Page 4 of Long Story Short

I roll my eyes as a slight smile plays on my lips. I don’t argue with her. Eli doesn’t have the biggest personality, but I thought I liked that. It turns out, I think it was just comfortable to stay with him. I knew what I was getting from him. No surprises. “Yeah, well, unfortunately for me, the rest of the team agrees that I need to make a lot of changes to the current manuscript.”

Scarlett groans. “I hate him.”

“You say that about all men,” I tease, trying to make light of how shitty the situation now is.

Her lips twitch with the hint of a smile. “That’s because all men suck, and we’re better without them.”

“Aren’t you dating your co-star?” I ask, raising a brow.

Scarlett sits forward in her chair as she moves the phone from her face. “I don’t want to talk about him,” she says with a sigh. “We’re talking about you. What are you going to do?”

Kate continues to style Scarlett’s red hair as Scarlett’s concerned gaze stays locked on me through the screen.

I let out a resigned sigh. I’m embarrassed to even be in this situation in the first place. This is the first time this has happened to me. My other books were easy to write. When I turned them in to my publisher, they loved what I’d written. Sure, there were changes, but I’ve never been told to rework an entire book like this. I’ve never felt so defeated as I meet my best friend’s eyes through the screen. “What else can I do besides rewrite it? They say it needs ‘more,’ so I need to go in and rework it to make it the more that they’re wanting.”

She frowns. “But it’s your book.”

“Aside from Eli, who might just be an asshole, I want my publisher to love the book. I want them to believe in it. And I want to have the same success as my other books. So all of that to say, I’m going to rewrite this book, and I’m going to make it so good that even Eli won’t be able to say a damn thing.”

Scarlett lifts her eyebrows as her lips turn into a smile. “That’s my girl. I believe in you.”

“Scarlett, they need you on set in twenty,” a voice says from the background.

Her eyes go wide as she looks at the stylist. Judging by the way her grin slips, I’m wondering if she thinks that’ll be enough time to finish getting ready.

I give her what I hope is an encouraging smile. “Go kick ass at being famous and everything. We can talk more later.”

“Love you! Let me know if I need to air out some dirt about Eli.” She blows a kiss to the phone, and all I can do is laugh.

“Love you too. Goodbye.”

Our call ends, and everything’s quiet once again. At first, I didn’t want to speak with Scarlett, but now that I’m left alone in the silence, I miss her.

A heaviness settles over me as I put my phone back on my nightstand and roll over in bed. I pull my comforter over my head and take one calming breath after the next. Since I was a kid, I’ve found ways to calm myself when it feels like I can’t breathe because of stress or pressure. One of the things that helps me cope is drowning the world out by pulling the covers over my face and blocking out everything else.

I smile, remembering the times Nan would find me in this same position. Instead of telling me to get up and get over it, she’d crawl underneath the covers with me and sit in silence until I was ready to come out on my own.

My eyes close as an ache in my heart replaces the weight of the stress. I wish she were here right now. I know she’d know the right thing to say.

I take another breath, accepting the fact that I’m going to have to figure this out by myself.

I let my breath grow steadier and steadier until I’m so calm I’m drifting between being awake and falling asleep. I have dinner plans this evening, and after that, I know I’ll be up all night plotting and working out how to make this book better. I know I probably shouldn’t nap, but it’s needed in this moment.

Instead of fighting it, I allow myself a reprieve from the stress of today and let sleep pull me under.

THREE

TYSON

“I’m so happy you’re here,” my sister, Winnie, exclaims as she throws her arms around me.

I smile, my arms wrapping around her shoulders as I pull her in for a hug. “It’ll be a change of pace to spend the summer here instead of Manhattan this year.”

Winnie pulls away with a soft smile. “You’re allowed to say it’ll be nice to actually have fun for the summer instead of working your life away.”

I lift an eyebrow as I stare back at my sister. “Like you don’t work your life away,” I point out. She’s worked just as hard as I have in the last year to make sure the merger between her husband’s company and our family’s company went smoothly. Bishop-Moore Hotels has had far more success than any of us could’ve hoped for when we convinced the boards of our fathers’ companies to turn against them and give us control.

Winnie’s smile grows wider before she waves her hand through the air dismissively. “Okay, we’ve all been working a lot over the last couple of years. But it’s time we have some fun and take a break. We’re going to do that this summer.”