He’s not wrong. But it might already be too late. “She's younger than me. A lot younger."
"Age is just a number."
"Okay," I agree slowly. Then I add, "I hurt her.”
“That's more important than her age. Can it be fixed?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. That phone call with her…I know that I blindsided her. And if I were Erin, I wouldn’t want to talk to me. Maybe ever.
Dad’s voice is kind. “Are you willing to try?”
“Of course.”
“Then try. And make sure that you have one hell of a peace offering.”
It’s my turn to laugh. “That, I can do.”
“Good. And I expect you to tell me all about it when it’s done.”
“I will,” I promise. “How have you been?”
“Me? Oh, I’ve been fine. Chasing chickens a lot. They get out a lot here.”
Those words make me pause. “What chickens?”
Dad makes a sound like I’m being ridiculous. “Those chickens, you know, the ones that your mother keeps in the backyard. Against my objections, I might add. And why does everything taste like metal?”
My heart falls. Whenever he starts talking about my mother it’s a sure sign that his mind has slipped away again. Mom passed when I was in my twenties.
“I’m sure she has a good reason,” I say quietly.
He huffs. “Well, I don’t like chasing them.”
“I’ll come help you next time.”
“You better!” That, at least, is a happy exclamation.
I hear the nurse murmuring outside the phone, and there are sounds as the phone is shuffled between hands. “Mr. Ellis?” It’s the nurse.
“I’m here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No,” I say. “It’s okay. Thank you for letting me talk to him.”
There’s the sound of a door shutting in the background. “Not a problem at all. I hope you’ll have a chance to come see him soon. He always does better after you’ve visited.”
“I will. I promise. Have a good night.”
She says goodnight, and I drop my phone onto the coffee table in front of me. I’m glad that I got to talk to him. But every time he drifts away and the dementia comes back, it hurts.
My phone lights up with a message. In the dark room—sitting in the dark felt emotionally appropriate—it’s bright. My heart stops when I see what it is. It’s an email. From Erin. No subject, no words, just a file.
As soon as I tap on it, I realize what it is. This is her book. And I sure as hell am going to read it right now. I grab my laptop and flip on the lights, opening the file as fast as the machine can load it, and I start to read.
I read all night. I’m so taken by the book that I can’t stop. At around midnight I realize that I forgot to eat, but I don’t care. I barely stopped to use the bathroom.
Her book is so good.
It’s a romance with edge, just like she described as her favorite. The characters are vibrant, the sex is fucking hot, and the resolution is absolutely perfect. This book is a bestseller without question. And it’s so good that it kicks my own brain into gear.
I haven’t felt energized creatively like this in…more than a year.
Without moving, I open up the file for my book on the laptop. The sky is getting lighter, and this book is going to get finished. The pieces that Erin wrote are still there, and they’re still brilliant. I pick up right where she left off, the words flying under my fingers.
At some point Mrs. Peak comes in, and I think I startle her with my tired gaze and hunchback posture. But I’m an addict. I can’t stop typing. This kind of flow state is incredibly rare, and I’m taking advantage of it.
Erin lives in my mind as I write the sex scenes. They’re edgy and hot, exactly the kind of scenes that we played out in my bedroom upstairs.
“Mr. Ellis, would you like some lunch?”
I look up blearily and try to focus on my housekeeper’s face. But I don’t exactly feel like I’m connected to the earth right now. “What?”
“I asked if you’d like some lunch,” she asks with an amused look on her face. “Or maybe a shower?”
Mrs. Peak has been my housekeeper for years. She’s seen me in the middle of my writing frenzy before and knows that it’s hard to get my attention.
Now that she’s drawn my focus to it, my stomach rebels. It’s starving. “Food,” I say. “Yes, I’ll take some food. Something fast.”
She laughs softly. “Of course.”
After she leaves, I realize she said something about a shower. And she might have a point, but I don’t have time for that right now. The words are still coming, and you don’t mess with that. As long as your muse is speaking, you’re just a messenger. Nothing else matters except for catching everything that it’s throwing at you.
Mrs. Peak comes back with a sandwich and a glass of water. I eat it between paragraphs, and only then because I know that I need the energy to keep going. There’s a terror rippling through me that if I stop, I won’t be able to finish at all, and so I plow forward.
Even when I wasn’t going through terrible life stresses and worried that I might have just shoved the love of my life away, there’s never been a book that’s…ripped itself out of me like this. It’s both painful and beautiful. And when the sun sets, I’m almost done.
By the time it’s nearly three in the morning, I’ve hit ‘The End.’
I blow out a breath of relief. It’s done. Not edited, obviously, but that’s okay. I almost send it to my editor and pause. The new deal we’re striking hasn’t been confirmed yet. I’ll wait until I have confirmation of that before I do. But it’s okay. There’s something else that I need to do, and it can’t wait.
First, shower. I’ve been sitting in the same fucking spot for more than a day, and I’m not going to get Erin back by showing up at her apartment and looking like I’ve not slept and smelling like a barn. Though there’s probably no way to look like I’ve slept without actually…sleeping. I don’t have time for that.
Quickly, I shower, and I throw on clothes before grabbing my keys and heading out the door. This is the beautiful thing about living in Manhattan. The city is still alive and awake, though quieter. Another upside is that there’s absolutely no trouble getting a cab at this time of night.
I feel nearly delirious as I hail a cab and quickly pull up the email from Michael with Erin’s contract. Hopefully it will be one of the last times I ever see him after I fire him. Which will be after I sleep so I can make sure that I’m doing it correctly and give my lawyers and my editor time to work out a deal. But her contract has her address, and I rattle it off to the cabbie.
What I’m about to do is more important than sleeping.
Late night construction makes it take longer than I expect for the middle of the night, so when I pull up to Erin’s building it’s nearly five AM. I push into the building as an early morning runner comes out. Good thing I showered so it didn’t look like a drunk was trying to break into the lobby. That wouldn’t have gone well.