Page 59 of First Love, Second Draft

“Your rom-com’s a bust. I looked it over right after you sent it, and I’m telling you, there’s no way your editor is going to accept this story. Time travel? Really? You didn’t even make it clear whether the hero and heroine actually end up together.”

“I thought I’d leave it open for a sequel.”

“What reader in their right mind is going to want a sequel to this?”

Gracie lowered herself into the chair, her legs as weak as they’d been right after her horse accident. “I know it still needs a little work. I’m sure my editor will—”

“—never offer you another contract again? Me too.”

“Simone. Come on. Cut me some slack.”

Gracie heard the sounds of a stapler clicking in the background. “I have zero slack left to give. Don’t you get it? Your book sales have plummeted. You haven’t written anything new in years. The last book you published was a complete dud. Not to mention that you’re practically nonexistent on social media.”

“I know, I know. I’ve just had so much going on lately.”

“Listen, I get it. The divorce. Your dad’s health. The recent horse accident you didn’t tell me about, though I can sort of see why. But Gracie—this is life. Everybody goes through stuff. You still have to hit your deadlines. And you still have to deliver what your publishing house is paying you for.”

“Right. Which I believed was a romantic comedy, not a baseball memoir.”

“But you haven’t written a romantic comedy. You’ve written a time-travel travesty. You hear what I’m saying? We havenothingto give them.”

“I’m close. So close. A few more tweaks here and there. If I can just get a little more time—”

“There’s none left, not if you don’t do the memoir. Don’t you get it? This is your last shot. Just write the stinking memoir.”

“What about the stinking rom-com?”

“It’s stinking dead. So unless you want to pay back your whole stinking advance, you will write the stinking memoir.”

Gracie grabbed her forehead. “I stinking see.”

Simone sighed and the clicking sound of the stapler stopped. “It’s going to be fine. Really. Honestly, you should have heard how excited the editor for the nonfiction team was over the idea. For whatever reason, memoirs are selling like hotcakes right now, and one of their other deals recently fell through. Noah’s memoir can fill a giant hole in their publishing schedule, so long as we jump on it right away. No messing around. They want a full outline and the first three chapters by the end of the month.”

“The end of the month? That’s—” Gracie looked at the wall calendar.

“Less than two weeks,” Simone confirmed. “But it’s just an outline and three chapters. I know you can do it. I mean, Noah is there, right? You both have the time. And who knows? Maybe this is what you need to get unstuck from whatever’s blocking you in your romance story. You won’t have to worry about making anything up. Just ask questions and weed out the boring stuff.”

“Right. Which would be perfect except for three minor details. One—I don’t want to work with my ex-husband. Two—all of baseball is boring. And three—I don’t want to work with my ex-husband.”

“Do you want to keep working as a writer?”

“You know I do.”

“Then I suggest you find a way to deal with those three minor issues. Or at least one of them. That’ll solve half the battle right there. If the editor likes what she sees in two weeks, they’ll give the official green light for the rest of the story, and more importantly, you’ll be off the hook for the rom-com. The publisher said they’ll push back the timeline for that so you can focus on the memoir.”

“All right.” Gracie knew a lifeline when she saw one. She’d be a fool not to grab hold of it. “So an outline and the first three chapters?”

“If you can write more, that would be even better. But no worries if you can’t.”

Oh, Gracie had worries. Lots of worries. Chief among them was how she was going to survive another two weeks with Noah back in her life.

Maybe it wouldn’t take that long. Maybe she could crank out all the information she needed from Noah in less than two weeks. Shoot, she should know most of his story already, shouldn’t she? “All right, Simone. I’ll do it. I’ll get started right away.”

Because the sooner she started, the sooner they finished, and the sooner Noah didn’t have any reason to stay.

33

Grace:Cock-a-doodle-doo! Daylight’s burning! Wakey-wakey!

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