Chapter Fifteen

Wes paced the living room floor. Max said he’d call at three. It was five minutes past. The text hadn’t said if it was good news or bad news or no fucking news at all. Just that he was calling at three and that Wes had better answer.

It had been a week since he sent the pages, which meant his editor must have read them, right? She read, and this phone call was the verdict. If it was good, Max wouldn’t make him wait. Would he? He’d tell him straight away. Bad news had to be face to face—or over the phone if they were in different states. That way he could soften the blow with a soothing tone.

Who the hell was he kidding? Max didn’t have a soothing tone. He didn’t have a soothing anything. But he was the closest person in Wes’s life for the past few years, and whatever the news was, it was coming from someone he trusted. That didn’t change the fact that he was ready to vomit. After all, it was only his entire future as a writer on the line.

The phone vibrated, and he almost threw it across the floor. Christ, he hadn’t been this high-strung in a while.

“Hey, Max.”

“Hey, Max. He says Hey, Max when he just made his editor cry with fifty fucking pages. He says Hey, Max when his publisher wants to launch the book in New York and then send him on a U.S. tour. He says Hey, Max after I spend an hour and a half on a call with Hollywood talking about sealing this deal on the option for book one now that you are going to blow up the bestseller lists once again.” Max whistled out a breath and then laughed. “Wes, my boy, I think you just put my kids through college.”

Wes collapsed onto the couch. He had to take this all in because it didn’t seem real. He was blocked for weeks, had to ask for a freaking extension. He was almost ready to admit that he was a one-hit wonder.

And then there was Chicago. And Annie. A place that felt more like home each day he was there with the girl who lit up the room—and something inside of him. Everything had seemed to fall into place in the span of a weekend.

“You there, Hartley? Say something, goddammit.”

Wes cleared his throat. “Yeah. I’m here. Sorry. I’m just letting this sink in. A book tour? Are you serious?”

Max laughed. “You can probably add movie premiere to that, too. Eventually. You know how slow shit goes in Hollywood.”

Wes ran a hand through his hair. “No,” he said. “I don’t.” Because he was twenty-five and still not sure this was really his life. Because the past five years had been shit. Okay, fine, the past four had gone a little better than that initial first year, but there was an emotion taking root that he couldn’t articulate, probably because he hadn’t felt it in so long.

He was—happy.

Even if the book didn’t get published—even if the movie didn’t get made—he was enjoying the writing. He was enjoying catching up with his oldest friend. He was enjoying spending time with Annie, no matter what they were doing.

He looked at the cut on his hand that no longer needed a bandage and remembered the feeling of her fingers on his palm—the warmth of her touch.

And then he realized that Max was still talking.

“…will want a detailed outline and the next fifty pages in a week. She wants to do the first pass of edits as you go, expedite the process for this book not only because we’re behind but because timing is everything. We want to publish while Down This Road is still selling.”

Wes nodded, then realized Max couldn’t see him.

“Yes. Of course. I already have more pages.” Even though he hadn’t known what his editor would say, he couldn’t stop the words now. He wrote all day and worked at Kingston’s at night. But Jeremy was working, and he had tonight off. He knew exactly where he wanted to go—and who he wanted to see.

“Send me the next fifty by Monday, then. Or sooner. You’re my star, Hartley.”

Wes opened his mouth to respond, but he could tell by the unmistakable silence that the call had ended. It was ten after three.

In five minutes everything had changed. No. In one week, it had all changed, and he didn’t want to stay in that empty apartment by himself another minute. So he grabbed his jacket and helmet and was out the door.

He didn’t think, just rode. The leaves had begun to change color but hadn’t yet fallen. The Chicago streets were a canopy of orange and yellow with sunlight dappled through the scattered openings between branches. He slowed to a stop and pulled out his phone, snapping a few pictures so he could remember this moment, so he could write it down later, using his words to transfer his experience to that of his characters, Evie and Jack. Manhattan didn’t have trees, not like this. He could move to the outer boroughs, Brooklyn, maybe. But for the first time in years, Chicago was starting to feel like home again.

The next time he stopped, it was in front of Two Stories. He nearly tripped climbing off his bike, his eagerness to get inside—to see Annie and have her be the first to hear the good news—making him almost unaware of his own body and how to put one foot in front of the other.

He burst through the door, and when he didn’t see her behind the front counter, he knew she must be in the upstairs office. So he bounded up the stairs, two at a time, and strode right toward the door in the back, knocking twice before opening it.

“Hey, Emerald City. I’ve got news.”

But it wasn’t Annie he saw. Or Brynn. It was Jeremy, sitting and slurping noodles out of a Chinese food container with his feet propped on his sister’s desk.

