Present Day
I choke backmy surprise when Dr.B parks his truck on the side of the road and climbs out with a knowing smile as he looks at West’s sweater, which is once again swallowing my small frame. “I heard my star pupils need help?”
West nods, looking shockingly at ease as he helps our professor unload a tire from the bed of his truck and roll it into the ditch. Words elude me as I watch them work silently side by side until Dr.B brushes his hands on his cargo shorts and hooks one end of a rope to the hitch on the back of West’s truck and the other end to his own.
Minutes later, the rescue mission is complete. Dr.B claps West on the shoulder and mutters something low that I can’t hear before giving me a hearty wave and a promise to see us soon at our event.
“What wasthat?” I ask when we’re back on the road.
West shrugs easily. “I spoke to his class a couple of months after moving back, and he sort of took me under his wing after that.”
“Why?”
“Is it so impossible that someone would want to spend time with me?” West asks dryly, but the spark in his eyes betrays his amusement. After a beat of silence, he relents. “It didn’t escape his notice that every story I ever wrote included an absent or shitty father. I assume he knew I was lacking in that area.”
Impossibly, my fondness for both men grows.
“He’s going to call in that favor, isn’t he?”
West laughs and tugs on the sleeve of his sweater meaningfully. “He is after seeing you in this.”
We drive to the festival in our damp clothes, and the large auditorium is already jam-packed when we arrive. The time for planning or brainstorming is gone. We spend the hour chatting about writing, publishing, and our time as Wildcats, and for all my anxiety leading up to it, it might as well be any other event. My fear was completely unfounded. No one says anything weird or rude. No one brings up the past. The questions for the Q&A are pre-vetted, and when it’s over, I’m dizzy with relief. All that worry was for nothing, and the panel was the least eventful part of my weekend.
West and I sneak out the back door, stopping only for Daphne to pull me into a tight hug and drag me away as she whispers “Wewillbe talking about this” with a gleeful glance at West.
“How did you— When did you—?”
“I read his book the first night we were here. Enough of it, anyway. That man is hopelessly in love with you. Judging by the smile on your face, I’m guessing you two worked it out.”
My mouth dries as I look at him over my shoulder, leaning against the door with his hands in his pockets and a hungry expression.
“Go.” Daphne pushes me toward him.
“That went well, right?” I ask as West drives. My suitcase, which we rescued from the hotel, is in the back seat.
He throws me a quick smile before fixing his attention back on the road. “It was great.”
“I hope people liked it. I didn’t want to talk about my new book too much.”
“Why not?”
I shrug. “I just want to give readers what they want.”
I’ve learned the hard way what happens when I don’t. I couldn’t go online for a year, my publishing team resented me, and the movie studio refused to green-light the third installment of the series without a different ending. No one trusted me to write it, so Fox and Juniper’s theatrical fate is now in the hands of the producers and a scriptwriter I’ve never met.
“It’s your career. You shouldn’t feel obligated to talk about anything you don’t want to,” West says with a frown.
“I wouldn’t have a career if it weren’t for the success of those books. And without my success, no one would care about anything I have to say.”
“I would.”
“You know what I mean. Being an author is the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”
West’s frown deepens. “You know you’re worth more than your accomplishments, right? That the right people will love you even if you fail to live up to your own impossibly high standards?”
I’m on the cusp of agreeing with him when I reconsider, unsure if I actuallydoagree with him. “It’s normal to define yourself by success. You do it, too.”
He runs a tongue along the inside of his cheek before speaking. “I disagree. I defined myself by my failures.”
