Page 65 of Muscle Cub

I felt him nod against the pillow. “I’ve never heard the exact term before, but yeah. Why’s it set in the eighties?”

“Because it’s also a story about a gay man who has the chance to escape the AIDS epidemic at a time when there was no escape. My kindergarten teacher died of AIDS very suddenly a few years after he’d taught me. He was my favorite teacher of all time. The book was my way of trying to save him.”

“Wow. That’s really sweet. Heavy, but… What’s the other book about?”

“Divining Virginia is about a grad student who’s researching Virginia Woolf’s diaries and discovers she has the ability to channel the author’s spirit through automatic writing. Or she thinks she does. I played with the boundary between belief and delusion.”

Austin sighed. “Can I be honest with you?”

Oh, God. You never want to hear that. “Of course.”

“Your books sound”—he made a skeptical noise—“kinda gloomy.”

“Gloomy?” I repeated more defensively than I would’ve liked. I’d told him Charles called my love of old houses gloomy. Had the word stuck in his subconscious, or was he fucking with me?

“Yep. Way too fucking gloomy.”

I huffed. “Thank you so much for that candid feedback. It’s really valuable coming from someone who hasn’t read a single word of either of my books.”

“That’s just it.” Austin propped up on his elbow behind me. I felt him looking down at me, but I didn’t turn to meet his eyes. “I don’t have to read it to know if I’d want to read it. The people who haven’t read a book yet are the ones you have to convince to buy it, right?”

Fuck me. He had a point.

“Think about movie trailers. You watch two minutes of highlights and you’re, like, ‘Damn, bro. I wanna see that.’ Or, like, you hear an elevator speech and you’re like ‘I’m in.’ You know what I mean?”

I did. But I didn’t need him to mansplain it to me. “It’s called a pitch. An elevator pitch.”

Austin snapped his fingers. “Right. Okay.” He kicked off the covers and sat up. “Lemme pitch you a couple of story ideas off the top of my head.”

I repositioned the pillows so I could lean against the headboard. “This should be interesting. Go for it.” I may have to kill him if he comes up with something genuinely good.

Austin spread his hands. Picture this. “This guy has the hots for his roommate’s dad. He’s been lusting over him and fantasizing about him for months, and then—boom—the power goes out at the dad’s place. Or something happens with the plumbing. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, the dad has to come sleep over at his son’s apartment, and the roommate accidentally-on-purpose runs into the dad getting out of the shower—”

“Okay, wait. Let me stop you right there.” My knee-jerk fear that Austin might prove to be a literary savant had clearly been a moment of insanity. “Is this a story-story or a jack-off story?”

“It’s a love story,” Austin said like it should have been obvious.

“At what point does the romantic element become a driver of the plot? Are we talking in the first few chapters, near the twenty percent mark, the halfway point, or—”

“Nah. Later. Closer to the end.”

“Hmm.” I tilted my head. “That sounds very sexually focused to me. No disrespect to authors of erotica—there are gorgeous examples of craft to be found among erotic works—but I don’t really think that’s the right lane for my brand at this particular phase of my career.”

“Really?” Austin looked genuinely shocked. “I’m already dying to read this story. Are you sure I can’t convince you to write it for me?”

“I really don’t think you could.” At least I’d found something else he wanted that I could say no to.

“You could write it for shits and giggles. You know, like, post it on a blog somewhere for free. That way it’s more likely to go viral.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I really don’t think you understand how publishing works.”

“Or”—Austin ignored me, bulldozing on—“plot twist. The younger guys are a couple, and the dad’s a serial killer who’s been stalking his son’s boyfriend, the guy.”

“Can we give him a name other than the guy? Or maybe call him Guy?”

“The son’s gone to sleep, and Guy’s getting out of the shower when the dad sneaks up behind him and garrotes him with a piano wire.”

“Should I be worried about inviting you to sleep here? The verb garrote is really specific. Where the hell did you even pick that up?”