“Why don’t you send it over and let me read it? Maybe I can help you come up with something.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Why not? If your writing is anywhere as hilarious as your speaking, I bet I’d really enjoy it.”
“I don’t know,” I say, thinking about the names I’ve used, the physical descriptions—any likenesses that relate directly to Colin Yarmouth.
“C’mon. How long is it?”
“So far? It’s only like thirty-five pages.”
“That’s nothing. I can breeze through it in a day. Then, we can talk about it tomorrow.”
“I don’t know,” I say again. “It’s stupid. And a little raunchy.”
“I’m a grown-up, you know.”
I inhale. “Okay,” I say. “But no judgment. At least nothing too harsh. The exercise here is for you to help me come up with a way to salvage this mess—not for you to tear me apart. Deal?”
“Why on earth would you think—?”
“Sorry. I don’t know. I haven’t shared my work with anyone blind like this since grad school.”
“I’ll be easy. I promise,” he says in that soft voice again.Mmm.Hecould ask me to fly to the moon in a rocket ship naked and I would do it if he used that voice.
“Okay,” I finally concede.
“It sounds like fun.”
“Reading a plotless introduction to a romance novel sounds like fun to you?”
“What? It does!”
“Of course, Colin. As does your work,” I say.
Colin laughs. “Yes. Death planning. Real riveting stuff.”
Here, we both pause, fresh out of banter. “Well,” I finally say.
“This was nice,” he says.
“It was,” I agree.
“Same time tomorrow?” he asks.
“Are you out of your mind?” I say.
“It’s possible.”
“I can’t commit to a phone date with you tomorrow anytime past ten.”
“Oh, so now it’s adate?”
Asshole! Why’d you have to use that word?“Yes, becauseI’mthe one who hit you up foryournumber in the middle of the night,” I retort.
“I’m just saying. If it’s adate, I can do better than just a phone chat.”
“Really? Are you propositioning me for phone sex now, Colin? What is this—the turn of the century? Should I check my caller ID and write down your 1-900 number?”
