Last clack of the keys and Carl rises, arms wide as he gives me a once-over. "Is it hot in here, or did Basic Instinct just get a sequel starring my favorite femme fatale?" He rushes toward me,takes my hand, and spins me around.
And just like that, the day gets better. I love Carl.
"You like it?"
"Do I like it?" He nods theatrically, twice. "You look the best I've seen you in ages."
"Thank you. You look great yourself. Your suit matches that fox-glint in your eye."
His brows flick up, playfully. "I am a fox, aren't I?"
He is. Ginger hair, wiry frame, his skin is so glowing and pulled back—maybe Botox, I never asked—that you would never be able to guess he's close to fifty, and when he grins, you're never sure whether to hug him or back away slowly.
When we sit, I don't expect pleasantries, so I blurt out the vague pitch I crafted literally this morning—old love, poor timing, a goodbye that pretended to be mutual.
Carl patiently nods, fingers steepled, and so obviously waiting for me to finish that my throat goes tight with the impending doom.
"That's sweet, but you know what's selling now?" he says then. Pause. Smirk. "Psychos in love."
My gaze flicks to the wooden monkey statue behind him with that perpetual confusion. Honestly, same.
"Ehh, but psychos can't love?" I say.
"Exactly." He points at me, basking in the win. "Julian Vexley has been number one for two months now. Brilliantly twisted genius. The man weaponizes everything humans like to hide."
Carl gets up, plucks the book from his library, and hands itover.
"Love has another name,"I read the title aloud. There's a rope and a rose on the cover.
I cringe and slide it toward him with two fingers. "It's giving Stockholm syndrome. In Helvetica. Not even close to my tone."
"Obviously." Carl shuts his laptop and studies the cover in awe, seeing something I don't.
"I've already mapped it out. For your genre, we go spicier for the next tone. I like the old love, but we need more tension. Something forbidden. A sexy triangle?"
I blink because it's uncanny he'd suggest that. Even weirder how my brain rejects it now that it's been said out loud.
I cross my legs and fold my arms. "Richard wouldn't take that well. He takes things too personally."
Carl's eyes narrow, unexpectedly fierce. "That's not for him to decide. You're not telling him how to run a hedge fund."
"I know. But you know him—"
"This is your work. It'sfiction."
"I know, but—"
"There is nobut," he cuts in impatiently, then sighs sullenly and points at me in frustration. "Your first book made people squirm. That girl clawing her way out of a flaming childhood, trying to share her feelings, and that broken-lover thing?" His palms open for effect. "Stellar. People cried in public. It felt like scar tissue."
Because it was my scar tissue. My way of untangling what happened ten years ago.
Carl shrugs his lips, lifts a shoulder. "The last two? Some good bits, but I brought them to the tub and ended up scrolling Tod's feed."
Tod. Carl's husband, who's a culinary star with a million followers and a feed full of videos that look like kitchen pornography. That Tod.
"Wow." I pull a face. "Really kicking a girl mid-crisis."
Carl softens just a notch and leans over the table. "I'm not trying to hurt you. Just reminding you what you're made of."
