Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
And of course he’s arguing with the hostess, because he never met a statement he couldn’t debate, dissect and slice into a million, julienned pieces, then pepper with disagreement.
He blah blah blahs a little more, finishing with, “So, you have to seat me. It’s the policy of the restaurant.”
I snort. Get over yourself, Huxley. I hope they kick you out.
I feel sorry for whatever sucker is getting seated with King Dick tonight.
Inspired, I make another note, chuckling fiendishly as I imagine my heroine running into her enemy before the clever, charming, hottie hero enters the scene. Then I check the menu options while waiting for my brilliant professor, my inscrutable tycoon, my good guy with a heart of gold in need of a makeover.
Until the sound of footsteps grows louder, and closer. I look up.
At a face I want to punch.
***
Axel
A long time ago, in a decade far far away, I was once terrified to walk to the front of my eleventh grade English class and present to all twenty-five students on the dangers of wealth in The Great Gatsby.
Speaking in front of a few dozen high schoolers who mostly didn’t give a shit was horrifying.
My stepfather told me to picture everyone in the class naked. My brain conveniently – or rather, annoyingly – upped the ante. I didn’t just undress everyone as I opined on Fitzgerald’s depictions of the moneyed class. I imagined everyone in my class fucking.
A writer’s habit was born.
Ever since then, I’ve mentally written character bios for almost everyone I meet, detailing traits all the way down to their bedroom preferences. Assigning habits – like if they talk during The Godfather, how many cardboard wrappers they could possibly need on a cup of coffee, to whether they like doggie style or tied up and taken — has become the way I navigate the world.
The hostess? She only drinks soy chai lattes, and she brings her own cup to the artisan fair trade coffee shop. She doesn’t have a favorite position because sex is boring the way everything is boring to her.
Poor gal.
The bartender over there with the goatee? The ring says he’s married but the way he stares at the hostess says he jerks it to her when the wife’s asleep. That is, after he reads lit fic in hardback.
Then, there’s the redhead I’d recognize from several football fields away. Too bad I don’t have the luxury of yards and yards. Instead, she’s seated mere feet from me, at the last table at the edge of the dining room. The woman with the long, lush hair, the dangerous green eyes, the pouty lips, and the sharpest mouth I’ve ever met.
Fuck her bio. I refuse to write one for Hazel Valentine.
Ever.
She better not be the other party for my dinner. I came here to research how to hire a hitman for my next book. Not to share a meal with a woman who hates me.
But as the hostess walks me to the last table, the inevitable becomes my Friday night. My brain concocts a bio in spite of my better judgment.
Hazel Valentine:
Emotional wounds – we’re going to need a bigger boat for hers since someone has daddy issues and boyfriend issues.
Coffee – Ideally via an IV drip. At all times of day.
Sex preferences — Nope. Stop. Just stop. Don’t go there.
As I near Hazel looks up from her phone. For a brief second, her blinks but then she schools her expression. There’s simply flint in her gaze. The hostess waves to the table without speaking. I thank her and pull out a chair as she walks away, dismissing us already.
Hazel’s staring at me unflinchingly, like she’s challenging me to walk away.
Won’t happen, sweetheart.
I park myself at the table, sitting across from the redhead, then smile without showing any teeth. Fold my hands. Meet Hazel’s steel gaze. “Let me guess. You’re here tonight testing out oh-so-cute opening chapters for your next book,” I say.
She tilts her head, smiling slyly. “And you must be researching how yout next bad guy will off someone in the hopes it will make your latest book more…scintillating.”
Well, maybe she will give me some inspiration on how to hire a hitman after all.
You can order MY SO-CALLED SEX LIFE here!
Limited Edition Husband teaser…
Hunter
Two hours later, we’re still in San Francisco and I’m pacing in front of the window, staring at the tarmac, wrapped up in a work call.
“Right, then we’ll want to make sure we have a full package for each athlete,” I say into my mobile before I realize my faux pas. That sounded really dirty. So dirty that my traveling companion, who’s standing by my side, looks up from his e-reader and shoots me a did you say that glance. I grimace, then say to my colleague Harry, “We’ll run them on the sub-channel. That’s what Ilene wants. Then we’ll also run them in the pre-game shows.”