“I found the soy sauce!” he heard as Annie emerged from the tiny kitchen area in the back of the office. When her eyes met his, they widened, and she halted mid step. Jeremy’s eyes, on the other hand, narrowed to slits as they volleyed from Wes to Annie and back to Wes again.

“Emerald City?” Jeremy asked. Then he turned to Annie. “Why the hell is he calling you Emerald City?”

Annie let out a nervous laugh, which was far better than Wes was doing. He couldn’t even make a sound. Jeremy was supposed to be at work. Wes didn’t want to be the guy who lied, yet all he was doing at the moment was cycling through things he could say to backpedal out of this situation.

I was looking for Tabitha.

Yeah, no. Insinuating he had anything going on with the employee who was now seeing the ex might actually be worse than coming out and saying he was messing around with his buddy’s sister.

Okay. Not worse. But pretty damned close.

I was looking for Brynn.

Why? He’d have nowhere to go after that one.

I was—

“Jer. Come on,” Annie said. “You go to a wedding with someone, and we’re bound to come home with private jokes, right? You had to be there for the schnoodle and the soda gun. It’s too much to explain and wouldn’t even be funny since you weren’t with us. But trust me—Emerald City is the best punch line you’d have ever heard.”

There it was, that nervous laugh again. Jesus, she was selling this horribly, and all Wes could do was stand and stare and see if Jeremy bought it.

“Actually,” Wes said, “I just wanted to let Annie know that not only did my editor love the new pages, but my agent said the movie option is pretty much a go, so…yeah. Take that, the one person who hated my first book.”

Wes nodded, the self-satisfied grin on his face not at all an act. True, he came here to kiss Annie and maybe thank her for breaking through his writer’s block, but the I told you so also felt fucking good.

Annie’s eyes lit up, but she didn’t give anything else away.

Jeremy’s shoulders relaxed, and his jaw unclenched. On a scale of one to Chuck Norris, his intensity dropped back down to an agitated Regis Philbin. Which was really just—Regis Philbin.

“Looks like he told you,” Jeremy said to his sister.

“Give us the details,” Annie said, and he could tell she was fighting to stay calm—fighting just as much as he was. But Jeremy kept them both in check, even though he didn’t know it.

It was like there was a concrete wall between them, a concrete wall that still held a clump of lo mein noodles between his chopsticks.

“Give us the details,” she repeated expectantly. “And then I have a new box of paperbacks that just came in. Maybe you’ll sign them?”

He nodded. He’d do whatever the hell she asked if it meant a reason for him to linger and maybe, possibly, not walk out the door without tasting her lips.

“My agent just called. And, basically, my editor flipped. She loves the pages. Wants the next fifty as soon as possible so she can edit as I go. There’s a lot more, but that’s the gist of it. Don’t let me interrupt your lunch. Show me the books you want me to sign, and then I’ll head back home to work.”

She nodded, then tossed a few packets of soy sauce on the desk in front of her brother.

Annie was already out the door when Jeremy turned his attention to Wes.

“I’m glad you two hit it off at the wedding, man. But that’s all it was, right? Some private jokes and talking about books?”

Of course that’s all it was because they’d made a deal. Whatever he and Annie were doing was exactly what Jeremy would approve of—if it didn’t involve his friend and his sister. Fun. If no one expected a happy ending, then no one would get hurt. He wasn’t going to hurt Annie, so Jeremy had nothing to worry about.

“You know she’s twenty-eight years old, right, man?” Wes asked. “And probably smart enough to make her own decisions.” Jeremy’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t have a chance to answer.

“Hey!” Annie popped back into the doorway with a stack of books in hand. “Come on. I even have a customer downstairs who wants to meet you.”

He shrugged.

“See ya, Jer.”

His friend nodded, but he never answered the question.

“Later,” Jeremy said.

And Wes let Annie lead him back downstairs.

Jeremy, who had stopped by for a late lunch with his sister before work, lingered while Annie set Wes up in the shop’s downstairs reading area, a circular rug with two plush love seats situated in an L formation, a wooden coffee table in front. Shelf-lined walls bordered the nook, displaying new releases and the store’s best sellers, Wes’s book included. He’d already greeted the reader Annie had mentioned, signed her book, and swelled a bit with pride. Until he remembered how Annie felt.

She still hated his novel—not that he was harping on that as she retrieved the one book still on display and added it to the pile on the table in front of him. Okay. So he was harping on it, silently, because a) what she thought seemed to matter a little more to him as he got to know her better, but he wasn’t about to admit that, and b) Jeremy was still there, standing behind Annie as she got Wes all set up to sign, his arms crossed and a speculative glare aimed right at him.

