Page 22 of Slow Burn Summer

“Always chocolate.”

“Solid choice,” he said. “If you’re five.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Favorite genre to read when you’re not writing?” he said.

She frowned. “You see, that’s exactly it. You say ‘when you’re not writing’ and straightaway I feel like a fraud again.”

He slid his aviators off, hooked them over his shirt pocket and turned and looked her directly in the eyes. “Isn’t all acting about inhabiting the skin of the character you’re playing, believing the lines rather than just delivering them?”

She nodded.

“So be you. Be the you who didn’t give up on writing manuscripts twenty years ago. Be the you who got a publishing deal, the you who writes love stories.”

Kate thought of the box of unfinished manuscripts. “She doesn’t exist.”

“She does now. She’s Kate Darrowby, and I’m looking at her. Write your name over and over like lines in a schoolbook, order the drink Kate Darrowby would choose, buy the outfit she’d pickout for an interview with a national radio host. Step into her shoes, Kate, you’ll find they’re just your size.”

“You’re better at this than you think you are,” she said after a beat.

It was his turn to look conflicted. “I hope so, because it’s all I’ve got.”

“Do you miss it? Script writing?”

His eyelashes swept down, covering his eyes, and she thought about what he’d said earlier about pressing on a bruise and regretted her question. Reading the book for the first time had felt a lot like that: the black-and-blue pain of remembering, the slow, inevitable watercolor fade toward sunrise yellows. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” she said.

He still didn’t meet her gaze. “The short answer is yes, I miss it. And the long answer is I guess script writing was kind of tangled up with who I was when I was in L.A., and now I’m here and all I’ve got is blank pages.”

She remembered what Liv had said about his scandalous marriage breakup and hasty return to London. Was he alluding to writer’s block, or had the words never been his in the first place?

The thought was enough to make her stash the book carefully in among the outfit changes in her bag. She’d let her guard down too much, strayed too close to personal. They’d achieved a fragile working truce; keeping some of the pages intentionally blank felt like the only way to make sure it held.

“I should get back,” she said, standing up. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

He slid his glasses back on, hiding his eyes.

12

“Stand still or this hemwill be all over the place.”

“I’m trying my best,” Kate said, glancing down at Liv. “This crate doesn’t feel very secure. You can tell Fiona if I go through it and twist my ankle two weeks before the book comes out.”

“It won’t break, I’ve used it loads of times,” Liv said, kneeling beside the wooden crate to adjust the length on the midnight silk skirt of Kate’s dress. “That’s got it, I think,” she said, wincing as she straightened up to inspect the result. “Perfect. Hop down.”

Kate took her sister’s outstretched hand and stepped down, then turned to look in the full-length mirror in the changing room.

“What do you think?” Liv asked, behind her.

Kate turned to the side and then back again, admiring her sister’s handiwork.

“I love it,” she said, skimming her hands down the strapless bodice to the flare of the calf-length skirt. Liv had carefully matched the colors from the book cover, ink-blue silk scattered with blush-pink petals, as if a rose in full bloom had shed its petals as she brushed past.

Liv handed her a copy of the book from the box that had arrived a few days ago, prompting a flurry of excitement and nervous tears when she’d opened the seal.

Kate held the book in her hands and turned back to the mirror to see the whole look come together.

“You’re so clever,” she said. “I need a fancy launch party to wear it to now.”

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