Page 19 of Pity Present

Her eyes pop open so wide she looks like a startled fish. “Not necessarily. I mean, maybe if the story called for …”

“You know what I think, Krista?” Her head moves from side to side, so I tell her, “I think you need to keep everyone out of your head while you’re writing. You can’t worry about the critics and the naysayers. You’ve gotta just let your story out the way it wants to come out.”

“Is that what you do?” she asks.

I think about the hundreds of articles I’ve written and tell her, “Pretty much.”

She smiles prettily. “Thanks, Blake. That’s good advice.”

Before we can continue what’s turning out to be a very pleasant exchange, I see Molly walk into the room. She’s wearinga sleeveless red cocktail dress that’s both quite festive and very sexy. She also looks like she’s about to cut and run.

“I hope we can chat later,” I tell Krista before asking, “Will you excuse me? I just saw somebody I know.”

Krista smiles nervously. “Sure, I’ll see you in a while.”

I turn toward Molly and notice that she’s looking around the room awkwardly. Approaching her from the side where she doesn’t see me coming, I say, “Hey.”

She nearly jumps out of her skin. In fact, if this were a dark alley instead of a hotel great room, I’d half expect her to follow the action with a karate chop to my neck. As soon as she recognizes me, she says, “Oh, it’s you.” She does not sound thrilled.

“Yes, it is. Blake Walsh.”

Her face remains un-emotive, so I add, “Single, non-lumberjack, at your service.”

Her icy blue eyes dart around the room like she’d rather be anywhere else than talking to me. “Have you met any nice women?” she finally asks.

“I met a kindergarten teacher who seemed pretty sweet.”

Her eyes narrow as she asks, “What do you do for a living, Blake?”

I need to be consistent with my lies so that no one suspects why I’m really here, so I tell her the same thing I told Kyle. “I’m a barista.”

She looks at me dubiously and her lip curls in what appears to be pure hatred. “You had an urgent call last night regarding making coffee?”

It takes me a beat to realize she’s referring to the excuse I gave her for not having supper with her last night. “No,” I say. “I’m also a struggling author and I had a meeting with my agent.”

“On a Friday night?” Yeah, she’s not buying it.

“I haven’t sold anything yet so I’m not exactly his top priority. He fits me in wherever he can.”

“What’s your book about?”

Before I can stop myself, I tell her, “Alien robots taking over the Earth.”

“Excuse me?”

I guess she was expecting something more normal. “It’s a dystopian love story, really.”

“An alien robot dystopian love story … Don’t give up your day job, Blake.”

Even though I’m not really writing a novel, that kind of hurts. “Hey, the storyline worked in that movieRebel Earth.”

“You’re stealing the plot from a movie?” I’m not sure how I ever thought Molly might be interested in me because she’s currently being downright rude.

“I’m just taking inspiration from it,” I tell her before commenting on her appearance at the mixer. “I thought you were staying at the lodge for work.”

“I am.” She sounds uncomfortable. “But Trina had a last-minute cancellation, so she asked me if I’d like to come tonight.”

“So you’re not here for the full two weeks?”

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