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It was the bastard thief from across the street.
Jack hadn’t managed to get a good look at him until now, and of course he was ridiculously handsome, because that was what bastard thieves looked like in all of the Hollywood movies. He was tall and broad-shouldered with golden stubble over his jaw and pretty pink lips.
“I’m fine,” Jack said tightly.
“Ooo-kay,” he said, pushing his stupid floppy hair back from his stupid beautiful face. “I’ll see you around.”
“Hopefully not,” Jack muttered and stormed away—in the wrong direction—down the street before the book shop guy could follow him.
There once was a grumpy man who worked in a toy shop,Oliver typed, his fingers slamming into the keys.The grumpiest man you have ever seen in your entire life. He was so grumpy his face never smiled and every child who ever visited the toy shop to buy a new toy had to look at his ugly, grumpy face.
He took a deep breath, then forced himself to delete the paragraph.
There was pettiness, then there was turning someone into a character in a book and making them a villain. Oliver wasn’t above that—he’d done it in his debut picture book, and his third… and his sixth, come to think of it. Doing it to the man who worked in the toy shop wasn’t going to help anything.
Oliver only had to look at the toy shop for the next few weeks, then he could move on with his life and finish book number eight before his agent made true on her threats to come down to Bath and kick his arse in person.
So he was a little bit late on his deadline. Just a couple of months over the deadline. What was three months in the grand scheme of things? They could wait four little months for his next book. It was going to be a masterpiece.
A six-months late masterpiece.
Hence the reason why Oliver had immediately applied for the temporary bookseller job when he’d seen the advert online. It was only for six weeks: one week sorting through the boxes and boxes of overstocked books to sort them out and price them, which he’d already done, then five weeks of selling during the busiest shopping period of the year. He’d finished the first week without any drama. The company didn’t really care much about Oliver and his background in the world of children’s literature; he was immediately available, had some retail experience, and was willing to work sixty hours a week on his own.
It wasn’t glamourous, but it would pay the bills.
And if there was one thing Oliver knew, it was books.
Technically, he was Dr Oliver Rowe since he’d graduated with his PhD in children’s literature earlier in the year. It had felt like a good idea at the time, and the perfect way to procrastinate andnotwrite one of the dozens of ideas he had simmering away in the back of his mind. He’d gone all the way through the academic process: undergraduate, Master’s, doctorate, and now he was toying with the idea of going back to university to teach. He was very well qualified.
Except, it was just an excuse to put off finishing his next book.
Oliver sighed and looked down at the paper where he’d been idly doodling a snarling troll behind the counter in a toy shop.
That was mean. It was a good illustration, but definitely mean.
He illustrated his own picture books, and most of the time it was the icing on the cake of his job—bringing to life the pictures in his head and transposing them onto the page. He had a feeling that if he pitched the idea for a story about a mean toy shop owner to his agent, Sarah would love it. If only he hadn’t already pitched her a dozen other ideas, which she’d also loved, and asked when he’d be able to deliver them.
Ah, writer’s block.
And illustrator’s block. That was a thing too, apparently, though it didn’t get quite such good press.
Since his first picture book had won several industry awards, and the second one had picked up prizes that came with actual cash, not just recognition, Oliver’s career had been on a steady rise. He loved his job—all aspects of it, from the writing part to going into schools and libraries to read to kids. The career had taken him all over the country, then to a few international destinations too, and it all felt like a dream.
He’d bought a flat in a modern development on the outskirts of Bath and turned the second bedroom into his studio and office. Though his books brought in a steady income, his real earnings came from the illustrator-for-hire work he did with several publishing houses, doing cover art or chapter header designs for other people’s books. He didn’t mind it, and sometimes it was easier to churn out pictures to a brief than it was to come up with his own original ideas.
This was supposed to be everything he’d been working towards, everything he’d ever wanted. And now it was here, and he hadn’t finished a book in almost ten months.
He’d made one excuse after another, from being too busy to not busy enough; lacking in inspiration to having an overflow of ideas and being paralysed with indecision, not knowing where to go next.
They were all excellent excuses, and there was a grain of truth in all of them.
If there was an easy solution, he was ready to grab it in both hands and take it. But that was always the problem, wasn’t it? Writer’s block never did come with an easy way out.
Oliver stretched, feeling his whole body protest and groan, then got up and flicked off the lights in the studio.
It only took a few steps to get to the bathroom to brush his teeth, then a few more steps to stumble into his bedroom. The flat really was small.
Even though he knew he had to be up before six in the morning to get into town and open up the shop, Oliver couldn’t get his brain to shut down. Too many things were layering over each other: the pressure of his missed deadline, the idea for a new book, the commissions he still needed to finish, and on top of all of that, the grumpy man in the toy shop.
