Page 17 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
Seth huffs. “Oh, so now you’re some sort of car expert?”
Audrey’s eyebrows lift in surprise, her arms crossing defensively over her chest. “Excuse me?” She knows that Seth has been a bit…surly lately, but if he thinks he’s going to speak to her that way, he has another think coming. “Don’t—”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Seth is quick to disarm her, slumping over the counter and pushing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I’m sorry. It’s just…I don’t even know how to say this. But it’s done, Audrey. It’s over.”
“What?” Audrey feels the blood drain from her face, her arms falling limply to her sides.He knows? About…him? How did he find out?She has no choice now—she’s going to have to come clean. “Seth, I—”
“My publisher is dropping me.”
Audrey opens her mouth to reply but, stunned by the unexpected turn the conversation has taken, it takes her a moment to find the words. “Jesus, Seth. What happened?”
Seth picks up his drink, rattles the ice in his nearly empty glass. “It’s a long story. And I’m going to need a refill first.”
He slides off the stool and wobbles slightly as he lands on his feet, using the edge of the counter to steady himself before heading for the bar cart in the living room.
Audrey quickly pulls her phone from the purse on her shoulder and fires off a text:
Something came up. Can’t meet tonight.
A response comes almost immediately.
What the fuck? You said you could get away tonight. It’s been weeks, Audrey.
Audrey’s jaw clenches as her fingers angrily jab at the screen.
Like I said, something came up at home. Not going to work tonight.
She’s really getting tired of this, his sense that he’s entitled to her time and attention. She doesn’t know what gave him the impression that he gets to call the shots here, but she’s just about over it.
Audrey hears Seth’s shuffling footsteps growing louder as he nears the kitchen. She drops her phone back into her bag.
“Talk to me,” she says as she watches Seth arrange himself on a stool, and she takes a seat across from him, her eyes searching his face.
“Evidently, I’m ‘canceled.’ ” He lifts his hands and makes clumsy air quotes on either side of his head as he spits the last word with distaste.
“Canceled?” Audrey’s phone buzzes in her bag. She ignores it. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Seth replies, wiping a trail of whiskey from his chin with the cuff of his shirt, “that this delicate new generation thinks my books areout of touch.” The disgust coils off him like fog lifting from a lake.
“Okay,” Audrey hedges, her mind revving into overdrive as she tries to think of a way to spin this. Seth’s work is everything to him. This was his dream; the Detective Marlow series is his life’s work. As much as Audrey sometimes resented Seth’s career, felt like she was jockeying with it for his time and attention, it breaks her heart to see it torn away from him like this. “But they’re not your target audience anyway, right? Your books have aways been aimed at an older crowd. So maybe it won’t affect sales all that much.” Her phone buzzes impatiently and Audrey clenches her hands into fists, her nails digging little crescent moons into her palms.He needs to stop.
Seth laughs wryly. “You’re not understanding how bad this is. I’m a meme, Audrey. A laughingstock. People are review-bombing my books, leaving one-star reviews everywhere. Calling me washed-up, a middle-aged has-been. And not just on this new book either. It’s on all of them. My backlist is tanking too.”
“Oh my God…”
“My publisher already cut the cord. My agent says they won’t be optioning my next book. It’s over, Audrey. I’m finished.”
For the third time, Audrey’s phone vibrates loudly inside her bag.
“Do you need to get that?” Seth asks, thinly veiled annoyance hovering just beneath the surface.
“It’s probably work.” She fishes out her phone. “Let me just turn it off.”
A series of texts shine out at her defiantly from the screen.
Later tonight, then
Are you ignoring me?
