“You got a breather from Blair, right? That’s a good thing.”
I rubbed my chin and nodded.
“Bullet points?” Bree asked.
I groaned. “She’s been rereading my books. She has questions about certain logistics.”
“You should take it as a compliment.”
“How can I take her nitpicking as a compliment? It makes me feel inferior.”
“Don’t look at it that way.” She shook her head. “Look at it as she loves your work so much, she cares so much, that she can’t help obsessing about every little detail because it takes up so much space in her head.”
When she put it like that, it was easier to swallow. Still, there was pain associated with the jabs Blair kept taking, whether she knew what she was doing or not.
“She doesn’t understand that authors are soft at their cores,” Bree continued. “We have to be to let that amount of emotion in. We’re channeling emotion when we write, which makes us weak in certain ways.”
I didn’t appreciate being called weak. She continued anyway.
“Writers are weird dreamers who go soft under criticism,” she explained. “We can’t help it. Blair really isn’t trying to hurt your feelings, though. She just cares about the books so much she glosses over your feelings because she can’t see past her own beliefs.”
“She’s a little intense,” I managed.
“She is, but you can’t take it personally. It’s part of the game. People both love and hate us. The internet has become this place where people can be evil with no repercussions. They don’t see us as people, because you can be anonymous and safe on the internet even when spewing vitriol. And that has extended into the real world. Ninety percent of my readers are absolute gems. A handful, however, see us as commodities and nothing more. It is what it is.”
I sighed. She was right. “I know. Blair is just … a lot.”
“Oh, Blair is definitely a lot,” she agreed on a grin. “But it could be worse. Andrew was in the middle of asking me if scales were sexy on my alligator shifters when Joey decided to make an appearance. I would take Blair over either of those guys ten times a week.”
I laughed and nodded. The spell between us had been broken. We still hadn’t talked about the kiss—the never-ending, ridiculously hot kiss—but in that moment, it almost felt as if it had happened to somebody else.
“I guess we should head back inside,” I said, scooping my fingers through my hair. “We still have an hour left.”
“Yeah.” I hesitated. “Why don’t you stick close to the bar and me, huh? Just in case Joey is still around. I know you don’twant to file a complaint or make a scene, so let’s just make it impossible for him to corner you.”
The look of profound gratitude on her face almost brought me to my knees. “Thank you.”
An ache formed near my chest. She looked so vulnerable. “Don’t thank me for doing the bare minimum. We’ve talked about this.”
“I can’t help it. I’m grateful.”
She was frustrating without even realizing it. “You should expect more for yourself than the bare minimum.”
She beamed, and my entire world lit up. “I’ll work on it.”
“Good idea.”
“THERE’S TOILET PAPER ALL OVERyour front yard.”
That was the statement I woke up to the next morning, and when I shifted in bed, I found a shirtless Nathan eyeing me from the doorway. He was in boxer shorts, his hair standing on end, and he had a coffee mug in his hand.
“What?” I asked dumbly.
A quick look at the clock on my nightstand told me I’d slept a full two hours longer than normal. That was because, upon arriving home the previous evening, I’d spent two hours pounding out more words on my book. Actually, both books. That was after pouring Nathan, who was a little tipsy, into bed in the guest room.
“There’s toilet paper all over your front yard,” Nathan repeated.
Other than looking a little pale and speaking a little slower than normal, he didn’t appear to be suffering too much from the previous evening’s shenanigans. He and Hayley had been drinking together, and the latter had been just as drunk whenBree loaded her into an Uber at the same time as I shoved Nathan into a separate one face-first.
