Page 40 of Red Flag, Green Light

“Great.”

“Cool.” She rises. “Ready to go? I have a client I’d like to follow up with before it gets too late.”

Gathering my own trash, including a few remaining nachos, I commit a heinous crime and throw them away, along with my hope.

Chapter Twelve

I’m sure everything is fine…

Ceres

Sara: Am I booking out the rest of my spring, or has your male lead become more marketable? I was going to send you a “I support your bad business decisions, but I cannot work with you on them” message, but my spring is setting up to be annoying, and you know the cure for annoyance?

Sara: Rouge novels.

Sara: I will take the daily content. I will pace myself. I will survive.

Sara: But he’s gotta be described without using the words “modest” and “shoulders” in the same sentence.

Sara: Please.

Sara: I have boundaries.

Even though Rouge is normally so prompt with her responses, minutes pass, slinking by while I look into permits and how to book the local fairground. Of everything I know about Rouge, that the woman is feral for emails and messages tops the list. She even responds to a decent amount of fan mail, or so she’s told me.

I stalk Amazon ranks, not author newsletters, social media, or PO box addresses. I have too many clients to pay them all that same attention, and—honestly—keeping up with just one author’s billion platforms is too much socialization for me. If I want to know what’s going on, I’ll message her.

And she’ll reply.

Because, again, it’s what she lives for.

She once spent hours cutting up magazines in order to reply to a hate letter in full “I now know where you live” fashion. Because, honestly, how smooth brain do you have to be to put your actual return address on hate mail?

Chaotic dark romance is the brand, and I live for it.

Which is, naturally, why I’m contemplating a world where I only have one project worth fifty grand, one project from my lovely Tempest mid-season, and one Flag Day festival to put together over the next few months. If the goal is agoraphobia therapy, the more time for breakdowns and panic attacks I have, the better.

As it stands, even though Mars makes existing outside of my box feel somehow more possible, that doesn’t mean he at all plans to come with me when I inevitably hit a roadblock on what I can order online. No doubt half the shops he wants represented at the festival do not have websites. And no doubt the other half would think an invitation tounleash your inner flagcoming through on their massively outdated website is spam.

In small towns like these where everyone knows everyone else, you have to go in person to the people. That’s just the way it is. It’s practically a genre expectation working against me.

Blowing out a breath, I wait so patiently for Rouge to distract me from my spiraling thoughts and the twisting sensation in my chest.

I’m fine.

I’m so fine.

I can breathe.

I’m safe.

I’mhome.

The fairgrounds and permit balls are rolling. If I do nothing else this week, I’m ahead of schedule. So, really, I don’t knowwhy I’m worried.

Dots appear as Rouge types, and relief pours through my body.

Blessed distraction. Blessed comfort zone. Please, please, please tell me you’ve given your guy several inches in the legs and the kind of shoulders readers wanna be thrown over. I need hope for my sanity here.

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