Chapter One
Emery Parker stared at the blinking cursor on her screen, willing the words to come. They didn’t. Even when she muttered several elaborate and logically improbable curses. She sighed. She’d been sitting at her laptop for two hours, and the document remained stubbornly empty, save for ‘Chapter Seven’ written at the top of the page.
“Come on,” she muttered, running her hands through her short, dark curls. “You can do this. You’ve done it before. It’s not like you’re a nobody. Emerald Pearl does NOT get writer’s block.”
But Emery Parker did.
She took a sip of her now-cold coffee and grimaced. The words that had flowed so easily through her first eight novels were nowhere to be found today, and she had no idea why. Her phone buzzed by her side, the sixth time in the last two hours, and she glanced at the screen to see Domi’s name flashing yet again.
“Not now,” she mumbled, silencing the call. Her agent would just have to wait, like the rest of the world would have to wait, for the next steamy installment from bestselling romance novelist Emerald Pearl.
Mind you, if they all knew that the woman behind the pen name couldn’t even make eye contact with the barista she’d been crushing on for months without knocking over a pile of paper cups and a rack of biscuits, they might feel a little differently about picking up her next book.
She pushed back from her desk and stretched. Maybe a change of scenery would help. She reached for her coffee mug, somehow knocking it with her elbow in the process. Dark liquid splashed across her keyboard.
“No, no, no!” Emery lunged for the laptop, frantically wiping at the keys with her shirtsleeve. The screen flickered, froze, and went dark. “No, come on, please, not now.”
She pressed the power button repeatedly, each attempt more desperate than the last. Nothing. Her meager progress, three false starts, six mediocre chapters, and a blinking cursor, were all gone.
“Fan-freaking-tastic,” she groaned, dropping her head into her hands.
Her phone buzzed again. She didn’t even look at it. She knew it was Domi again, probably threatening bodily harm if Emery missed another deadline. At this rate, she’d be lucky if she had anything to show by Christmas, let alone by next week.
Then, finally, the doorbell rang, which saved her at least from the temptation of throwing her phone across the room. She trudged to the door, half-hoping for a salesman that she could take out her frustrations on.
Instead, she found Jax, arms laden with takeout bags, a grin on her face, a pristine suit covering up the tattoos that Emery knew were lurking on her skin. The very picture of a solicitor. Well, at least until the shirt sleeves got rolled up.
“You look like crap,” Jax said, pushing past Emery into the flat. “Please tell me that’s not the same t-shirt that you were wearing when I came yesterday.”
Emery glanced down at her faded Pink Floyd shirt. “I’ve been busy.”
“Busy avoiding Domi’s calls, from what I hear.” Jax set the food on the coffee table and began unpacking containers of Thai food. “She called me, you know. Apparently, you’re not answering.”
“I’m writing,” Emery lied, collapsing onto the couch.
Jax snorted and handed her a carton of pad thai. “Right. That’s why your laptop is dripping coffee onto the floor.”
Emery winced, glancing at her poor, abused computer. “It was an accident.”
“It’s always an accident, Em,” Jax said. “Remember when you accidentally set fire to your kitchen when you were trying to impress that girl from your publishing house? Or how about when your bike accidentally got squished by a bus when you were trying not to look at that woman who works at the grocer’s?”
“That was different,” Emery said around a mouthful of noodles. “First, how was I supposed to know that you can’t put metal in the microwave? And second, at least I wasn’t on the bike at the time.”
“Every adult human knows that you can’t put metal in a microwave,” Jax laughed, her bleached blonde hair falling across her face as she shook her head. She pushed her hair back, revealing a small tattoo behind her ear that Emery assumed her law firm still didn’t know about, or else it would be covered in makeup. “So, what’s going on then? Domi says you’ve been dodging her for weeks.”
Emery exhaled and set down her food. “I can’t write, Jax. I just can’t. It’s like… the words are gone. For real this time.”
“Oh please,” said Jax with an eye-roll. “You say that every book.”
“No, this is different.” Emery was adamant. “I’ve been staring at a blank page for days. What if I’ve lost it? What if Emerald Pearl is finished?”
“Drama queen,” said Jax, picking up a piece of tofu with her chopsticks. “You’re blocked because you haven’t left your flat for nearly a month. What you need is some real-life inspiration.”
“I don’t need real life. I need to finish this manuscript before Domi murders me in my sleep,” groaned Emery.
“What you need,” said Jax, pointing at her with chopsticks, “is to stop hiding behind Emerald Pearl and actually live a little. When was the last time you went on a date?”
“Please don’t start with that again.”
