"Don't you have diabetes?" She gave him a disapproving look.
"I do, but I take insulin." He shrugged. "Don't judge me."
"I'm not." Her statement was weak and flat.
"Yes, you are. It's not like I do this every day. Besides, I didn't eat breakfast," Vince scolded in a hushed voice. When anyone, especially Skylar, pointed out health concerns related to his glucose level, he became irritated. As far as he was concerned, his blood sugar numbers weren’t anyone’s business but his own. Besides, life was too short not to indulge in tasty food.
Just to spite her, he held the sticky roll in the air and moved it slowly toward his mouth, making a full display of taking that first, sweet bite. He then closed his eyes, enraptured as the sweet taste hit his tongue. When he opened them again, he smiled devilishly at her as he chewed.
Skylar rolled her eyes, turning away. It was too early to be goaded into a discussion about the benefits of a healthy diet. Instead, she reached down, unzipped the top of her laptop bag, and rummaged around for a pencil. Vince had his obsession with sweet things, and she had a thing for mechanical pencils. She loved them and purchased a pack nearly every time she went to stores like Target and Walmart. Pencils were forgiving. Their erasers permitted a person to make mistakes. What she didn't like were pens. Everything about them was too final. If she made a mistake with a pen, her OCD dictated she rip out the page and start all over again. No one had time for that nonsense, and that was what made pencils the number one choice of perfectionists everywhere.
"What are you writing?" Vince peered over Skylar's shoulder, making her pull her work a little closer to her chest.
"Nothing, nosey. Just looking at your edits."
"The edits are done.” His tone was flat. “Move on to the next book." The hair on the back of Skylar's neck bristled. She didn't take orders, especially from someone on her payroll. There was a way to voice his opinion nicely, but Vince rarely did so.
"That isn't me, and you know it. I always re-edit when I get my stuff back." The monotone statement was one she'd delivered many times over. How long would it take for people to understand the luxury of being an indie author? Control. Skylar would always have the final say on her work as long as she published independently.
"I get what you're saying, but you have to ask yourself if it's the best way to use your time. That's why you pay an editor."
She rolled her eyes, partially because she knew Vince was right and, also, because she knew she should let the story go and move on to the next in the series. There was a vast difference between writing an exposé and writing fiction. The character's lives she created were entirely at the whim of her imagination. There was only one problem, she became attached to her characters as she developed them. As she grew their personalities, they became as real to her as the man sitting beside her. It was hard to let them go once they were published. Not so with a piece for a magazine. Those were facts. This was fiction.
She ignored him, reaching into her bag once again to find a notebook. Vince's expression held a question. "I'm fleshing out the next story. I'm not exactly sure where I want to take it."
"So just get your thoughts down on paper and let me do the rest. Use your imagination, and I'll polish the words. You can't drag your feet, Sky. There's too much competition."
Though he spoke while chewing a mouthful of food, her disapproving look wasn't lost on him. He put his hand in front of his mouth to be polite and kept right on talking. Thankfully, only two more bites, and he'd be finished.
"This is really delicious. You should try one." He mumbled the words, pausing a moment to swallow. As he brought a napkin to his lips, he wiped away the flicked remnants of white icing that remained.
"Excuse me."
Skylar and Vince simultaneously looked up. The man sitting directly across from them broke in on their conversation. He had his laptop in front of him while he worked at one of the airport computer stations. Apparently, he’d been listening as they talked.
"I couldn't help but overhear you talking about edits and rewrites. Are you an author?"
His expression was sincere, his eyes gentle. Skylar was instantly drawn to the rich, velvety sound of his words. Some men were famous for their voices being their most prominent feature. This guy could have capitalized on that attribute.
"I'm an editor. She's an author," Vince replied. As expected, her editor's welcoming delivery and friendly mannerisms drew the stranger in.
"I'm sitting here working on a story. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" He gestured to his laptop, then returned his attention to Vince.
As expected, Vince saw the potential for a new client and didn't hesitate to engage. "Not at all. What can I help you with?"
As the two men continued their conversation, Sky tuned out from the world, turning back to her notebook. She had no trouble ignoring people around her and could completely disengage when necessary. It was a skill she'd mastered at an early age. She was an only child and a bookworm like her mother. Her early love of reading had taught her how to make observations and write the details within the scene. She was then able to transport herself into the stories she both read and wrote. Everything around her faded away in the distance as she immersed herself into a book. She'd traveled the world, fallen in love, and experienced heartbreak, all in her imagination. Her reader base for the new pen name was a faithful one. Although she'd created the persona of Eden Skye, she found she liked being Eden. It freed her to write romance the way she felt it should be. Sky took her obligation to the readers seriously because they fell in love with the people and places in the worlds she created, just the same as she did.
"Sky, are you going to answer him?" Nudging her with his elbow, Vince interrupted her thoughts.
"Huh?" She looked between the two men. Confusion clouded her eyes as heat flushed her face. A prickling sensation raced up the back of her neck, the evidence of her embarrassment at having ignored them.
"Sorry. I wasn't paying attention. What was the question?"
"What kind of books do you write?" Again, the man's tone caught her attention, caressing her ears with much the same velvety effect as James Earl Jones, Alan Rickman, or Patrick Stewart. She loved voices, especially rich, deep ones. Skylar would eagerly listen to any of them read the daily newspaper and never lose interest.
She looked up at him, a smile filling her lips. "Romance. Contemporary romantic suspense, to be more specific."
"Ahhh. Romance." He exaggerated the phrase and bobbed his head, acknowledging her chosen writing genre with a crooked smile.
His expression wasn’t lost on her, his was the response of many people when telling them she was a romance writer. She detected a hint of disapproval or condescension in his voice. Instantly, she felt the need to document his reaction with all the others she experienced for the exposé she had planned. Though he would never note the difference, her thinking morphed from romance writer to investigative reporter. It would only take a matter of minutes to tell if he was genuinely interested in her as a person or humoring her because he didn't take her work seriously. She took mental notes whenever the subject arose. What she'd discovered so far was that those on the outside of the romance genre dismissed love stories as nonsense. He would be shocked to know how many indie romance writers had healthy bank accounts.