But she knew me well enough to know that I’d use them, so there was that.
See, Suzanne and I met five years ago online. When I’d first started writing, I hadn’t done the best thing that I should have—i.e., hiring an editor that was going to make my words shine. Instead, I’d taken the cheap way out and read it for errors myself.
Big no-no, apparently.
And I found out very quickly after publishing that it wasn’t the best idea in the world.
How did I find out?
Well, when I’d published, I’d done it in a quickly growing genre that all the ladies were falling into in droves thanks to a popular motorcycle series. Motorcycle clubs, MC books for short, had an ever-growing popularity that I’d thought was super intriguing.
So I’d written a book about a motorcycle riding hot guy, published it, and then waited on pins and needles for the first person to buy it.
And they did.
And the next.
And the next.
And the next.
Except, as people bought the book, people also reviewed the book.
And it got roasted.
Roasted so badly, in fact, that I barely could read the reviews and not cry.
From then on, I’d made sure to find an editor before I published another book.
I also learned to stay off of a popular review site that did nothing but tear me a new asshole with each review I read.
Only, not all was bad coming from my first book publishing.
The one person that I met that was nice to me when she didn’t have to be was Suzanne.
She was my light in the dark.
She was a book blogger that guided me through the book world.
Then, at my first ever book signing a year later, I got to meet her for the first time.
And there she offered to help me in any way she could.
When people saw us together, they might think we were weird.
We talked to each other every single day. Texted like best friends. Knew everything about each other as best friends would. And though we only saw each other twice a year at book signings, when we got together it was like we were never apart.
And though she was old enough to be my mother, and had a kid that wasn’t far from my age, and spoke like she was straight off the set of The Sopranos, she was my best friend. And I told her everything.
I told her more stuff than I even told my own mother.
Not that I didn’t love my mother to death, but there were just some things you couldn’t discuss with your mother—like sex and our Tourette’s. There were just things that Suzanne understood that my mother didn’t.
That was what brought Suzanne and me together. We both have no control over the word ‘fuck.’
“Did you talk to him?” she asked. “Because, holy hotness. That photo you sent me last summer through the blinds? I bet that man is sex on wheels. And I’ll bet he has a bedroom voice that’ll send orgasms screaming through you one after the other. He’ll say, ‘good morning,’ and boom! Orgasm.”
The ‘picture’ in question was actually a photo of the man on the back of his bike. He’d had on a pair of sweatpants, was barefoot, and was wearing a white undershirt. But I could see the shape of his body underneath the tight undershirt. I could also see the colorful tattoos.
Oh, and did I mention that it was raining, too? The white shirt was plastered to him like a second skin, and I could see his fucking nipples through the fabric as well.
And the only reason I’d seen him as well as I had was because there’d been a party or something at the place next door to his, and when he’d arrived, he’d had to park at the end of the cul-de-sac. And when it’d started raining later in the day, he’d run out in his sweatpants and undershirt to move the bike. Unfortunately for him, fortunately for me, he’d been parked right in front of my place. When he’d started it up, I’d come running to look, and my God.
The funny thing was, he’d put that helmet on before I’d gotten a good look at his face. Which meant that the photos that I’d gotten, I hadn’t been able to pin the body with the face. Until today.
And since I’d been so busy with nursing school at the time—a career I had no intention of pursuing any longer—I’d never been able to figure out who the hot motorcycle boob helmet guy was.
I snorted. “Today, actually, he was sick. He kind of sounded sexy, but he also had a nasal sound to him, as if he was really stopped up.”
She sighed. “Well that just fucks everything up, doesn’t it?”
Not really.
Even nasally sounding, it was still orgasm-inducing.
Which I told her in the next moment, causing her to laugh.
“That’s true. When my man has a cold, other than the fuck my life feeling I have when he whines about how sick he’s feeling, he’s got this sexy, vibrant voice that makes my knees weak,” she purred.
“Your knees are weak because you need surgery but you’re refusing to do it because you’re scared,” I countered.
“That, too,” she agreed. “I gotta work up the nerve. Maybe next summer.”
I rolled my eyes. That’d been what she said last summer.
Thunder rumbled overhead again, and a shiver trickled down my spine.
“Son of a bitch,” I said as I stared at the windows. “This storm is supposed to be bad.”
“How bad?” she asked. “Like worse than last time, bad?”
What she was referring to as last time had actually been about three or four months ago during hurricane season. The storm had spawned three tornados, one of which had ripped right through the middle of Longview, the largest neighboring city to Kilgore.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “Way worse, supposedly.”
Something that sounded like a buzzer went off in the background on Suzanne’s end, and I sighed. “Did they win?”
“Intermission after the second period. He hasn’t even played yet. Fuckin’ coach is such a donkey,” she muttered.
She said ‘donkey’ instead of ass because it was very likely that someone was sitting next to her now listening to everything she said. Suzanne was at her son’s hockey game where he played on both junior varsity and varsity. Obviously at this moment in time, he’d been relegated to the bench where he sat most of the time while he was waiting for the coach’s kid to get tired. The coach’s kid that sucked compared to him, but whatever.
“I’ll let you go,” I said. “I need to get some words written tonight anyway.”
“Okay.” She paused. “But before you get done for the night, save your work, upload it to Dropbox, email it to yourself, and then turn off your computer and unplug it.”
I winced.
Though, she was right.
The being overly cautious thing was for my benefit. Last time it’d stormed big, the tornado might not have hit us, but it’d done some irreparable damage to my computer. My computer that had three new manuscripts on it without them being backed up anywhere.
It’d taken me weeks of fingernail biting as I waited for the computer guy I hired to recover the documents before I’d gotten them back safely. And ever since, I’d made sure to save all of my works in progress on multiple platforms.