Page 46 of Philippa Flynn’s Year of Panic and Piracy

I throw back my head and groan at the ceiling, wishing that doing so didn’t make me notice new water stains near the east wall. Thank god the roofer will be here in two days.

“Fine,” I say. “So Euphoria escapes her bonds and makes it to shore like the Olympic swimmer we’ve never known her to be. And now Zane’s eagerly anticipating their amorous reunion?”

“Possibly, but we should plant his suspicions as early as possible. Remind readers where they left off reading six years ago, when Zane and Euphoria’s relationship was already fractured.”

“Okay. So . . .”

Zane wiped salt water from his eyes, trying to clear his vision and his head. Euphoria was safe on shore. Surely that was her, and she’d know to hide in the cave at the south end of the island until Balbo and his men were convinced she was dead. She’d know Zane would find her there, that he’d always find her, and that his plunge into the ocean would come only seconds after her own.

Except Euphoria wasn’t heading south. She was scaling the rocks a little to the north, toward the deserted fort where Balbo and his men had encamped all week.

The realization hit him like a cannonball to the chest.

Euphoria didn’t want Balbo to presume she was dead.

She wanted Zane to make that assumption.

But why? he thought, and before he could answer that question or take a single stroke toward shore, a tentacled arm wrapped his ankle and dragged him under.

“Oh my god,” I say through an uncontrollable sputter of laughter. “I can’t believe we’re only on page two and we’ve already introduced a sea monster.”

Dylan’s eyes sparkle with mirth as he spins toward me, midpace.

“How many pounds does a mid-eighteenth-century sea monster weigh?” he asks.

“I think we can take a little license,” I toss back.

“What if the sea monster’s wearing a corset? And petticoats?”

“Then we’re writing a very different book from the one Grams had in mind.”

This draws out Dylan’s dimples, and I have to bite down my own smile. Given my persistent draw to realism, I’m not sure how I’ll help write a scene in which a lovesick pirate fights for his life against a malicious octopus/dragon/seahorse hybrid ten times his size, but I have to admit, I’m having fun. So much fun. And we’ve only just begun.

Chapter Fifteen

Our first writing day is wildly productive, even though we make several false starts on the sea monster scene, unable to decide how many tentacles it should have or what its teeth are like or if it wants to subdue Zane Scarlett before attempting to eat him. Still, after four hours in the office, we have a rough draft of the battle, Zane’s bloody, brain-piercing victory, and his escape onto the rocky shore, where he’s already setting off toward Fort Cook, a name that drives me insane since James Cook was working for a haberdasher at the time the novel’s set and hadn’t yet joined the Royal Navy, let alone established forts on any Pacific islands. As Dylan reminds me multiple times, the island in the story is pure invention, as is the sea monster. I’m forced to concede and let the fort’s name stand for consistency with the prior books.

The best part of the writing session comes at the end, when I get up to shake out my hands and Dylan takes a seat at the desk. He rolls his shoulders, adjusts his feet, and drums his fingers on the desktop. He comments on the view and the height of the chair. He scratches the back of his neck, which grows blotchier by the second. But eventually, eventually, he sets his hands against the keys and types a few sentences. Then a few more, seeing us through our final twenty minutes before my phone alarm goes off, indicating we break for lunch. The paragraphs he typed for us feel like a triumph. Actually, the entire document feels like a triumph. It’s rough, and it needs to be fleshed out with more connective tissue and sensory detail, but the basic action is on the page, bridging the end of the previous book with the start of the new one, setting up the central relationship dynamics, and launching the adventure to come.

As I get lettuce and tomatoes from the fridge for the sandwiches we decide on for lunch, my eyes are drawn to the Truth and Dare notes on the fridge door. My chickadee magnet still sits below Truth. Dylan’s smiley face magnet is off to the side.

“I think I still owe you a truth,” I say.

Dylan glances over his shoulder at me from where he’s removing a loaf of bread from a wooden breadbox carved to look like a treasure chest, complete with iron chains, a padlock, and a large ring of ornate keys, though we unlocked it months ago, far less committed to the novelty of the design than my grandmother was. His expression is unreadable, like it so often is, though it’s accompanied by a heavy pause that strongly suggests he’s also recalling our last round of the game. I know we can’t return to that moment. Whatever Dylan was about to ask me that day is locked away as surely as my grandmother used to lock away her bread, but we have other truths we can share, and I don’t want to stop getting to know him or letting him get to know me.

“The teaching jobs,” he says. “How will you choose between them?”

At the unexpected mention of my academic job search, my stomach clenches, and I fight a swell of nausea. I’m often skeptical when people say listen to your gut, preferring to rely on careful, rational thought, but today my gut has spoken. And its voice is loud.

I start slicing tomatoes so I have something safe to look at.

“I might not get offered any of the jobs,” I say. “They’re all competitive, my research area isn’t new and exciting, and search committees will question why I quit my previous job, especially after earning tenure. In academic hiring, experience isn’t always an asset. More often, it’s the opposite. Candidates new to academia are less likely to have strong ideas about making change and less likely to threaten current faculty without robust research records who might look bad in comparison. I’ve seen it happen. They blame it on something else. ‘He didn’t seem like he really wanted to teach’ or ‘She wasn’t knowledgeable about the classroom technology none of us could fix when it didn’t work during her teaching demo,’ but everyone knows. Searches also fail due to changes in funding or departmental priorities.”

Dylan sets aside the bread to lean back against the counter and fold his arms across his chest. He knows I’m stalling, doing anything but answering the question he asked. He’s right, and it’s a question I should be able to answer, so I lower the knife and let the veggies idle.

“Hopefully I’ll ask better questions this time,” I say. “And if I end up with a choice to make, it’ll probably come down to the people. Do I like them? Do I respect them? Do I think they’ll respect me? Or will I end up in a repeat of my last job, where my colleagues blew off their administrative and advising responsibilities with no accountability whatsoever while ensuring I knew I was less important than they were? Over and over and over again.”

Dylan’s brow furrows, and his lips press together.