She wasn’t wrong. Since I couldn’t think of anything to say in response, I just waved at her. “Good night, Bree.”
She waved back. “Good night, Brody.”
“Don’t forget to text.” I started up the walkway to my front door. “I’ll definitely be thinking about Lifetime movies—and far too much—if you don’t.”
Her giggle sent the parts of me that had quieted back to zinging. “I’ll text you the second I’m inside and the door is locked.”
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you.” Her expression was sincere when I glanced over my shoulder. “I can’t remember when I’ve had a more fun evening.”
“It was pretty great.”
“Even though we risked the wrath of the rent-a-cops.”
“Maybe because of it.”
She considered that for a second. “Yeah, I think that did add to the fun.”
I DREAMED ABOUT BREE AND NOT INa gentlemanly way. The dream involved a different sort of croquet—no clothes were required—and I woke up on the verge of messing up my sheets. Since I was so embarrassed, and maybe a little worried that my feelings were veering into dangerous territory, I did the only sensible thing I could think of. I ignored Bree for the next week and a half.
Not in a cruel way or anything. It wasn’t as if she was texting me and I was ignoring her messages. I just didn’t reach out to her. She didn’t reach out to me either. I also made sure my walks didn’t lead me past her house.
I told myself I wasn’t ghosting her. There wasn’t anything to ghost. We weren’t in a relationship. We were just two colleagues who occasionally crossed paths with one another… and we’d been so busy there were no paths to cross.
On my end, that was true. Well, kind of. I was writing again. I wasn’t just back to my previous pace—I’d surpassed it. Things were going so well for me that I’d started a second book, though it wasn’t one I would tell anybody about. It was a murder mystery, something I’d always wanted to try my hand at but had never had the confidence. When I’d told Bree I wanted to try writing a murder mystery, she’d suggested I wouldn’t be able to rest until I did. So I was doing it.
I rationalized that nobody would have to know about the book if I didn’t like the final product. It was possible I would be terrible at it. If I got a few more chapters in and hated it, or thought it wasn’t coming together, I could dump it. No muss, no fuss.
The new project wasn’t getting in the way of my fantasy book. I was still cranking out five thousand words a day on that. If I kept going, I would have a rough draft ready to send to my editor with time to spare. Normally I polished my own work—went through it at least three times—but that might not happen this time. I only needed to have something to hand in, I reminded myself. They would send edits back regardless. The polish could happen then.
As for the mystery, I didn’t know what I would do with it when I finished. I told myself that if I ended up hiding it in a file on my desktop and never looking at it again, that didn’t mean I could never write another mystery. As with anything, writing got better the more you did it. My second mystery might be ten times better than the first.
Because I’d convinced myself that nobody would ever read it, I was writing with the sort of abandon I used to possess when I was in high school and none of my writing assignments mattered. The thing was—and this was hard to admit even to myself—the book didn’t feel bad. Sure, it was rough around the edges and there would be things to clean up when editing—I’d been keeping notes—but there was no timetable for when this book needed to be finished. I could tinker with it to my heart’s content.
As for selling it, I wasn’t certain how that would go. My readers were used to high fantasy. It wasn’t that there was no crossover between fantasy and mystery readers. It just wasn’t a large crossover. There was more crossover between my readers and Bree’s than there was between my readers and mystery readers.
Still, there were options. I could do a pen name. I could do “B. B. Bates, writing as” so any curious readers could check it out without being confused or disappointed. I could do absolutely nothing and hide the book for the rest of my life. It was free todo whatever I wanted with it, which was probably why it was coming together so fast. There were no expectations.
The third author date snuck up on me. I’d been so busy writing—and avoiding walking by Bree’s house—that I didn’t even realize another event was upon me until Nathan texted to ask if he could park at my house so we could Uber in together. He planned on drinking, so that would mean him spending a night in my guest room. My house was much closer to the downtown area than his Airbnb. I was fine with an overnighter.
A quick look at the clock told me I didn’t have a lot of time to get ready, so I closed my laptop and hit the shower. By the time I was walking out of my bedroom, dressed for the event, Nathan was dropping off an overnight bag in my guest room.
“Ready?” he asked, doing a double take when he took in my black cargo shorts and matching polo. “This is different for you.”
I glanced down. The shorts went to my knees, and the shirt was no different from what I normally wore, other than the color. Suddenly, however, I was conflicted. “Should I change?”
He shook his head. “Your outfit is fine. It’s hot and humid tonight, and I think we’re on the patio at Vic’s.”
I hadn’t even gotten that far yet. “I love Vic’s,” I admitted.
“That’s why we’re going early enough to get dinner in the AC before heading out to the patio for the event.” He gave me a sidelong look. “Do you think your new girlfriend will be there?”
It took me a moment—much longer than it should have—to grasp who he was referring to. “She is not my girlfriend.”
“Really?” Nathan’s expression was bland. “So you didn’t get freaky on the croquet course with her?”
All the oxygen whooshed out of me. How did he know about that? “W-What?” My voice was creakier than a cabin door in a haunted-house movie.
