Page 144 of Foreplay on Words

My suitcase felt like it weighed a thousand pounds as I hoisted it up onto the luggage rack in the closet. Normally, I’d have at least tried to unpack, but at this point, I didn’t really care.

Pushing the sheets down on the neatly made bed, I kicked off my shoes and unzipped my jeans, leaving them in a pile next to the bed. I climbed in and curled around a pillow, letting the remnants of my tears soak into the soft fabric.

“Oh, Evan. When are you going to get here?”

The alarm on my phone woke me from a restless sleep, and I quickly poked at the screen, trying to silence it. Still no messages. The screen only had a calendar alert for the appearances I would have to fake my way through for the rest of the day.

While I would have liked to slip on a pair of sweats and eat my way through the basket of goodies on the desk while watching sad movies, I knew I needed to get ready.

“Fake it till you make it,” I grumbled as I went into the bathroom with my cosmetics bag in an attempt to tame my hair and put on my face.

Twenty minutes later, I looked refreshed but didn’t feel it. The ride down the elevator in silence helped me get into the right headspace. I’d done press appearances before. I’d done book signings and readings before. If I could make it through this, I could climb back into that empty bed in a few hours and go back to sleep.

“Well, you look human. Did you hear anything?” Kristine greeted me as I joined the others in the hotel lobby.

I shook my head as the four of us headed out to the car service. I knew if I started talking about Evan, the sadness would creep back in again.

“Alright, crew. Let’s focus. I know this won’t be exactly to the original plan, but we can still pull this off.” Diana was in full PR mode, always trying to spin things positively.

“What should I tell the press if they ask about Evan?” Surely, they’d notice his absence when it was billed as a joint book tour.

“Obviously not that he’s MIA,” Kristine said sarcastically.

“Yeah, I figured that much,” I replied with an equal amount of sarcasm. I was sad and worried, not an idiot.

“We can stick to a simple, semi-truthful statement,” Diana explained. “Evan was feeling under the weather and unable to join us for the first day in Chicago. We’re hopeful he’ll recover soon and be able to join us further during the tour. What’s working in our favor is that today is only print media. You don’t have to perform for a live camera or do any in-depth interviews.”

“It’s a simple Q and A,” she reminded me with an encouraging smile. “You’ve been briefed on our public message about the book, so stick to the script, and we’ll be fine.”

I hoped we...I...didn’t get any nosy press members inquiring about my personal relationship with Evan. As long as it was about the book, I could handle it.

“Let’s do this.” Kristine rubbed her hands together as she scooted toward the car door.

Sam slipped out first and helped each of the ladies out, his hand hovering near Kristine’s back as I followed the three of them into the venue for the meet and greet.

“We’ll be over there with Diana.” Sam nodded toward a side table where promotional items related to the book were already set up. Another table beside it was piled high with a stack of books.

At least we didn’t need to go anywhere after this; the first book signing was directly after in the same location.

Deep breaths. I could do this.

“You did great,” Diana praised after I finished the first part of our obligations. “If I weren’t aware of the last twenty-four hours, it would never have occurred to me that something was off with you.”

“Real subtle, Di,” Kristine snickered from her place with Sam near the promotional table.

Ignoring Kristine, Diana continued talking to me as we moved away from the crowd. “Just get a drink. There are some snacks over there off to the side. We have another ten minutes until we can expect people to start showing up for the reading.”

I absentmindedly snacked on a cookie and drank some coffee as I tried to run the passage I was reading through my head again. Public speaking made me nervous, but I never had a problem once I started talking.

Reading my work to a crowd who was a captive audience used to be one of my favorite things about promotional tours. Something about sharing your characters with your readers for the first time made all the sleepless hours and weird schedules worth it.

It didn’t feel quite the same this time. These weren’t only my characters. Evan was just as much responsible for the development of Frances’ character as I was.

“You ready?” Sam broke me out of my contemplative state, and I realized that the room had started to fill up.

The room was filled with a pretty diverse crowd. I wondered who was here because of me, and which were Evan’s readers.

“Diana is going to introduce you, and then you’ll start the reading,” he said quietly as he steered me toward the small podium.

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