I don’t know if he can help, but at this point, I will take anything I can get. I have so many ideas, I just need to figure out which one sounds the best.
Jade
Can I call you? I think it would be easier.
Matteo
Yes.
Ignoring the nervous ball twisting in my stomach, I tap on his name to call him before I get the chance to second guess myself. I’m not sure Matteo is the person I should be bouncing ideas off of, but his part of our pact is to help me, so…
“Hey,” he says, answering on the second ring. He sounds a bit breathless. “Shit, hold on.”
There’s a rustling sound in the background, maybe a door slamming and then he’s back on the phone. “Sorry about that.”
“Everything okay? I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“You’re never a bother, Sunny. I just got home from dinner at my friend’s.” He pauses for a second. “Theo.”
“Why do you call me that?”
He’s quiet for a moment, then asks, “Call you what?”
“Sunny,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Because you’re like the sun. You shine brighter than everyone else around you. I know if I get too close, I’m bound to be burned.”
My heart stumbles over itself before breaking out into an unsteady rhythm of erratic beats.
“So, how can I help?”
Right. The reason why I called him.
“I have too many ideas and I need help picking the perfect one.”
“Let’s hear them.”
Putting him on speakerphone, I open my notes app on my phone and begin to list them off. The first few are similar to books I’ve written before. Friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, two single parents falling in love.
“I personally like to write the forbidden stories. The ones where they shouldn’t or can’t be together but find a way to end up together.”
“Oh, I like that,” Matteo says slowly, his words penetrating my ears. “What if you work off the forbidden aspect? Like rivals, maybe?”
The idea swirls in my brain, slowly sinking its tentacles into the crevices of my mind. “This is something I can work with.”
“It’s a romance, right?”
“Well, yeah. I don’t write anything that isn’t.” My fingers move quickly across the screen, my mind bubbling with ideas asI jot it all down. “They could be opposites. Bad boy, good girl. Maybe he’s from the wrong side of the tracks and thinks he’s not worthy of love.”
“He could have trust issues and that makes him hesitant to fall in love. He doesn’t think it’s something he’d ever want, but she ends up changing it for him.”
“This is brilliant. I think I have what I need to get started.” A smile pulls across my lips as I finish typing the note out on my phone. “This little plot pact is really going to come in handy.”
“Plot pact?”
I stifle a laugh, rolling back onto my side. “My friends and I came up with a name for what this is. You know like the saying do it for the plot? Except mine is kind of literal because I’m writing a book.”
“Hm.” Matteo lets out a soft chuckle. “The plot pact. I like that.”
