Page 52 of The Write Off

He chuckles softly like I’m employing my classic evade with sarcasm technique. When I don’t join in, he sobers. “Are you being serious?”

I nod. I nod some more. He doesn’t say anything. I just keep nodding like a bobblehead on a dashboard.

“Book two is finished?”

“Well, it’s not ready to go to the printers yet.” I look around the bar to see if any loyal patrons need my assistance and am sad to see they don’t. “But yes. It’s finished.”

Logan lifts his glass and then puts it back down without taking a drink. I can see the wheels turning in his head, trying to make sense of what I’m saying. Suddenly that dawn of realization breaks on his handsome face and he leans forward on his stool, bracing himself on his forearms. “Rilla. How much of the series have you written?”

I stare back at him, swallowing the lump in my throat. Alright, Pine. Time to put up or shut up. “All of it.”

Silence. Neither of us speaks for so long that I wonder if one or both of us have forgotten how. We just hold uninterrupted eye contact like we’re trying to read one another’s mind.

He finally breaks first. “All of it?”

“Yes.”

“All six books in the series?”

“Yes.”

He takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose before slipping them back on. He looks as though he’s about to say something, but stops himself. Finally, he picks up the beer glass and it actually makes it to his mouth this time. I watch his throat work as he drains the remaining beer in several large swallows.

“You’re telling me,” he says after he’s caught his breath, “you’re sitting on not one, but six completed full-length manuscripts?”

“That is what I’m saying, yes.”

“Who else knows about this?”

I look around our barren surroundings. “Everyone sitting at this bar.”

Logan leans back, seeming to forget he’s sitting on a barstool and not in a chair with a back. He manages to catch himself before falling off. “The entire series…”

I’m dying for him to say something more. Anything at all. He could yell at me for not telling him sooner or at the very least to tell me he’s disappointed that I kept this from him for so long. But he just continues to sit there in a stunned silence looking like he’s trying to do complicated math in his head.

I should have kept my mouth shut. I’m not the sharing-is-caring type. I should have just stayed the course and turned in the second manuscript when it was due. I start wiping the bar with a rag even though I haven’t spilled anything.

“Can I read them?”

The expression on his face is so earnest that I’m momentarily speechless. There is no edge in his tone, no judgment on his face.

“You’re not mad?”

“Why would I be mad, Kitten?” I know he started calling me that as a joke, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t melt every time he says it.

“Because I didn’t tell you earlier?”

He shrugs. “You weren’t ready to tell me before. But you’re telling me now and that means a lot to me. I can’t believe you’ve written them all. That’s incredible.”

Pride blooms in my chest at his praise. Logan gets it. He knows how much work goes into a book and he’s legitimately impressed. Confiding in him what I’ve been hiding for so long is more than freeing; it’s liberating. I feel lighter than I have in months.

A party of eight comes in from the cold, stomping the snow from their boots.

“You’re probably about to get busy, so I should go. I don’t want to distract you,” Logan says, eyeing the newcomers.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Pretty Boy.”

“You’re off at ten?”

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