Page 56 of A Bookish Story

I grunt my acknowledgment. It’s the story of my life, the physical manifestation of myself so at odds with who I am inside, and who I want to be. In other words, nothing like her.

“Is she visiting? I didn’t see her at the party.”

“She showed up last week but I don’t expect her to stay long. She tends to flit in and out of my life. This time, she’s gone through a divorce.” I chuckle. “You won’t believe this, but tonight I thought I saw Eddie kissing her hand. But he’s my father’s older brother. They’ve always barely had a tolerance for each other.”

“Enemies to lovers,” he says without hesitation. “And falling for your brother’s widow, not quite as popular.”

I hold my hand to my heart. “No, not those two, but can I say I’m proud you know these tropes?”

The skies darken and the streetlights flash on as we walk down the sidewalk, past storefronts with outside seating and striped parasols. It’s the weekend in a university town, so we see plenty of young people.

Seven Trees is quaint, comparatively small with San Jose to the south and San Francisco to the north. It has a youthful vibe while also being the center of tech giants. There’s the hum of conversations, laughter, and live music coming from the bar across the street. We keep walking and settle into an easy silence. Ryan turns down a side street, hands in the pockets of his slacks, occasionally glancing up.

He stops walking just before we enter a crosswalk, and groups of students go around us.

“Have you thought any more about writing a sequel?” I ask.

“No,” he says.

“Ryan, your readers deserve one.”

“This may sound ungrateful, but I want to be able to write the kind of book that moves people the way Soulmates did. Without writing a sequel. And without writing any more romance.”

It must be why Kate’s remarks about his proposal cut him deeply.

“You’ll do it, if that’s what you want.”

“Careful,” Ryan says, taking my hand.

A bicyclist passes by us, coming out of nowhere, and Ryan pulls me toward him. It’s just an instant, a moment of his touch, but I’m in the crook of his arm and a little surprised by the way my pulse quickens. Something tells me it isn’t the danger of a near miss with a cyclist in a hurry to get somewhere that’s raised my heart rate. It’s Ryan, this close, his delicious smell, noticing that despite the fact he doesn’t technically work with his hands, they’re strong enough to move me out of the line of fire.

He’s holding me, his indigo blue eyes studying me for several long seconds, until I finally push back.

When I catch my breath, and we start to walk again, I ask, “Are you Grayson?”

“What? No, of course not. He’s a character I invented.”

“But we all do this to a point, there’s something of me in each of my characters. I think there’s a lot of you in him. You’re Grayson. He doesn’t get the girl.”

“Some people might decide Grayson worked too hard to get Lula. That maybe a love so unbalanced and one-sided could never result in happily ever after.” He held up air quotes for the last three words, which I did not appreciate.

I mock scowl. “All I want is the end of the story. Please. You can’t just leave a reader hanging.”

“Luci, I am not writing a sequel. Never and that’s final. Everyone, including you, is going to have to accept that.”

“But—”

“Did you ever think the beauty of the book is in the fact it’s not finished? And never will be?”

“No.” I shake my head. “That’s not it.”

He groans. “Why don’t you write it then, since you want it so much?”

“Maybe I will.” The words come out of me in a huff.

I don’t actually want to write this book. Now that the Desdemona window is closed, it might be time to sell my own book. Ryan’s generosity should allow me a couple of months in which I can focus on nothing but my writing so I can revise it into perfection and start the querying process all over again.

“The problem is the book was a fluke. There’s no way to replicate that kind of success,” Ryan says. “Too much luck involved.”