Page 102 of Grace on the Rocks

“A laptop that needs power!Nopower, no save.TheWi-Ficonnection’s been janky, and apparently that little surge wiped out three days of autosave.Ormaybe autosave is broken too,Idon’t know.Thisthing is such a piece of shit.”

She hadn’t pressed save for three days?

“I warned youIwas about to?—”

“What?When?”

“Just a minute ago.Yousaid ‘awesome.’Yousaid ‘congratulations.’”

She stared at the ceiling as though thinking back over the last few minutes and then she moaned.

“Don’t laptops run on b-battery?Isn’tthat the whole allure of a laptop?”

“Don’t laptop shame me!It’sold.Itdoesn’t hold a charge anymore.”

“I’m sorry,Rios,” he said, feeling proud of himself for not addingwhy would you write so much without making a backup?

She hung her head. “I’msure my editor will be glad to hear it.”

Her sigh was so deep it broke his heart a little.Heknew she hadn’t been listening, not really.She’dbeen deep in herauthorial fever, but he’d gone ahead and pulled the plug anyway.

“What canIdo?”

She shook her head.

“You should take a break,” he said, keeping his voice even. “Letme show you?—”

“I don’t have time to take a break.Haveyou heard anythingIsaid?Ijust lost so many words!”

“Just for a minute,” he persuaded.

If she saw the tub, he knew she’d calm down.Thenshe could take a long hot bath and relax and either find the missing backup or remember the missing words.

“Please?” he coaxed.

Scrubbing a hand across her glistening eyes, she relented to being led next door to the loo, and when her gaze landed on the tub her face softened for half a second.

“Do you want to try it out?” he whispered, his voice husky with excitement.

Just like that, her face drained of color and she shrank away from him, her expression shuttered. “Areyou serious right now?”

Oh.Maybethis had been another miscalculation. “Yes…?”

“A bath?”Shewas nodding her head like some kind of bobble toy, fighting off tears. “Andthen what?”

“And then…” he faltered.Hismouth opened and closed like a codfish, trying to find his own lost words. “Whatever?” he finally managed.

“You think you’re the first man who tried to seduce me with a bubble bath,BryanMacNeil?”Nowshe shook her head repeatedly. “Maybethe first who went so far as remodeling a whole bathroom, but whatever you seem to think, you’re not going to fix me.”

“That’s not?—”

“You’re all the same.Idon’t have time for this.”

“Rios, there was no?—”

“Right,” she interrupted again, squeezing past him, pressing herself into the wall so she wouldn’t so much as brush against him as she rushed out of the bog that no longer looked as bright or beautiful or inviting as he’d thought.Nowit just seemed old and tired and try-hard.

“This wasn’t a ruse to get you into b-bed,” he said, following her out of the loo.

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