Page 102 of Use Me Up

“You should,” I say, totally serious. “Maybe I should do better groveling now.”

She smirks at me. “You know, you keep threatening to grovel, but you have done nothing that even resembles groveling.”

“That’s not fair,” I say.

“I just don’t think you’re very good at groveling, omega,” she says.

“Take that back, beta,” I say. “I am now going to grovel so well, you will eat your words.”

She snorts. “I don’t think that’s how you do groveling, Ellis.”

19

hannah

“Um, so your omega is the world’s worst groveler,” I tell both Kane and Gatlin. “He’s really terrible at it, and if you two have humored him and let him think that he was actually any good at groveling, I think you have really done him a disservice, because, wow. He’s very bad.”

We are seated at a table in a restaurant that my mother has been raving about for a long time, but I haven’t managed to make it out to. It’s a farm-to-table place. They have a relationship with a farm outside the city, and all of the food comes directly from there. The menu changes seasonally. My mother has raved about it and she’s even threatened to take me out to dinner here, but my mother threatens dinner plans much more often than she has time for them. Half of the time, I see my mother only at official functions, and then I’m only there to make her look good, really. Look at my daughter. See I raised a child while being in government.

“I think she just has an incorrect idea about what groveling is,” says Ellis to his menu, not looking at either of us. He and I are both teasing, so I don’t know if he’s actually truly a little bit upset instead of just pretending to be upset.

“My idea of groveling comes from reading a lot of romantasy novels,” I tell the alphas.

“Oh, you like romantasy?” says Gatlin. “Those are those fairy ones, right? Or dragon-riders?”

“I don’t know if I like it, exactly,” I say. “I don’t mind it. Nicole used to say she would never represent a romance novel, but then the romantasy books really started taking off, and she decided she was being an idiot, that she needed to get out there and find one to represent. And so, we did a lot of studying on what makes them sell well. And the groveling part is important.”

“Which is what I did.” Ellis turns the menu over and shoots me a look. “That was some of my best groveling.”

“See, you can’t think that your groveling is good and still be groveling,” I say to him.

“I think you’re confusing groveling and humility,” he says.

I snort.

“Well, why is the grovel a big part of why a book like that sells well?” says Gatlin.

“Who’s Nicole?” says Kane.

“Oh, right,” I say. “I forgot that you don’t know. Nicole Bruin is my boss. I’m an intern for a literary agent.”

“Hannah wants to preserve the publishing industry,” says Ellis. “She’s very pro-corporation.”

“I am not,” I say, glaring at him. “It’s not about the corporations. It’s about preserving books that are not just bought because of the lowest common denominator, books that aren’t just about pure entertainment. We need books that are saying something important, and people don’t want to buy them, because reading them is hard.”

“Is it that the books are hard, or that they’re boring?” says Ellis.

“You never liked my job,” I say to him.

“I don’t think you like your job,” says Ellis, leaning in. “I thought maybe you were doing it because you want to be a writer, but I don’t know if that’s it, actually. But Hannah, you could be doing anything at all. It doesn’t make sense for you to be fetching coffee for some woman who is so snobby that she doesn’t even seem to respect the readers she wants to sell books to.”

“Agents sell books to editors.”

“Right,” says Ellis.

“You’re right,” says Gatlin. “He doesn’t seem to be groveling.”

Ellis grins and goes back to his menu. His smile lights up his features in a way that makes my heart stop beating. He likes me. How is that even possible?