And it definitely wasn’t pretty.
Harper’s hair had been in a ponytail and she’d been wearing the same oversized sweatshirt for most of this week. Natalie couldn’t criticize. She was going on her third day without showering.
They were both sucking down caffeine like it was their life’s blood. When someone or another didn’t bring them food, they made do with whatever snacks were the quickest to grab.
And even though Natalie fell into bed every night so weary she could barely climb onto the mattress, she still woke in the middle of the night with her mind racing.
Natalie leaned back in the kitchen chair and stretched her muscles. Then tried to stretch out the ache in her wrists.
“How could sitting all day be this exhausting?” she asked.
Harper visibly startled, her head whipping up at Natalie’s words.
Natalie cringed. “Sorry. You were concentrating and I disturbed you to complain. God, I suck at this. I’ll keep my mouth shut from now on. I promise.”
“No. Don’t worry about it.” Harper shook her head and stretched. “I need to drink some water and stand up for a bit. My legs are going numb.”
“I also have to apologize to you in general.” Natalie shook her head. “I never appreciated how hard you work. How difficult this job is. Physically. Mentally. ”
Harper let out a short laugh. “Don’t worry. No one does.”
“I owe you so much for doing this with me. I couldn’t have done it without you. And I can’t even count how many hours you sacrificed. I appreciate it. So much.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s been fun.”
“Fun?” Natalie choked.
This was definitely not fun. Not for Natalie, who realized life was too short to spend this many hours checking this book’s appendix.
Not even for Gabe and Millie who had all the time in the world. The two ghost lovebirds had abandoned the project days ago in favor of watching the new streaming channels Harper had made the error of logging them into before the book was done rather than after.
“Okay. Maybe fun isn’t the word. How about challenging?”
“Better.” Natalie nodded.
Harper grinned. “Just wait until you see it in print. And even better, for sale and in readers’ hands. It’ll all be worth it. You’ll see.”
“All I see right now is bibliographical citations.” She slumped against the table, the page numbers of the sources beginning to swim before her eyes.
“There’s a reason I write fiction, and romance. It’s a hell of a lot more fun than this.” Harper said. “I mean the historical research was interesting, but this other stuff. The citing of sources and formatting endnotes and footnotes… I guess we have to give Lionel a pass, because this stuff is enough to make anyone a cranky son of a bitch.”
“No kidding.”
“But you want good news?” Harper asked.
“Please,” Natalie answered emphatically.
“I think we’re done.”
That had her sitting up straighter than she had in the past week. “What do you mean?”
“I think that’s it. I checked the back matter over twice. I read through the chapters again and didn’t find anything wrong. And honestly, at this point we’re both so familiar with the words we wouldn’t be able to see any mistakes anyway. We’re done. I think it’s time to email this thing to the publisher.”
Natalie’s eyes widened. “It would be like…” She did a quick calculation. “Two days early.”
“It would be.” Harper grinned. “I read that ninety percent of authors submit late to their publishers. Allen Turning is going to think you’re a goddess for submitting early.”
Harper’s joy and her smile were contagious. That combined with the sheer relief of being done with this book had Natalie’s mood soaring.
