Page 21 of Bro Amazing

Write in day? The Giraffe in twenty minutes. Save me a seat near an outlet.

Okay, so I guess I'm not going to go upstairs to write in my normal, comfortable solitude. I'm going to write in public, on display to an entire café and Sasha. I'll have to dim my screen a lot so no one can read the dirty things I'll be writing. Although I doubt that will work with Sasha.

See you there, I text back as I head to my room to collect my things.

Packing up my computer bag, I consider texting her back again saying something has come up, but decide that would be a stupid thing to do. I should take this opportunity to really learn from her since I'm trying to shift my career path like she did.

Plus, we're friends. We should hang out. Even if I've been feeling self-conscious around her lately, and even if I'm scared she'll try to pry information I don't want to share out of me.

I'll have to be brave. I've done things in the last twenty-four hours I never thought I'd do. I can go see my friend and hide all my secrets from her. How hard can it be?

Turns out, it's harder than Miles's and Quintin's cocks last night.

Sasha breezes into The Giraffe at least ten minutes late, looking around for me in the crowd. As soon as she sees where I've chosen to sit, she frowns. But all the other tables are full, so if she's so unhappy with my choice, she should have gotten here on time. Or better yet, early.

I'm super lucky to have Sasha as a friend, not only because she's so successful and can help guide me, but because she forces me to get out and be part of the city by coming to writing sessions like this, or attending book launches by other local authors.

It's just that sometimes she annoys me.

"Good morning!" I say, light and friendly. "Thanks for inviting me to come out for a writing session."

Or ordering me to, I think, since that's really what she did. But I was going to write today anyway, so I might as well put a positive spin on this and keep an ear out for any good advice Sasha may impart in passing today.

"Of course," says Sasha breezily as she pulls out her laptop and adjusts where her coffee sits on the table.

"What are your goals for today?" Whenever we meet to write together, we always try to set out goals so that we know what we're working toward. Normally they're a specific word count.

"You can show me what method you use to outline your books. Everyone thought it was so good last night, and so different from your normal work, I figured you could show me how you do it."

"Oh, I don't think I'm really doing anything different than before," I hedge.

"You must be doing something different for your writing to improve this much," she insists. "Besides adding in spice, of course."

"Not really," I lie. "I guess I … jot down some basic stage direction notes for my characters, and make lists of all the emotions they could be feeling during each scene, and then once both of those things are done, I go back and write out the entire scene."

"And you've always done this, or it's new?" she asks, sipping her coffee.

"I've always done it this way." I try to match her feigned nonchalance, sipping my own coffee and glancing at my screen, which has gone black because I haven't typed anything in a few minutes. "How do you begin your story process? I'd love to learn from you."

And I really would, because Sasha has done so much research to change her genre and is doing so well as an author. I would love to be like her one day. I'm not ready to do anything so drastic as change genres yet, but adding in the sex scenes should help. Especially with my new hands-on research method.

"I set out each beat and then thread them together for the story." Sasha frowns, setting down her coffee and abruptly changing the subject. "Tell me about your new roommates. You never did tell me how you found them."

"Oh. I just answered an ad." I laugh it off even as I'm panicking inside about how to get the conversation back to writing—or literally anything other than my living situation. "I met them, and they seemed nice enough and like they weren't going to kill me, so I decided to go for it."

This is basically the truth. A flyer is a type of ad, and they are nice enough. Giving me orgasms is nice. Fantastic,even. Mind-melting. And they definitely don't give off murder vibes. More like slightly-awkward-but-ready-to-fuck-me-at-any-moment vibes.

"Hmm, it just seems like your writing changed as soon as you moved in with them." Sasha boots up her computer, and I hope that means she's ready to get to work and we can stop talking about this.

"Maybe a new view out my window from my desk changed my view on writing." I wake my own computer back up and find the spot I was working on, double-checking that my screen is as dim as it can go.

"Maybe," she agrees. "Okay, let's write for twenty-five minutes and then we'll get a five-minute break. We should be able to get in three of those sessions before I need to leave."

"Sure, that sounds good." I really don't care what our method is for today so long as Sasha stops asking questions about my roommates. I'll have to say more about them at some point, but this is not that time.

Besides, how do I explain that I'm using the guys to further my career? I'm a nice person and I don't like using people, even if it is a fair exchange and they're getting plenty out of it too? I mean, it's not like they were going to get a girlfriend by meeting her in person. I haven't seen them leave the house once since I've moved in although I suppose Helix did have to leave the house to put the flyer up.

Closing my eyes, I focus on the way I felt this morning when Helix whispered dirty things in my ear, the pleasant shivers of anticipation that ran up my spine. And on the way it felt to be sandwiched between Miles and Quintin last night in bed. To be cocooned in the safety of their arms while they did filthy things to my body. My readers will absolutely adore their over-the-top sexy-time tactics, if how well my pages went over at critique group this week was any indication.

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