AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hayden blinks, so I add more detail.
“They want to maximise who the book will appeal to. My mentor will blurb it. That means I can splash his name on the cover and that will attract the kids’ story market. The other market I can corner attracts readers who like to support charitable projects. If I can find a nonprofit organisation that will agree to collaborate, it will help with marketing. Lend credibility to any publicity. That kind of thing. Once I have that agreement, the publisher will sign me and publish the book sometime next year.”
They’d also give me an advance right away, which will keep my project going.
“Collaborate with a charity? Do you have?—?”
“One in mind?” I cross my fingers while saying, “Hopefully, yes. I reached out to a contact. He’s fixed me up with a meeting in London as soon as I finish my last session with the sixth-form students.”
“That’s this afternoon? But you’ve got another week left, right?”
Here’s the thing about deadlines: They can shift like sand dunes. “Not if I want to meet the guy who heads the nonprofit foundation I have in mind. He’ll be away on business tomorrow. The timing will be tight, but he’s agreed to meet me tonight. If Ican make the train, I can pitch the idea to him face-to-face. Then I’ll shut myself away and get busy.”
“Back here?”
I shake my head. Explaining why feels like a weakness, but he’s faced tough shit with me watching, so I go ahead and do the same. “Too many distractions. I mean, not everyone like me procrastinates, but I’ve had a pretty bad case of it lately.”
“Everyone like you?”
“With attention issues. Mine mean I do this every single time.”
That soft gaze searches my face. “Do what, Rae?”
“Get in my own way.”
“How?”
“By never starting until it’s almost too late. Drives me up the wall when I’ve got everything squared away up here.” I tap my temple. “I can picture everything I need to put on paper.”
“But you’ve been drawing plenty. I’ve seen you.”
“Yeah, but nothing I should have.” A hundred sketches only featuring Hayden probably won’t cut it. “I literally can’t make myself work if there’s even the slightest distraction.” I tap my temple again like I watched Mitch do earlier. Then I touch Hayden in the same spot with much gentler fingers. “I thought Cornwall would be distraction-free for me.”
“But it wasn’t?”
He’s still flushed, his colour still post-sex heightened, and I’d kill to recreate how he looks at me like I’m the opposite of what I describe to him. “Mate, I’m a disaster who has never had a harder time staying focussed.”
I’ve also done my best work ever. Those initial images the publisher loved prove it.
That contradiction leaves me frowning.
Hayden frowns too, and I can almost see cogs turning—him guessing that he’s the reason—and he even starts to pull away, soI repeat what he did outside the chapel without needing to look to know how to link us. This time, it’s my hand that shoots out to grab his as I try to make light of what has lately been a heavier cross to carry than usual.
“It’s fine. I haven’t missed a deadline yet.” The inside of my head is just a shit place to be stuck in during countdowns. “I always manage to pull it out of the bag at the last moment. Can focus when I have no other choice and absolutely have to.”
This is what I wish I could punt into the sun but can’t keep swerving. “There’s too much riding on this project to risk waiting to the very last moment. I know it, and so does my agent. That’s why they’ve offered studio space to lock myself away to get the next set of images finished.” I describe what I’ll draw next, going to get my phone and bringing it back to bed to show him a photo that is so much more than a reference image for me. It’s what started this whole ball rolling.
“A kid’s life vest?” He takes the phone from me, peering closer. “Is it…”
“Slashed?” I nod, remembering the kid I ran after through waves to make sure she got it. Traffickers are scum. This doesn’t seem much better. “That’s what the authorities do to anything they find. Slash it so it can’t be used by anyone else.” I can only hope that means their boat was stopped before it reached deep water. I change the subject rather than describe what happens to kids miles off-shore when that happens. “Hey, what about your text?”
“My text?”
“Yes. You said you had something to ask me?”
“Ah.” Something flickers in those soft eyes as he gives my phone back. “It wasn’t anything as important as this.” He’s quiet for a long moment. “Just something about my sisters.”
“You decided to go and see them for their birthday?”
