Page 5 of One-Click Christmas
She hesitates, eyes meeting mine as another soft laugh repeats. “No, you don’t want to hear about all my crazy. You’re here to be happy, sign books, and… yeah.”
“Actually,” I cross one leg over the other, “I prefer deeper conversations. The small talk stuff exhausts me. Besides, there’ssomething about you. I knew I wanted to know more the second we met.”
She looks at me for a long moment like she’s trying to decide if I mean it.
I do, and while she’s searching my face, I’m also memorizing hers.
The stormy shade of blue in her eyes. The subtle pout to her pink lips. Her soft curls lying delicately across her neck.
She makes me want to write. For the first time in forever, Iwantto write.
“Something about me?” Her tone is low and guarded, as though she isn’t sure what to make of my forward comment.
“Sorry if that’s weird. I just,” I exhale softly, eyes on hers, “I meet a lot of people, but none of them usually hit me like this. I don’t know what it is. I just want to know more.”
God, I need to get it together. I sound like a teenager.
She sucks in a deep breath and begins to ramble again. “I mean, there’s not much about me. I’m just… I don’t know. I don’t know who I am most days. I’ve just been going through the motions, ya know? Like, I know life is happening, and I think maybe I know deep down what I want, but my mom has been in and out of the hospital with this autoimmune thing, and I spend most of my time taking care of her.”
“That’s a lot of pressure.” I keep my gaze focused on hers, trying not to notice what the blue in her eyes is doing to me. “What is it that you want?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I just talk to the fictional characters in your books and, ugh, yeah… just keep moving. Really sucks they’re not real. I’ve spent far too many nights up talking to Eric. Do you remember writing him? I think it was like four books ago now. He totally got me through a few of my mom’s episodes.”
I usually don’t remember characters very clearly after I’m finished with a book, but I remember Eric because I wrote so much of myself into him. I don’t tell her that. I’ve probably freaked her out enough already. “Yeah, I do remember him. Spent a lot of nights going through his head. Not fun to admit the characters are fictional, is it?”
Her smile falters before she hides behind her coffee cup. “They’re real to me… but safer. They don’t leave, they don’t lie, and they don’t ask for much.”
I laugh. “Some days they’re the only people I talk to. It gets pretty loud around two in the morning. Do you write as well?”
She laughs a soft, self-deprecating sound. “No. God, no. I’m good at reading. That’s about it.”
“You ever try?”
She takes a sip of coffee and lowers the mug. “Writing feels like a skill that’s reserved for people who know what they’re doing.”
I chuckle a bit. “I hear that a lot. Truth be told, writing is just being able to fail continuously, have your heart broken time and time again, but still doing it because you don’t know how to do anything else.”
I watch her reaction closely. Her fingers twisting at the hem of her sweater. Her eyes darting around the room as she thinks what she wants to say next. The clearing of her throat as she wonders if she starts talking, it will all magically come out.
Her reactions are genuine. They’re not imagined, they’re lived, and I can’t unsee the protagonist I’ve been searching for sitting right in front of me.
Blonde hair, thick curves, a backstory pulling the strings, a hunger she doesn’t know how to feed.
Lana is the answer to the writer’s block.
She’s the light in the dark, the shape I’ve been chasing through sleepless nights, the perfect embodiment of the voices I’ve been hearing.
I clear my throat, fully aware of how crazy I’m about to sound as I say, “I’ve been trying to write someone lately. One woman in particular. This is probably weird, but I feel like you’re her.”
Lana laughs nervously. “What?”
I glance toward her, then out the window at the line of readers forming outside. “It’s strange, and I don’t usually do this, but you fit the heroine in my next book perfectly, and I’ve had this horrid writer’s block lately. It would help tremendously to see my heroine in motion.”
Lana narrows her brows in question as she bites back a smile. “Are you saying you want to stalk me, ‘cause this might be my dream come true.”
I smirk. “I’m saying I’m starving for a muse and I’m pretty sure you’re her.”
She blushes, but there’s a trace of pride in her eyes. “Well, I do have a very dramatic day planned. My favorite author is signing at my bookstore.”
