Page 34 of Seven Days in June

“And I’ve never even been to New Zealand! I spend all my time churning outCursed! I owe Cece another one, and I don’t have a single idea, and now I’m gonna go broke, and even worse? I keep back-burnering my dream book!”

“What’s your dream book?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she snapped. “The point is, I work my ass off. While you, with minimal effort, have become a legend.”

“I’m only a legend ’cause I’m mysterious.”

“You’re a legend ’cause you write aboutme.” She grabbed her milkshake back, spilling a bit on her hand. Distractedly, she sucked it off.

Shane’s brain left their conversation for a few agonizing moments.

“You capitalized off of my trauma,” she raged. “A time when I was in crisis. Not lovable. Not Eight.”

Shane stared at her, eviscerated.Not lovable.Eva had no idea the effect she’d had on him. How he saw her. How could she not know?

“Eight’s lovable because you were.” His voice was firm, definite. “You can’t imagine what you were like then.”

“I know what I was like.”

“You don’t.” Shane went dead serious. “You burst into my solitude, demanding to be seen. You were overwhelming. Just wild and weird and brilliant, and I never had a choice. I liked everything about you. Even the scary parts. I wanted to drown in your fucking bathwater.”

Eva opened her mouth to speak. He shook his head, silencing her.

“I idealize you in fiction because I idealized you in real life,” he continued. “Itismale-gazing, you’re right. And I’m sorry. But I can only write my shit my way.”

“It’smyshit!” Eva pounded a fist on the table. At the next table over, a family looked up from their menus.

“You get to decide who owns what?” asked Shane, voice rising. “I’ve written four novels. You’ve written fourteen! A whole series, in which you put a Creole hex on me.”

She burst out in a mirthless laugh. “If I could hex you, you think I’d stop at roasting you in books?”

“If I’m a vampire, at least let me do cool shit! I spend the whole series cowering in castles, while my cross-between-Serena-Williams-and-Wonder-Woman witch soul mate gets to fight for truth and justice. The only thing Sebastian’s good at is—”

“Stop!” she interrupted. “Those scenes pay my mortgage.”

Shane said nothing and quietly took a swig of water. His devilish grin showed behind the glass.

“I will throw this milkshake at you right now—think I won’t?”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“Look,” said Eva, cheeks aflame. “No one was supposed to readCursed. I wrote it for myself, to get over you. I cast myself as a superhero to give me strength I didn’t feel. And made you a useless fuckboy, because I’m petty. But it turned into a career, and I’mstuckwith us.”

“Are you, though? Vampires die all the time. What about stakes and sunlight and shit?”

“My vamps,” she started haughtily, “can only die from silver scalpels marinated in garlic paste from a very particular vine during the summer solstice on a leap year.”

“Exactly.” A smirk played at the corners of Shane’s mouth. “Ever wonder why you made it so hard to kill me?”

“Because I have private school to pay for! Why do you keep writing about me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Apparently not.”

“I’m not just writing about you,” said Shane. “I’m writing to you.”

His words hung in the air a moment—bold and impossible to misconstrue. He hesitated, wondering how she’d react. Telling the truth was something he always did, with no regard for how he was received. But Eva’s thoughts mattered.

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