And completely, unfairly attractive.
A burst of static from somewhere—his radio, or maybe a nearby one—makes me flinch. Then a tinny voice, male, amused: "Tuck, you copy? Perimeter's clear but the sunset is incredible. Recommend you pause and appreciate. Over."
Tucker lifts the radio without breaking stride. "Copy. Appreciating. Out."
The woman beside me—the thriller writer—leans in. "You're staring."
"I am not staring. I was looking at the... sunset."
"The sunset is behind you."
I take a very large sip of champagne.
Diana materializes beside us with the social precision of a woman who's worked a thousand rooms. "And you are?"
"Kassidy Monroe. I write contemporary romance."
"Monroe." Her eyes sharpen. "The Starting Over series? I read the first one. Delightful voice. How's the new book?"
The honest answer is: The new book is a crime scene of half-finished chapters and self-doubt, and my protagonist is as emotionally unavailable as I am. What comes out is: "Coming along. Slowly."
Diana studies me the way a surgeon studies an X-ray. "Writer's block?"
"More like writer's... coma."
She laughs—warm, genuine. "Come to my session tomorrow. I'm doing a workshop on writing authentic emotion. Might shake something loose."
"I'd love that."
"Good." She pats my arm. "And stop worrying. The best books are written by people who are terrified they can't write them."
She glides away to charm the memoirist, and I'm left standing on the veranda with an empty champagne flute and the nagging sense that everyone here can see right through me.
The mixer winds down as the sky turns indigo. I slip away from the last stragglers and walk toward the beach, shoes dangling from one hand, wine glass in the other. The sand is cool between my toes, and the crash of the waves drowns out the noise in my head—temporarily.
I find a flat rock near the dunes and sit, pulling out my phone to open the Notes app. Sometimes, if I just start talking through a scene out loud, the words unstick.
"Okay," I say quietly, staring at the water. "She's standing on the porch. It's raining. He's leaving, and she knows she should let him go, but her hand is on the door frame and she can't—" I pause. "No. That's too passive. She won't let him go. She steps into the rain and?—"
"Does she go after him?"
I nearly fall off the rock. Tucker Brennan is standing about ten feet away, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable in the fading light.
"Were you eavesdropping?" I demand, heart hammering.
"I was walking the perimeter. You were narrating pretty loudly."
"I was not narrating. I was... working through a scene. It's a writing technique."
"Talking to yourself on a beach?"
"It's a respected writing technique."
He takes a step closer, and the last of the daylight catches his face. He's not laughing at me, I realize. He's genuinely curious.
"So does she?" he asks. "Go after him?"
I look down at my phone, at the blinking cursor and the empty screen. "I don't know yet. She's stuck."
