I must have managed to spit out a thank-you, or something to the equivalent, but I wasn’t sure; I was highly aware of the eyes of everyone in the house fastened on me.
“I’m going to get out of your hair,” Julian said.“Sorry again for dropping by; I’m so glad you’re okay.Nice to meet everybody.I’m looking forward to working with all of you.”
A chorus of goodbyes echoed through the hall, and Bobby followed Julian to the door and locked it behind him.
Fox was the first one to speak.“What is wrong with you?”
“Huh?”
“This is your dream.This is what you’ve been waiting for.”
“Okay, one, it’snotmy dream.My dream is to write a lot of books.Some books.Like, nottoomany because I don’t want to overdo it—”
“This is a tremendous opportunity,” Fox said.“This is how people break out.My God, Dash, and you did it with one book.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with the book.It’s about all the cases I solved here.”
“Even better,” Fox said—which felt like a mixed message.
“Fox,” Indira said, “be kind.Dash, you sound like you don’t want to do it.”
“Why not?”Keme said.“It would be fire.”
I assumed fire meant cool, but I refused to verify.“There’s a lot of stuff still up in the air.Stuff we need to figure out.”
“You’d be ON TV.”Millie clapped her hands for emphasis.“JUST LIKE VIVIENNE!”
“Yeah,” I said.“Right.”
Bobby put his hand on my back and said, “The important thing is not to rush into anything.See what he offers you.Learn what this would take—what do they expect you to do, how much would you be involved.Talk to some other people in the industry.”
“You know, Vivienne was very hands-on withMatron of Murder,” Indira said, “but I don’t think that’s true for most authors who sell TV rights.”
“What if they wanted you to live in L.A.?”Keme asked—and the normally reserved boy sounded transparently excited.“That would be—”
“Fire,” I said.Around me, my friends beamed at me, and I tried to work up a smile.“Yeah, I know.”
Chapter 8
Surprise, surprise, I didn’t sleep well.I dozed, sure.I may have napped.There was some resting.But absolutely zero slumber.No repose.Nothing even close to the coma-like torpor that was the sign of a good night’s sleep.
(It’s not a good night’s sleep unless you don’t have to get up to pee, don’t toss and turn, and don’t have that weird dry mouth thing—sometimes it makes me wonder if sleep is steam-powered; like, where does all the water in my body go?)
Bobby was up at the crack of dawn, as usual.I woke again when he came back from his run.Because today was the first full day of the conference, I stirred—it involved flopping around, moving my legs back and forth, scrabbling for my phone on the nightstand.Waking up outside my normal sleep cycle was a whole process, and I was still working on it when Bobby came out of the shower.
No towel, by the way.Bobby wasn’t bothered by casual nudity, unlike the rest of us mere mortals.
On the other hand, ifIlooked like Bobby, I probably wouldn’t be bothered by casual nudity either.
“You didn’t sleep,” he said as he padded over to the bed.
“I might have had one snooze somewhere in the middle of the night.”
He bent to kiss my hair.He smelled like his soap, and he was warm from the shower.“How are you?”
“Okay.”And then I said, “Is it weird they were all so enthusiastic about the show?I mean, they don’t even know if it’s a good deal.”
A fraction of a second passed, and Bobby said, “Of course they’re excited for you.We all are.”
