“I am Groot!” the toddler said.
“Diego!” Nicole corrected him. “He’s obsessed with Groot.” And found Groot tasty, given who he was chewing on.
“Nice name,” Liani said. “Diego, I mean.”
Nicole nodded. “Sebastian wanted to name him after his father, who died when Seb was a boy.”
“Aw, that’s sweet,” said April.
Liani looked wistful. “I remember when my boy was that age. It’s a precious time. It won’t be long before you’ll be paying their way through college and watching them get their first jobs.”
Nicole’s stricken look was almost comical. The idea of raising kids to adulthood must be overwhelming no matter where you were in the process. Roz didn’t know if she had the fortitude. She couldn’t imagine motherhood anytime soon, and baby showers gave her hives. Maybe they just reminded her of everything she’d put off in favor of chasing the news.
She was saved from talking by a voice shouting from the back of the room.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats!” the woman by the podium called. “We’ll start in just a few minutes!”
The audience scurried for the few remaining folding chairs. April and Liani smiled at each other and dashed toward the seats.
Nicole took a detour to tell her two older kids to stay quiet and leave Pooh alone.
“But I have to pee!” Mateo whined.
“Oh, all right. I’ll take you. Gabriela, be good and stay right there. Ms. Roz is watching you.”
Roz raised an eyebrow. Gabriela gave her a suspicious once-over and exclaimed, “I’m going with you, Mommy.”
Nicole shrugged at Roz and dragged her three-child circus to the back hallway.
Everyone’s a critic, Roz thought.
The podium was empty again, and the musicians started playing another song, so she took a moment to look over the new hot romances. She might not write fiction, but she loved reading it. Sometimes she needed an escape from the facts, especially when they were too grim.
A few minutes later, the woman at the podium had returned: Mae Middleton, proprietor of Big Bang Books. She wore a flowing dress covered in moons and stars, and her purple-streaked black hair was piled high on her head. Heavy eyeliner, silver jewelry and a galaxy of tattoos on her pale skin added to the fortune-teller vibe.
Roz liked her look, and she liked Mae, a sweet person she remembered from her days at Comet Cove High. Mae had been a year behind her in school. Roz was thirty-two, but she had to admit the curvy Mae looked a lot younger. Especially when she beamed as she was doing now.
“It’s great to see so many people here!” Mae clasped her hands together, as giddy as a kid at a carnival. “Are you all as excited as I am?”
The crowd cheered, and Mae paused as a pale, balding man in a bow tie and spectacles walked up and spoke in her ear.
Roz looked around for Alden. He was on the other side of the room, but he glanced up to catch her eye. Almost all the chairs were full, though one remained next to Sheryl, and several people stood among the shelves next to the event space. Many clutched freshly purchased copies of Enolia’s latest novel, The Murex Murder.
Mae nodded to bow-tie guy, who vanished into the back hallway, crossing paths with Blake Burbage, who emerged and slipped off to the side. The bathrooms back there were probably getting a lot of use, given the free beverages a young woman in red-framed eyeglasses poured at the refreshment table. Roz tossed her empty coffee cup in a waste can, quietly accepted a flute of champagne from the bookseller, and turned her attention to Mae.
“To all of you who preordered a copy of Enolia’s new novel, thank you for keeping the lights on!” Mae said to a round of laughter. “Just show Enolia your golden special-edition bookmark so she knows you actually paid for it”—more titters—“and she’ll be glad to sign your book after she chats with us for a bit. We have a few more copies in case you haven’t picked one up yet. So … are you ready?”
As the fans clapped in anticipation, Mae pulled her phone from a hidden pocket, tapped the screen and started reading. “Enolia Honeywood is an international bestselling author of more than fifty books, and she’s synonymous with the term ‘beach read.’ Her success began with the thriller Shellbreak Island, which, just between us, I hear is soon to become a major motion picture.” The room buzzed.
“In the past thirty years, she’s hit No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list a dozen times. She’s currently single—take note, gentlemen!” A ripple of amusement passed through the crowd as Roz wondered what “currently” implied. “And she’s just moved into our very own Comet Cove. And now, with no further ado, I’d like to introduce our honored guest and my favorite author of all time, Enolia Honeywood!”
Chapter Two
Alden, who’d opted not to grab a chair given his good view from the sidelines, was torn between the thrill of seeing his favorite author emerge from the dark back hallway and his twinge of jealousy at seeing Roz talking to that slick dude with the long hair and radioactive smile. Who was that guy?
Of course, Alden had been busy, too, trying to warm up Blake Burbage. The actor hadn’t shooed him off, probably a sign of just how far he’d fallen. Or maybe Alden was just good at small talk, at making people laugh and feel comfortable. It was a skill that served him well when he worked for the National Eye, and he used it often as a social and features writer now. He was uniquely placed in Comet Cove to cover its oddly burgeoning celebrity scene, and the fact that he liked the small-town, beachy lifestyle—and had met Roz—made his situation almost perfect.
Except that he worried Roz was nervous about their very new relationship. It hadn’t helped that merging their two publications had been stressful and intense, even if everyone who wanted a job still had one. Then Alden had impulsively confessed his love for her after the big story that made national headlines. He knew she cared for him. But he also knew he could be about as subtle as a steamroller, and the truth was, having all the feels was pretty new for him, too.
