A tall white woman with long gray hair grabs a folding chair that’s been leaning against the wall. “Pop a squat if you care to.” After practically running the whole way here, I do care to, and I thank her.
The third person, a scrawny man wearing a zigzag-printed button-down, gives me a wicked eyebrow. “Aren’t you that vulgar comedian?”
Nohangs on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t say no, so I nod.
“Wouldn’t kill you to clean up your act. Back in my day, comedians didn’t need to say all that shocking stuff to get a laugh,” he tuts, slouching back in his chair and angling away from me. As if my presence alone is a scourge.
The woman waves him off. “Oh, Peter, pipe down. Your day was when the dinosaurs roamed the earth.”
“You’re not far behind him!” the first man, Xavier—so says his name tag—jokes with a laugh.
Drew claps his hands, smiling. “Okay, okay. Let’s get back to the book, shall we? I want to hear everyone’s thoughts on the big killer reveal. Peter, would you like to start?” Drew is good at politely commanding the room back to attention, I notice, so at ease in that role with people he’s clearly comfortable with.
“I thought it was hackneyed,” Peter spits out. Guess I’m not the only object of Peter’s grumpiness. “I called it that the mailman was the killer the whole time. You could tell by page fifty.”
“It was chapter three for me,” says the woman. “He knew too much about the protagonist’s life. Plus, the long-lost twin trope? Give me a break.”
“I liked it,” says Xavier, sounding a bit bashful. “Sometimes stories that hit the beats we expect are just as satisfying as the ones that blow our minds. I thought the writing toward the end there was really poetic and the themes tied up really nicely.”
Drew chimes in. “I agree. There’s comfort in revisiting the tropes we know and love. I think there was something quite interesting to be said about how torturous reconciling our pasts can be when we’re trying hard to change our future. The psychic told him his familywould be his downfall. Ironic that he didn’t even know the family member who would commit the crime.”
“Have you read it?” the woman—Jolene written on her name tag—asks me.
“No, I haven’t read anything in…” I fumble for the right wording. “Awhile. But it sounds interesting. Even though I don’t know the story like you all, I am a writer. As a comedian, I have to plot out stories and jokes, and to speak to Drew’s point, sometimes the tried-and-true method is the most successful mode of getting your point across. It may be overdone, but it’s been done so many times for a reason. Think about how many observational jokes begin with ‘Have you noticed…’ and then the comedian shares some universal insight about traffic or family or airline food. It’s how you observe the airline food that dictates whether the material is successful or not.”
Drew offers me an appreciative if hesitant smile. “That’s an excellent point, Nolan.” His eyes flick away quickly, reminding me of the awkwardness from our last encounter. I may be up to date now, but that doesn’t mean Drew wants anything to do with me.
About twenty-five minutes later, a timer sounds off in Drew’s pocket. “That’s our meeting. I’ll announce next month’s pick later in the week and you can pick up your copies by Monday.”
The small group scatters. Peter issues me another grouchy glare, but Xavier and Jolene say they hope to see me at their next meeting, which will not happen considering I only stumbled into this one by complete accident. Much like this timeline.
Drew and I stay behind to clean up. As I grab a paper plate covered with cookie crumbs left under Peter’s chair, I’m hit with flashes of busing tables at the Hardy-Har Hideaway. It’s mind-boggling to think how far I’ve come in seven years, how much attention and wealth I’ve accumulated by selling my soul in a pretty sucky way.
“The book’s themes were a little too applicable for comfort,”Drew says, offering me the open side of a trash bag. Where’s that robotic vacuum when you need it? “Your past popping up into your present hits a bit too close.”
“Tell me about it.” I follow him into a back room that turns out to be his office. The desk from his old room in our apartment is there, cluttered with papers and an old laptop.
“Now, what was it you said when you entered earlier?” Drew asks. His expression lets me know he remembers full well and is toying with me a little.
I smirk. “Should I make my entrance again?”
“By all means.”
With a dramatic flair, I exit the office and then burst back in. “I’m a terrible person!”
“I concur,” he says smugly, now sitting in a rolling chair with his legs kicked up on the desk, ankles crossed, exposing tall, blue socks like the ones he gave me for my date with Harry. “I take it you watched the rest of the video.”
“And every other video I could possibly find. The world’s longest, darkest rabbit hole. I can’t believe I wrote all that material. I mean, the stuff about you was bad, but the stuff about my family…” I wince, thinking back on the way I made CeeCee out to be a monster, my mom out to be overbearing, and my dad… Well, I didn’t say much about him, but he was incriminated by association. “I spun that whole wedding situation in such a dishonest way.”
He nods and shrugs. “We all want to be the victim. Unless you’re in one of these,” he says, tapping a finger on a stack of nearby hardcovers. “Then youdefinitelydon’t want to be the victim.”
A laugh warms me momentarily. Enough of a reset to allow me to ask another question that’s been plaguing me. “Why murder?”
“What?”
“Sorry, I mean, what happened to Eight, Three, One Books? Younever answered me the other day. Bound by Mayhem seems a bit off brand for you,” I reply. “Obviously I know now that a lot can change in seven years. It’s just, I don’t know…”
“Are you asking if I pivoted from romance to thrillers and mysteries after everything went down between us? And if you are, do you really want to know the answer? Because I’ve never lied to you, and I’m not about to start now,” he says matter-of-factly.
