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)
“Do you think he hasn’t considered this?” Terry is the one who comes to my defense.
“You remember what happened with the sci-fi stuff.” That’s Shawn. “They hated it.”
I feel like defending myself here, but he’s not wrong. They did hate it. I wrote a trilogy and the first book has over ten thousand reviews with a two-point-five-star rating average. It won online blog awards for worst book ever two years in a row. They turned me into a meme, for fuck’s sake.
And two years in a row? How does that even happen? Give it a fuckin’ rest already.
“Steve!”
All four of us look at the pretentious set of open stairs that lead down to the lower level of the house from the middle-level front door. My home is grotesquely opulent. Not like… French opulent with ornate shit everywhere. But the windows, and the blond-wood floors, and the Swedish-style furniture, and the pristine white walls—it’s so fuckin’ Malibu, ya just wanna throw up. It’s three stories tall, has a pool on the roof, and has a view people would die for.
I do love it, though. Living on the beach is awesome. Hell, my whole life is awesome.
So why do I feel like such a failure?
Essie appears, bouncing down the stairs in her white bikini. I nudge Luke to remind him not to drool—she’s married, for one. And for two, she’s my fuckin’ sister.
As far as twin sisters go, Essie is top-notch. When you think of a ‘romance writer,’ my sister’s face is what you picture. She’s cute, she’s curvy, she’s bubbly, she’s smart, and she’s friendly. She’s a walking rom-com. Which is why I asked her to be the face of my alter-ego, SS.
She was in the middle of a huge reno project inside the Paradise Cove Mobile Home Park—famous for being the most high-priced trailer park ever because it overlooks the beach. She bought this old, run-down mobile home before all the property values went through the roof. It was a steal and it came with the most private location on the hillside. She blew all her savings on this risk and then, little by little, she tore it apart and put it back together. That’s how she met her husband, Mike. He was renovating one next door. They had the same idea—the same dream—at the very same time. It was fate. Love at first sight. The happily ever after, if I may be so cliché.
Now they own seven mobile homes and rent them all out by the night. I let them use my top-floor master suite here at the house because sometimes all the mobile homes are full at the same time and they need a place to crash until the rush dies down.
Everyone but my sci-fi writer friends in this room and Mike thinks that Essie Smith is SS, the world-famous romance writer.
Even our parents think this, which is why they constantly tell me to get a job and stop mooching off my sister. They think this is her house and I’m her assistant. They think she’s throwing me a bone because I have no ambition.
I would tell them the truth, but my parents couldn’t keep a secret if their lives depended on it. Thanks to me, they are living the dream too. When they wanted to retire to Lakeside, Arizona, several years back and buy in to a multimillion-dollar luxury senior co-op (aka commune) where bragging about your overachiever kids is more popular than bingo, I had Essie offer to pay for it.
I love them. Like them too, most of the time. But living a lie this big with my parents twenty minutes away was more than I could handle. And I know, I know I could’ve just told them the truth. Then I wouldn’t have to live that lie. But my parents cannot be trusted with a secret this big. They would blab it to anyone who would listen.
So it’s Essie’s face on the inside back cover of the dustjacket. It’s Essie’s face on the website, and on Nile, and the socials, and in front of the webcam for the webinars.
She is the one who signs the books at the conventions, not me. She does all the marketing too. I’m just the chump who writes the books. I even narrate the books—I’ve got something of a cult following there—and Essie is the glamorous persona.
It feels a little silly these days. There are… well, not a lot of men writing romance, but it’s a thing. Back in the day though, I dunno. I was… embarrassed, I guess. I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing.
Even if I wanted to come clean, it’s too late. We’ve been living this lie for way too long to start telling the truth now.
“Mom and Dad are here.” Essie directs her gaze to Luke, Shawn, and Terry. “Can you help them with their luggage?” She says this in her sweetest voice. They rush to put down their beers and start for the stairs.