Page 94 of Smut

“The ads are running,” I remind her. “The bloggers are promoting. If we had friends and family to tell, I’m sure they’d be spreading the word but we don’t, so this is the best we can do. Let’s just see how it does. Tomorrow, if there’s nothing, we’ll try something else. Maybe more money into ads or try contacting other bloggers. Have a giveaway on our Blake Lovecox author page.”

“We have no followers,” she points out.

“Maybe tomorrow we will. Hope for the future, live in the moment.” I say that just as the waitress delivers our drinks. “And this moment includes drinks.”

We say cheers again over our release day.

To being fucking done.

To potential sales.

We clink glasses to us.

We say cheers to letting go.

And we say cheers to good sex because when all is said and done, at least we have that.

I guess we’re just a pile of nerves, brimming with weeks of work and worry and strain because we end up drinking our faces off.

I mean, we got bloody obliterated. I think I start dancing on the pub’s pool table at one point, while Amanda rides the cue stick like a horse.

We take a cab back to my place where we promptly pass out on the bed. I have to wonder if all authors go through this on their release days.

When the next morning rolls around—actually it’s closer to noon—we can barely remember our names.

It’s a good thing.

There’s just the both of us, naked, gazing at each other with sloppy smiles, living through the hangover.

Then Amanda remembers the sales.

She stumbles out of bed and staggers to the living room, and I can hear her flip open the computer. I’ve nearly fallen back asleep when I hear her gasp.

“Oh. My. God. Oh my god!”

She’s either having a self-induced “Big O” or something brilliant has happened. I quickly fumble out of bed and join her, blinking hard at the light from the living room windows.

She’s kneeling on the floor, pointing to the laptop screen on the coffee table and grinning like she’s lost her bloody mind.

“One thousand,” she whispers, her mouth dropping open in a contained scream. “Ahhhhh!”

“What?” I’m sure I’ve heard her wrong.

“One thousand!” she shrieks.

I drop to my knees beside her, resting my hands on her shoulders and holding on tight.

“Open the Top 100, open the Top 100!” I tell her, eagerly peering over her.

Her fingers can’t move fast enough.

We both hold our breaths in unison as she clicks along each section until…

Eighty.

We are number eighty.

The fucking eightieth bestselling book in all of bloody Amazon, in all of the millions and millions of books.

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