Page 5 of Snow Storm

The crowd cheered.

“Great. Me too.” That lie came a little too easy. “I’m sure a lot of you have come from pretty far away?—”

“Ontario!”

“Berlin!”

“Cornwall!”

“Take off your shirt!”

“Yeah!”

The statement was followed by raucous laughter.

He gave them a wave, trying not to grimace. He glanced over at the moderator to his left. She was short and looked a little bored, fiddling with her bookstore name badge. To his right was another woman—taller than her counterpart, looking just as disinterested.

Fantastic.

“Why don’t we talk a little about what got me here today, and then we can take some questions.” If he pretended people weren’t being weird, maybe they’d stop. Never mind that that had never worked in the past and probably wasn’t going to work now.

His spiel had been written to eat up time. It was something he’d learned early on. He’d written down a dozen scripts with variations on them so he could cycle through them during booktalks, and so far, he hadn’t been called out for having something pre-written.

Harley could recite without having to think, which helped him calm some of his anxiety, and even though the heat in the room and the sound of people moving around and muttering and breathing were starting to get to him, he could focus.

The real test would come with the questions.

It didn’t take long for the mods to start calling people up, and the first ten were questions he was used to answering. How did he get his start in writing? What was he planning on doing next? What did his writing day look like? What kind of advice did he have for someone just starting out?

“How did you choose your pen name?”

That was one he got a lot. He smiled, thinking of his abuela. She was the only part of his childhood with his mom that gave him the warm fuzzies, but she’d died long before he got the chance to show her he could be more than just the strange little child that sat at her knee while she told him stories.

“It was a tribute to my grandmother. She wasn’t actually my mom’s mom, but she took her in when she was really little, and she was always really supportive of me. I wish she could be here today to see this. She’d definitely be more entertaining than I am.”

A few people laughed as the mic was passed to the next person in line. And then the next. Then the next.

A couple of people asked about his family and were polite when he declined to answer with any real detail. But when a man took the mic with a dark smirk, Harley knew he was going to be a problem. He’d seen that look before—the mischievous look of a person who knew they were about to attempt to get away with breaking the rules.

His stomach tightened.

“My name is Roy.”

Harley managed a smile. “Nice to meet you, Roy. What’s your question?”

Roy took a long beat, his smirk going wider. “So, it was posted online that you and your fiancé broke up, but that was after this book came out. I was wondering if you were inspired by your ex when you wrote the sex scenes inDisastrously Dead.”

Harley’s ears started to ring so loud he couldn’t hear the crowd’s murmur. Both of those questions were off the table. He licked his lips as his hearing came back online.

“Um…I’m sorry?”

“It wasn’t kinky, but it definitely wasn’t vanilla or fade to black like you’d been writing before. Did you and your ex act out those scenes before you wrote them down so they’d be accurate? The one with the oil and the glass dildo was so hot. I almost came in my pants by the time I was done.”

Harley’s entire body went hot with something that felt like shame and panic. This was not supposed to happen. They were supposed to stop this. His gaze turned frantically to the mod to his left. She was on her phone. The one on the right was talking with an audience member.

Ethan was nowhere to be found.

Harley cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. Boundaries. He had to set boundaries. “I appreciate your question, but that was on the list of things I’m not comfortable answering.”

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