“Fine, you’ll get Snapchat?” she asks way too eagerly.
“No.” I sigh. “I’ll send the message.”
Lily stands, letting the chair roll behind her and hit the empty back wall. “Great. The meeting is at 2:00 p.m. next Friday. She needs a name and a way to contact your new best friend.”
“It’s a done deal, isn’t it?” I finally ask with a sigh of surrender, running my hand through my hair.
She nods her head. “As long as the writer agrees to Melanie’s terms. I put another note on your desk with the website since I’m guessing you’ve trashed the other ones. You’ll need to create an account to send a message. Have fun with that.”
Ihadtrashed every single brightly colored Post-it that she’d left on my desk. On Wednesday I entered my office, and I swear she bought every single Post-it note in a Target and left them all over my office. My walls, my desk, my couch, my computer, and my chair were covered in vibrant squares. It had to have taken her hours, but I suspect she laughed to herself the entire time she did it—proud of her bombardment of irritation, even though she’d practically killed a tree to accomplish it.
I don’t say anything to Lily. I just growl and glare. She smiles back.
Lily leaves the office, gently closing the door behind her. I take a pillow off the couch that I occasionally sleep on and throw it atthe closed door. It’s not my best moment, but Lily has seen me at my worst.
I sit back down at my desk, eyeing the note on an irritatingly bright pink Post-it, but I try to ignore it. I focus on my screen and the pulsing of the cursor that seems to be taunting me with the lack of words I’ve been able to piece together today.
I begin angrily pounding the keys, watching choppy sentences appear for thirty minutes before I finally erase all the nonsense. I run my hand through my hair and then toss my black-rimmed glasses to the side.
Then, my phone beeps with a text message.
Lily
Coffee, maybe?
Evan
Could you not walk the short four feet to my office to ask me that?
Lily
Not worth it if you are going to chuck another pillow at the door after me.
I stand up from my desk knowing I’m not going to fix anything about the mess that is my manuscript right now. The nearest coffee shop is only a couple blocks away, and it could be a welcome distraction to the work I’m obviously not getting done. I grab my jacket and open my office door.
“I’ll take a brown sugar latte,” Lily says. “Thanks.”
“Did you mean coffee for me or for you?” I ask.
“Well, since you’re going out…” she replies smugly.
She’s still typing aggressively on her computer with her violet claws.
“What do you even do out here all day while I’m writing? It’s not like it takes much to manage me.” I cross my arms.
“First of all, you’re a lot harder to manage than you think, and secondly, have you really been writing?” She glares at me from behind her glasses.
Lily isn’t just my assistant. She’s a virtual assistant to quite a few others: authors, social media influencers, small businesses, and more. It’s just that I happen to provide her a free office space, and it also seems that I provide free lattes.
“Oh, and one of those cinnamon streusel muffins would be great,” she adds.
I roll my eyes, shrugging my gray tweed jacket on. “Fine.”
“Best big brother ever,” she gushes through a huge, forced smile that practically splits her face in two. “Oh, and obviously my favorite author that I work for.”
“What about all the authors you don’t work for?” I ask as I head toward the door.
“Pretty big fan of BarrettBeyondTheBadge’s work at the moment,” she teases.
