“What? No. I don’t want…” He took a breath, started again. “You’ve read it?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty good.”
“Okay, that might help.” He put his phone down. “See… I was thinking… what if you were right? What if you need a book to get you back out to the real world?”
“I tried that, remember?”
“Yeah, you tried books that were already written, but what if… we wrote our own?”
Emmy’s lips parted, but no words came out. Finally, she managed to say, “Huh?”
“It’s not the craziest idea,” Will insisted. “If we can write a story… maybeourstory… with the ending we want, maybe that will create a… a portal. Or whatever.”
“A portal.”
Will scowled at her. “You have no idea how you got here. It could have been a portal.”
Emmy carefully swallowed the laugh that bubbled up. “Fair enough. Uh… have you ever written a book before?”
“No, but I’ve read books. You’ve read romance novels.” He tapped his phone. “I’ll skim this one, so I can get the idea. We can work together. Maybe that’s part of it. We create the story together, write an ending where we both get out ofthisbook.” He pointed at the floor for emphasis. “Maybe it’ll work. Maybe when we write the ending, we’lllivethe ending.”
Emmy thought it over. He was right; it wasn’t the craziest idea. Certainly no crazier than a sex psychic sending her into the world of a novel, possibly by way of a portal.
“Okay. Sure. Let’s try it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It could be fun.”
Twenty-Six
It was fun, Emmy decided later. Just not successful. Not even close.
They’d laughed at each other’s poor creative writing skills, nitpicked over details they disagreed on, and continuously rewarded themselves for their hard work with rounds of Scrabble and Battleship. Hours passed, and they returned to their document only to find they’d written about four pages. Not a single word of it was useable.
“I think it’s safe to say that this has no chance of becoming a best-seller,” Will said.
“I have to agree with you. This is pure cringe.”
Will sat back in the office chair. “Now what? Do we keep trying?”
“Maybe we should write an outline?” Emmy suggested uncertainly. They’d spent a considerable amount of time on this project already. Evening was approaching. But she hated the idea of giving up. It had felt good to take action. “We can discuss over dinner,” she decided. “You promised to take me out.”
“That I did,” Will said.
He took her hand and pulled her to her feet with him. Then he just stood there, his eyes on hers. Emmy felt heat ripple over her skin. She knew that look.
Slowly, watching her all the while, Will lifted her hand to his lips. He laid a kiss on her knuckles, turned her hand over, pressed his lips to her wrist. Emmy’s pulse kicked up. She was sure he could feel it.
“After dinner…” Will said huskily, his lips brushing her skin as he spoke.
“Yeah,” Emmy agreed, though she wondered if maybe there was a case forbeforedinner.
Then her stomach growled audibly, ending the moment. Will smiled and pressed one last kiss against her palm.
“Let’s eat.”
*
