53
SARAH
Phew. What a day.
I leant back in my office chair and breathed out a satisfied breath. I’d got so much done today.
As well as creating a calendar of social media posts to promote the retreat and going over the marketing materials our designer, Stella, had created, I’d also come up with a list of ideas to boost the library’s revenue for Jess.
Plus, I’d checked the analytics, and the reel that Ben and I created had blown up over the weekend.
The amount of comments we’d received was insane.
They were mostly like the ones I’d seen on the train to the airport on Friday:
‘Girl, there’s no way I’d be turning a hottie like him down if he asked me out.’ And many different variations of ‘He is FIT!’
Reading them today hit different because all of these women fancied Ben and I’d actually slept with him. Multiple times. Talk about a confidence boost.
But then imposter syndrome struck and I started wondering why Ben had chosen me. Was it just because he was horny and I was available and willing?
I mentally slapped myself as I remembered that the reason wasn’t important. It was just a bit of temporary fun.
The strange thing was that there were also some comments insisting that we were a real couple. Like: ‘There’s no way they aren’t together!’ and ‘If they aren’t boning already, it’s only a matter of time.’
Looked like our followers had seen the chemistry between us before we did.
Anyway, the important thing was that there’d definitely been a dramatic uplift in web traffic and online orders. Celeste even said that some new members had been asking for the TikTok guy.
Whenever he covered breaks in the library, there were always women swarming around him. Looked like that fan base had now massively increased.
My stomach tensed and I scolded myself. I couldn’t start getting jealous. It was over. End of story.
Jesus. It was amazing that I got any work done at all with these thoughts swimming around my head. It’s a good thing that I hadn’t seen Ben today or I would’ve been even worse.
‘Hi!’ Jess burst into the office. ‘How was your day?’
‘Very productive!’ I said.
‘Glad to hear it! I forgot to tell you earlier that I got some writing advice from D.D. Desire.’
‘That’s amazing, thanks!’
Jess pulled her phone out of her jeans, unlocked the screen and started scrolling.
‘I made some notes, but I wrote them when she was speaking, so they’re not very clear. Let me see…’ Jess squinted at the screen.
‘Hold up, let me grab a pen and write all this down.’
‘Probably for the best. I’d offer to send you this, but these notes are all over the place. Right, so yeah, when I told heryou were finding it difficult to get started and find a good idea for a meet-cute, she recommended that you don’t put so much pressure on yourself. She said that she knows it sounds harsh, but you’re a debut novelist—no one’s waiting for your book to come out yet, so allow yourself the freedom to let the words come when they’re ready. And when they do, just write. Don’t overthink or second-guess whether the words are good or not, because once you’ve got a story written, you can come back and edit those words later. But you can’t edit a blank page.’
‘Makes sense.’ I nodded as I tried to scribble down everything Jess said.
‘Sorry. Am I going too fast?’
‘A little, but it’s okay. Carry on.’
‘Right, where was I? Oh yeah, she said that when you’ve finished your first draft, don’t worry if it’s not amazing because everyone has an SFD. Bollocks! What did that mean again?’ Jess rubbed the side of her head like she hoped the action would magically release the answer. ‘That’s it! An SFD is a “shit first draft”. That’s when she repeated the importance of getting the words written first because then you can spend as long as you need to make it better.’
