Also, someone was bound to notice that Grysten looked an awful lot like Griff…
I wasn’t embarrassed about my work. I wrote romance novels. Smut, as it was somewhat affectionately called. Although that word had pros and cons, I didn’t mind it. It had its place in the world. But that didn’t mean everyone felt that way.
My books were modestly successful, and my readers were amazing. I loved that I brought a little bit of joy to the world with my work.
And if that work fell into the wrong hands and people found out I was spending work hours working on my novel, I was going to be in trouble. As much as I wanted to stay home and write all day, if I actually could, I would be doing it already.
I needed this job.
Fuck, where in the world could it be?
My phone rang, and I answered it. My friend Trav was on the other line.
“Hey, man, what time are you getting out of work today?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “I get out of work at five every day, Trav. You know that.”
“Still, I thought maybe you would slack off early today. A boy can dream.”
“I wish,” I said. “Did you need something? I’m kind of panicking right now.” I lifted my shoulder to hold my phone against my ear so both my hands were free to search my bag for the third time.
“Panicking? Why?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.”
If I told my friend I’d lost my scene, he would laugh hysterically and then rush down here and help me find it—probably in the clumsiest way he could possibly manage.
“It’s your night-out day.”
I groaned. “Today?”
“Yeah. I told you last week we’re going to an amateur MMA fight.”
“A what?”
“Amateur boxing or fighting or whatever they do in the ring. Just know that you’re going to watch two guys in a ring, scantily clad, sweaty—”
“Beating the crap out of each other?”
“Yes,” he said, “but ignore that part. Just imagine the sexual tension.”
I snorted. “I don’t think all the boxers are gay or bi or into each other. They—”
“We can pretend.”
Once a month, my friend forced me out of my shell and took me somewhere that I wouldn’t normally go. He called it creative inspiration. I called it torture. But in reality, those nights were usually fun, and he never actually took me anywhere that was too uncomfortable for me.
I drew the line at him taking me to a BDSM club, although maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
An MMA fight might help with me trying to mentally choreograph fight scenes for when Grysten has to defend his omega against the evil orcs that try to steal him away. It counted as research.
“I’ll pick you up at seven,” Trav said, forcing me to snap back to the present.
“Okay, that’s perfect,” I said.
“You sure you don’t need help with whatever your issue is?”
“No, I’m good.” I was most certainly not good.