“Jeremy.” Annie spun to face her brother. “Go to work. I’m closing up thirty minutes early so I can make it to Kingston’s for the big Holly-and-Will-are-back-in-town dinner.”

Jeremy’s eyes narrowed. “Hartley coming?” He nodded toward Wes.

Annie shrugged.

She hadn’t mentioned this dinner. Or had she? Wes had been so consumed with the writing this week—along with nights at the bar—that he and Annie hadn’t really had much one-on-one time other than their lunch date the day Jeremy almost busted them.

“You remember Brynn’s sister, Holly, right?” she asked. He nodded. “She sort of moved to London with her boyfriend. I mean, he’s from there. London. He’s British.”

Wes tried to bite back his grin, not wanting to betray anything in front of Jeremy, but, dammit, she was adorable when she was flustered—when she was trying to figure out how to ask him out in front of her brother without really asking him out.

He nodded. “Of course. She was only a year ahead of us.” He looked at Jeremy, then back to Annie. “Are you guys—inviting me?”

Jeremy gave a noncommittal shrug. Like sister, like brother.

“Leave your bike at home,” Jeremy said. “Will Evans has made it a habit of bringing a bottle of high-end scotch with him whenever he and Holly are in town, and if tonight goes anything like their last visit, no one will be able to function by morning.”

Wes scrubbed a hand across his jaw, realizing he hadn’t shaved in days. Jesus, what did he even look like right now?

“Sounds dangerous,” he said.

Jeremy winked. “It is.”

“I’ll take the bike home after I sign the books,” he said.

Annie let out a breath and dropped down on the empty love seat opposite Wes’s.

“Then I guess that settles it. We’ll see you at six, Jer.”

Jeremy seemed to be letting go of his suspicions. He was no longer trying to peel away Wes’s flesh with his stare. At least that’s what it had felt like. Maybe they shouldn’t be keeping whatever they were doing from him, but if they told him anything, it would require defining their situation, and Wes wasn’t sure he could do that.

“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “Okay. See you at six.”

He left them, then, but neither he nor Annie spoke for at least ten minutes after Jeremy left. Wes signed the stack of books while Annie helped a customer and then pretended to be straightening shelves that needed no straightening. It was like they were afraid Jeremy was still there, lurking behind a shelf waiting for them to slip up.

Annie pulled out her cell phone just as Wes closed the last book.

“Hey, Jamie,” she said. “Is my brother there? Yeah, I just want to ask him something really quickly. Thanks.”

Wes could see her out of his peripheral vision, but he didn’t turn his head. He was, however, completely eavesdropping.

“Hey,” she said after a pause. “Is the stout-battered fish and chips on the menu this week?” Another pause. “Great!” Pause. “Yes, that’s why I was calling. You mentioned dinner, and I got hungry. You know I like to think about the menu before I order. Nope. I guess I forgot to finish my lo mein. Got distracted by—work.”

Wes looked up at this, and Annie’s eyes were on his. She was smiling at him, and it just about melted his insides.

“God, yes. I will so have that as an appetizer. You’re the best, Jer. Bye.”

She dropped her phone back in her pocket.

“You were making sure he was there, weren’t you?” Wes asked.

She nodded.

“Tabitha’s at the register,” she said.

“So…”

“So I think there was one more book for you to sign up in my office.”

Wes was on his feet and headed for the stairs before she could say another word. In fact, he practically raced her there. They were both out of breath by the time she closed the door behind them and she launched herself at him.

Wes lifted her in his arms, and she clasped her legs around his waist, kissing him hard. He stumbled but didn’t fall, backing against a wall to regain his footing.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered. “Those pages were amazing,” she said. “They were so good, Wes. I knew your editor would love them.”

She kissed him again, her tongue tangling with his.

She was proud of him. When was the last time anyone had said something like that? Certainly not his father, and his mom—

He swallowed hard. His mom was gone before he even wrote it. He’d had loads of people lauding his talent, from his agent to his editor to top reviewers. But most of them didn’t give a shit about anything other than how well the book was selling and whether or not whatever came next would sell as well. Annie had no stake in the book. She just liked it, and that had meant more than he wanted to admit.

“What did you say?” he asked, lowering her to the ground. His voice was strained, but not from holding her in his arms.

“I’m proud of you,” she said, louder this time, her tone resolute. “And I’m happy for you,” she added. “I know how much you have riding on this.”

He didn’t know what to say. Or how to react. So he just kissed her. And kissed her. And kissed her some more.