I glance at her. “You sure the ad is running?”
“Yup,” she says, flicking over to the tab. “But I don’t think it’s been viewed yet. What about the bloggers you contacted?”
“They said they’d leave their reviews on Amazon today.”
“And they’re five star reviews?”
“The ones I saw on Goodreads were,” I tell her. “But then there were a few one-star reviews from users who hadn’t even read the book.”
She scoffs. “Why would people do that?”
“Who knows. Maybe they saw the word “Stripper” in the title and got offended.”
“Or maybe they read the blurb.”
“Or looked at the cover.”
“Maybe it’s my mom.”
“Maybe a stripper broke their heart and it’s a trigger book for them.”
“Any sales yet?”
“Nope.”
After a while, the waiting game gets pretty boring. And tense. And I know what we’re both thinking: we’ve made a huge mistake. The whole thing has gone tits up. Really, who were we kidding?
“Let’s go for a drink,” I tell her, desperate to get us out of this funk. We hop in Mr. Mean, cruising around Oak Bay before we head to Spinnakers. When we get to our usual table, Amanda brings out her phone and I can tell she’s going straight to the KDP site or the Top 100.
I hold out my hand. “Give it to me.”
Her head snaps up, a guilty, pleading look on her face. “Oh please, I have to know.”
“Nope.” I wiggle my fingers. “Give it or you’re getting a spanking later.”
A wicked grin spreads across her face and she holds the phone close to her chest. “Promise?”
“Fine. If you don’t give it, no spanking.”
She grumbles, rolling her eyes, but it works. She hands it over. I take her phone and slip it in my pocket.
“The ads are running,” I remind her. “The bloggers are promoting. If we had friends and family to tell I’m sure they’d be spreading the word but we don’t have anyone to tell so this is the best we can do. Let’s just see how it does. Tomorrow, if there’s nothing, we’ll try something else. Maybe more money into ads or contact other bloggers. Have a giveaway on our Blake Lovecox author page.”
“We have no followers,” she points out.
“Maybe tomorrow we will. Hope for the future, live in the moment.” I say that just as the waitress delivers our drinks. “And this moment includes drinks.”
We cheers again over our release day.
To being fucking done.
To potential sales.
We cheers to us.
We cheers to letting go.
And we cheers to good sex because when all is said and done, at least we have that.
I guess we’re just a pile of nerves, brimming with weeks of work and worry and strain because we end up drinking our faces off.
I mean we got bloody obliterated. I think I started dancing on the pub’s pool table at one point, while Amanda rode the cue stick like a horse.
We had to take a cab back to my place where we promptly passed out on the bed and I have to wonder if all authors go through this on their release days.
When the next morning rolls around—actually it’s closer to noon—we can barely remember our names.
It’s a good thing.
There’s just the both of us, naked, gazing at each other with sloppy smiles, living through the hangover.
Then Amanda remembers the sales.
She stumbles out of bed and staggers to the living room and I can hear her flipping open the computer. I’ve nearly fallen back asleep when I hear her gasp.
“Oh. My. God. Oh my god!”
She’s either having a self-induced “Big O” or something brilliant has happened. I quickly fumble out of bed and join her, blinking hard at the light from the living room windows.
She’s kneeling on the floor, pointing to the laptop screen on the coffee table and grinning like she’s lost her bloody mind.
“One thousand,” she whispers, her mouth dropping open in a contained scream. “Ahhhhh!”
“What?” I’m sure I’ve heard wrong.
“One thousand!” she shrieks.
I drop to my knees beside her, resting my hands on her shoulders and holding on tight.
“Open the Top 100, open the Top 100!” I tell her, eagerly peering over her.
Her fingers can’t move fast enough.
We both hold our breaths in unison as she clicks along each section until…
Eighty.
We are number eighty.
The fucking eightieth bestselling book in all of bloody Amazon, in all of the millions and millions of books.
Eighty.
I look at her wide-eyed.
She looks at me.
We burst out laughing at the same time.
“Eighty!” I cry out. “Bloody hell! We fucking made it!”
“The book works!” she says. “The ads work! It all works!”
“We work,” I tell her, grabbing her face in my hands and kissing her softly, sweetly, a mix of emotions pouring through me. It only occurs to me then that I normally don’t kiss her like this—it’s always a part of foreplay or something that happens during sex.
But fuck it feels good.
It feels right.
I slowly pull back and her eyes slowly flutter open, gazing at me with thoughts I’m too afraid to read into. Something serious beneath all the laughter. Something that strikes me hard in the gut.