively.
Then, because we’ve talked about me enough, I ask him what he does for a living.
“I’m a lawyer, but I want to be a writer,” Steven says, a little sheepishly. “That probably sounds ridiculous.”
“Not in the least,” I say, then I pull my chair closer. “Have you started your first book?”
“I finished it, actually. It’s, well, it’s a thriller. That’s probably obvious,” he says, and it’s funny to see this side of him—the nervous and worried side. He’s been such a lawyer all along, fast and sharp with questions.
Now he sounds like a writer.
“Let’s just say I’m not surprised,” I say.
“It’s edited too. I hired a professional editor. I’d like to try to find an agent or self-publish it. It’s just…” He stops, winces, scrubs a hand across his chin. “The reviews. How do you deal with them?”
That’s his worry? He came to the right guy. With a laugh, I say, “Badly, most of the time.”
His shoulders seem to lose some of their tension. “Really? You seem so…impervious.”
Glad my facade works. But there are times when I need to let it down. This seems like one of those times. “Some days I have the thick skin of a rhino. Other days, I’m cellophane,” I admit with a shrug.
“Yeah?” He sounds relieved. “That’s good to know. Well, that it’s hard for someone like you.”
I flash back to a comment Hazel made during dinner at Menu, that I was obsessed with reviews. That stung, but only because it was true. Also because that obsession was messing with my mind. “It is, but I’m trying to get better. I used to care about them too much—the good and the bad. The bad ones sent me into a tailspin, but I let the good ones go to my head. I had to get a better handle on all of it.”
“How do you do that now?”
“My favorite way is to just ignore the bad ones. As for the good ones, well, I like praise. We all do. But my agent made me a deal. He shares a handful of good ones, along with a promise to send me a bottle of the best single malt for my birthday if I don’t Google myself anymore.”