Nathan’s demeanor darkens. “And what? Trade pages?”
“Just for this one chapter,” I push.
“No.” His reply is immediate.
I knew it would be. I don’t even blame him. I can’t deny there’s an intimacy in trading chapters back and forth. Of course, it’s not like what we’re doing right now isn’t intimate. But writing pages and pages with a single reader in mind changes things. Whole chapters read like letters delivered directly to your door. When the content of those chapters is romantic . . . I’ve been there before, and I’m not ready to return. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.
“We can do this,” Nathan says. I glance over, surprised by how encouraging his voice has become. “We have to. Remember what we’d say on Only Once?”
I nod. “It’s the characters’ thoughts, their feelings. Not ours.” I repeat the familiar mantra, feeling like I’ve pulled the pin out of a grenade and am holding it tight. Charging on, I sketch out the love scene. I write Michael’s hand under the covers, running up the inside of Evelyn’s thigh. I write her move her leg unconsciously in response, her shuddering sigh when he touches her. “Do you like that?” I ask Nathan in a voice I don’t mean to come out low.
He puts his hand in his pocket. “Christ, Katrina.”
I realize how the question sounded. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant.”
Exasperated, he lifts the computer off my lap and onto his. He writes in the things only someone who’s had sex with a woman could, the desperate need Michael has for Evelyn, the way his eyes linger on her lips fluttering open, how he wishes he could feel the soft curves and tender points of her chest every second until forever.
Then he draws the details only Nathan Van Huysen could—the lyricism in their movements, the emotion beneath every brush of lips.
He hands the computer over, the hot metal shocking my thighs. I know what needs to come next. I layer in the same language used in Evelyn and Michael’s fights—the clenched fists, the pounding hearts, the furrowed brows—this time with pleasure instead of pain.
“Good,” Nathan murmurs. “Yeah.”
His words run indecipherable chills down my spine. I finish the scene, racing to the conclusion, where Michael and Evelyn seal the final moment with a kiss. The moment I hit the final period, Nathan stands up.
“Glad that’s over,” he says.
I close the computer, ignoring my own galloping heartbeat. It’s just writing. Writing can get intense. “Want to order takeout for dinner?” I ask cheerfully.
“Works for me.” His voice is equally upbeat.
We’re pretending everything is normal, like nothing happened. Which . . . nothing did happen. The knowledge does nothing to calm the question lingering in my mind. If everything is normal, why does normal feel this hard?
“I’m going to go for my run,” Nathan says nonchalantly. His posture looks uncomfortable. “Eat at seven?”
I force a smile. “See you then.”
He walks out of the room. I stay on the couch, not sure what I want to do now, only that I don’t want to cross his path. It’s the characters’ scene, I remind myself. Separate from us. I cling to the reassurance like I would a flimsy blanket on a cold, cold night. The line between us and what we write needs to remain firm. If it crumbles, if we let ourselves bleed into our work, we’ll have nothing left except a messy confusion of lives and pages.
19
Nathan
• FOUR YEARS EARLIER •
I’m writing into the night, every light on in my room in defiance of the late hour. My wrists hurt, my vision feels warped, and I don’t care. I have to finish the scene of Only Once I started hours ago, when Katrina and I went upstairs for the night. We’ve hit the part I love in the process, where ideas and inspirations outpace my fingers. Everything is fitting into place, and I’m racing to put one more passage down before I sleep.
Katrina and I write constantly now. It’s not exhausting—it’s exhilarating. It’s perpetual motion. This is the point I’m always chasing, where the ending materializes on the horizon, the clouds part, and everything becomes dazzlingly clear. There’s nothing like it. Every night when my head hits the pillow, I already can’t wait to wake up, meet Katrina in the kitchen, and keep writing.
I check the clock. One a.m. Shit. I know I’ll need rest if I want to work productively tomorrow.
When I grudgingly stand, I hear a knock on my door.
I smile. Katrina’s up late, just like I am. She’s pulled forward by the same ineffable momentum driving me. Leaving my computer open, I cross the room to the door. Whatever weariness was drawing on me has disappeared. It’s Katrina—she’s my second wind. When I open the door, she’s standing on the other side holding pages.
“Working late?” I put one hand on the upper door frame, leaning in the entryway.
Kat is flushed. She’s put her hair up, which she only ever does when she’s writing in a sprint. She looks like she ran one, too. When she speaks, she’s not quite shy, not quite casual. “I did a first pass on the . . . dream,” she says.
I straighten in the doorway. My eyes flit down to the pages in her hands, and I feel guilty, as if my gaze were following Katrina’s low-cut neckline instead. Which it doesn’t. The object of my curiosity is paper and ink. But those pages hold the first explicit content in the book—a scene where Jessamine fantasizes about Jordan in a dream.
“I didn’t know you were working on that,” I say.
“I wasn’t planning to,” she replies. “I just . . .”
She won’t meet my eyes.
“I was inspired,” she finishes. Several strands of her hair have fallen loose from her ponytail, framing her face. They caress her cheek when she shifts her posture. In the light from my room, her skin looks soft.
“I can’t wait to read it,” I say, meaning every word. Katrina notices her runaway hair and pushes it behind her ear. I hold out my hand for the pages.
She doesn’t give them over. “Nathan . . .” She pauses like her words have gotten stuck somewhere inside her. “It’s a sex dream,” she goes on. While she’s stating the obvious, her voice wavers. “But it’s not my sex dream, okay? I need that to be clear. It’s the character speaking. Not, you know. Me.”
I force a laugh, even though Katrina saying the words sex dream elicit in me decidedly nonhumorous reactions. “I know,” I say. She fixes me with a long look. “I won’t mistake what’s in these pages for your personal preferences,” I promise her.