Malcolm swirls his latest glass of wine, his lips stained red, the color rising in his cheeks as well. “What aboutyou, Sisi? Why doyoudo it?”
Sienna hesitates, looking past everyone for a long moment. “The truth is, I... don’t know. It’s something I’ve always loved. The magic, and the mystery, the alchemy of it all, the way you can build something out of nothing, a shared idea that goes from living in your head to living in everyone else’s.” She meets Malcolm’s eyes. “But lately...” She trails off.
Malcolm’s face has gone from red to white.
The whole room feels taut.
Jaxon looks around. “But lately what?” he asks, clueless. Kenzo steps in.
“What about you, Cate?”
She shifts in her seat, as if she didn’t expect to be asked. Then: “I do it because of my mum,” she says. “I was inspired by her passion. Her single-minded dedication to the craft. I’d get up for school, and she’d have been up for hours, writing before work. She always made time for it. No matter what.”
She blows out a breath. It’s the most she’s said since they got to the island.
Priscilla leans forward. “Oh, is your mom an author, too?”
Cate’s face falls a little. She shakes her head. “She tried. She really did. At one point, she could have papered our whole flat with the rejection letters. It just never happened for her.”
“She must be so proud, though,” adds Millie. “I mean, you’re withEleanor Vandenberg. And you’re here! That’s such a huge feat, especially at your age. You must bereallygood.”
Cate shrinks in the face of praise, and Jaxon rounds on Kenzo.
“Okay champ, you’re up.”
Kenzo raps his fingers on the table. “I think for me, it’s not that deep.”
And it’s not. It probably helps that he’s not in it for the money.
Writing hasn’t made him rich. But he never expected it to. People always say, don’t quit your day job, and he never even considered it. Every full-time author he’s ever met is miserable, in one way or another.
“I like writing,” he goes on, “and I’m pretty good at it...”
His publishing career is fine, but that’s because it’snota career. It’s a passion. Something he still looks forward to, every day.
“Which is nice, because you can be good at lots of things, and not enjoy them. But I enjoy this.”
It makes him happy—it really is that simple. His parents always encouraged him to make time for things that did, whether that was music, or sports, or this. His mom hates horror, but she reads everything he writes and comes to his events whenever they’re in town. His dad is just glad he’s not living at home. They would have supported him if he wanted to do it full time, they trusted him to make it work, but he likes things the way they are. And a few times a year, there’s a line of people waiting for him to sign something hemade up.In his head. In his spare time. He can’t believe how lucky he is.
“Plus, I get to kill people, for fun.” He looks straight at Jaxon as he adds, “On paper, of course.”
Priscilla laughs and rises to her feet. “On that note, does anyone want dessert?”
The room descends into yeses and no thanks and too fulls and compliments on the meal, before Malcolm says, “Shall I take a bowl of chili down to the cottage for our esteemed editor?”
“I’ll go!” says Jaxon, a little too eagerly.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” says Priscilla. “Eleanor was pretty clear about the rules. I’d hate for anyone to get disqualified on a technicality.”
“In that case,” says Kenzo, “go ahead, Jaxon.”
Jaxon flashes him a middle finger as he puts his bowl in the sink. “Fine,” he grumbles as Cate breaks out a box of cookies and a gallon of ice cream. “Nothing for the editor, then.” He returns to the table and slumps into his chair. “Mine sucked, anyway.”
“Sucked?” asks Kenzo, noticing the past tense.
A shadow crosses Jaxon’s face. “Sucks,” he says stiffly.
“You said sucked.”
