Page 2 of Red Flag, Green Light

Everyone, everywhere, is searching for the peace that comes when there’s silence upstairs. Whensomeone elsecan be trusted to take care of everything because they care that much about us…to such an extent they are willing to do anything for us.

No one wants a stalker…but everyone wants their lover to remember their favorite foods and keep track of their schedule and show up right when they need them most. So, perhaps, it’s safe to sayno one wants a stalker…without consent.

Now, let me make myself immaculately clear: I am half the body of the dark romance author known asRouge. Rouge is the amalgamation of my brother, Jupiter Caelum Rogue, and me, Mars Cygnus Rogue. Rouge is what happens when you see that your brother has a gift with words…and you see that you do not aspire to put pants on every day.

The process we’ve perfected is painfully simple: I developmentally edit the stories that Jove drafts.

Jovey-wovey writes the plot. I add the spice. And finish the chapters he didn’t know how to. And fix a few hundred of his misplaced breakdowns…

I also manage the face of our business, the accounts, the marketing, the readers, and our editor. Just to make sure I’m pulling my weight. Certainly not because I behave poorlywhenever I get bored and the time between editing projects is prime for boredom.

We are in the business of stalkers, and age gaps, and kidnappers, and morally gray leads who show love via stab wounds.

I am a biased party on the “pro” side of “no boundaries.”

I am also kind of mental, even on my best days.

But I?

I am not alone.

Because my darling book girlies understand.

The more book girlies I meet through emails and fanmail, the more I wonder if we’re less an exception and more the rule.

With a satisfied sigh, I spin a single playing card between my fingers and watch my security camera footage, which is pointed at my next-door neighbor’s house. I only have a few cameras, all of them directed at key locations where it concerns my neighbor. One focuses on her kitchen, which she rarely uses. Another on her sliding glass living room door, where she works and reads. The rest keep track of her backyard and porch, where the majority of her plant horde thrives.

Here, in small town Bandera, West Virginia, we are the only two houses tucked away on this corner of the street, and, for reasons unknown, whoever made that decision also made the decision to give Ceres’s house sliding glass doors that are perfectly visible from the vantage point of camera number four.

To clarify what I mean when I sayI only have a few cameras, I have eight.

Because eight is a great number.

It’s one less than nine, which is my big brother Jovey’s favorite number. It is also the number of stacks on the tableau in FreeCell Solitaire, AKA my favorite Solitaire. FreeCell has a ninety-nine percent chance of solvable probability. And what can I say? I prefer to play games I know I can win.

Now, if you’re not a book girlie, first of all, why are you here? And second of all, I know what you’re thinking.

Mars, it is undeniably illegal to monitor your pretty neighbor like this, regardless of your opinion on boundaries and your assumed statistics concerning how many people share your opinion. Not only is it illegal, it is disturbing. What is wrong with you?

Well, well, well, allow me to present my case to you, the minority, therealexception, thenon-book girlie who is here for thoroughly confounding reasons. Probably to leave me a bad review. Even though I do swear I was immaculately clear regarding expectations…

Ahem. Anyway… What was the question?

Oh. Right. Yes.

What is wrong with me?

Loads. So many things are wrong with me that if I were to list them, it would take an entire novel, and I do notwritebooks. I edit them. That’s it. Comma here. Scene-you-skipped-because-you-didn’t-know-what-to-put there. A touch ofdid you write this while you were drunk, my dear Jovey-wovey?A splash ofdarling, that is not how a participle works…

I am a collage of broken pieces and mentally-unstable character traits.

So, in order to both maintain composure and quiet the ever-presentvoicesin my head, I. have.hobbies.

Observe, hobby numero uno: cards. Card tricks. Card flourishes. Card games. Card collections.Cards.

My bedroom is wallpapered in the jokers from the decks I collect and stack on a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf behind my desk.

Hobby two!Carrot cake.

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