I raise my palm as a peace offering. “Going forward, this is a no judgement zone.”
I can tell he doesn’t believe that. Hell, I wouldn’t believe it. It’s hard as hell to turn off that side of me. Before he can protest, I tell him I’m going first and then plunge into it.
The other day we had worked out the characters while sticking to the main premise. Because the story has a slight twist, I’m writing the “other woman” for most of the book, only switching over to the wife at the end. We’re doing it out of order but I’m too stubborn to correct it. In my chapter, the woman, Susan, is caught up in the “butterfly stage” of the affair, totally immersed in her attraction to the protagonist and giving very little regard to the fact that she’s doing something wrong. In other words, the bitch is completely selfish but only has love to blame.
It’s weird to read your stuff aloud, but it helps. I have to stop and start a few times because I keep coming across mangled sentences and skipped words. Actually there’s a fair bit of them, even though I’ve gone through it so many times already. It’s enough to make me feel like an idiot.
But Blake doesn’t do anything but listen and I can’t help but keep glancing up at his face as I read. He’s frowning, like he’s really listening to my every word but I can’t tell if he likes what he’s hearing or if he thinks it sucks.
I know one thing though—by the time I’m done, I totally think it sucks. All those feelings of entitlement, of feeling that my writing is better than most people’s has been stripped away from me and Blake hasn’t even had to say a word.
I rub my lips together before I let out a hopeful, “So?”
“It works,” he says, then clears his throat. “Granted it was daft for you to go first when I have the prologue. I think we have some work to do to make sure the chapters match because what you’re writing off of doesn’t quite fit with what I wrote, but anyway.”
And with that Blake launches into the prologue.
I have to admit, he’s won me over with the opening lines, “I’m a liar and a thief. A thief of a heart that shouldn’t belong to me. A thief of a heart that was easily taken. But I am one man, with two hearts, and none of them are my own.”
His character—our character—Forrest is far more interesting and charismatic than I could have predicted. Somehow Blake writes him in such a way that he’s almost forgiven for what he’s doing—seeking out an affair with Susan. It’s not perfect—some of the sentence structure is run on or doesn’t flow and he has a load of skipped words and tense changes. But somehow I find myself ignoring all that, letting myself be swept away by his story.
When he’s done he puts his laptop on the coffee table and steeples his fingers together, elbows resting on his knees. “That bad, huh?” he says with a wince, not meeting my eyes.
“What? No. Sorry.” I sit up straighter. “That was really good.”
He lifts his head alertly. “I’m sorry. Did you just…compliment me?”
I roll my eyes and wave him off with my hand. “Oh, come on. It’s true. That was an excellent start.”
“Go on…”
He wants an ego boost and while I certainly don’t think he needs it in the package department, maybe he’s insecure about his writing. I take a deep breath. “Well, Forrest was a lot more complex than I expected. You fleshed him out in just a few pages, without even interacting with Susan. The way you added in how his palms get sweaty when he thinks about her, what he’s about to do, shows us that he knows the consequences of it all, without telling us he knows.”
“And there was nothing you had an issue with?”
I purse my lips, thinking. “He might be thinking about sex too much. If you do a search for the word cock, I’d bet it comes up more than five times.”
He leans forward, hitting a few keys on his laptop. “Four times,” he says, rather triumphantly.
“Okay, well, it detracts from the story. Just a bit.” I raise my finger as he opens his mouth to speak. “And no,” I add quickly, “I don’t have a problem with too much cock.”
“I’m getting predictable,” he laments with a smile.
Actually, your writing has proved otherwise, I think. But of course I don’t tell him that.
“I’m bone dry,” he says, waving the beer bottle at me before getting to his feet. “You sure you don’t want one?”
I’m prepared to say no again, to set an example, even though I’m parched and a beer is sounding really good but he goes on, “I’m just saying, you look like you could use one.”
My hackles raise. “What does that mean?”
“Have you forgotten about all that crap on your face?”
Shit, my makeup. Now that he mentions it, I can practically feel it seeping into my pores, trying to build a permanent bacterial colony.
“Can I use your washroom?” I ask him.
“Do you think I’m going to say no?”
“Just tell me where it is.”
He points down the hall. “Second door on your left.”
I’m surprised the apartment is big enough for a “second door on the left” and when I step into the hall, I’m even more surprised to see four doors.
I know bathrooms are perfect for snooping but I manage to control every curious fiber in my body and just stick to going pee. I’m pretty sure if I opened his medicine cabinet I’d only find condoms and maybe herpes medication anyway.