Page 65 of Kill Your Darlings

I finished shaving, turned off the water, brushed my teeth, liberally applied eye drops, superglued my hair into submission, and hunted for my jeans.Finn had kindly picked my scattered clothes off the floor and tossed them to the sofa.I examined the Levis and realized the knees were caked in mud.

I blinked against the memory of the reason for that, returned to the bedroom, and found a spare pair of jeans.I pulled on a clean white Oxford shirt—classic N.Y.male editor vibe: slightly rumpled Oxford shirt, blazer, worn but expensive desert boots, and beat-up messenger bag.Except I didn’t have the energy to lug around even an empty messenger bag.

I put on my glasses and left the room, half-jogging to the elevator.Stepping inside, I pressed the button for the first level.I glanced at my watch.I was probably going to be about five minutes late, given the likelihood that we’d be stopping at every floor.

Impatiently, I leaned forward to press the close-door button and just before the doors slid shut, a man suddenly slipped through the shrinking gap.He must have thought the elevator was empty, because he jumped.Truthfully, we both jumped.I’d half expected Troy Colby to barge in.

Instead, I recognized Thomas McGregor.

Somehow, I managed not to go completely fan boy.

Like Finn, McGregor was a former cop who wrote highly regarded hardboiled police procedurals.His books lacked the black humor and compassion of Finn’s.His themes veered more toward the Shakespearean and the prose…the prose was gorgeous, complex, lyrical.Even critics who found his plots silly melted into puddles over his extraordinary mastery of the English language.

“Good morning.”I said politely, pretending that I hadn’t just recoiled like the heroine in a Lifetime thriller trapped in a high-rise with a mad killer.

Granted, so had McGregor.He looked at me, nodded in polite dismissal and stared straight ahead at the control panel.

I’d been reading him for years, but had never managed to meet him before.His book jacket photos were usually in black and white and, I couldn’t help thinking, were a bit out of date.He was now about my age, medium height, and stockier than his author photo would lead one to believe.His hair was brown with reddish glints that I didn’t think were completely natural.Why do so many men opt for red when their hair begins to gray?Anyway, his eyes were very bright, very blue.He sported one of those formidable hipster beards and a nicely tailored blue Harris tweed blazer.

“I enjoy your books very much,” I offered.

He nodded in acknowledgement but continued to stare straight ahead.

The message was loud and clear: Do Not Bother Me.Or maybe Get Tae Fuck, seeing that he was Scottish.Anyway, I didn’t take offense.Not all authors are people persons.In fact, the job practically requires the opposite: creatives who are comfortable living with their own uninterrupted thoughts for hours, days, even months at a time.

Conferences can be especially challenging for that personality type, given that an author’s role at a conference fell somewhere between celebrity and rug merchant.

I wasn’t exactly bubbling with joie de vivre either, so I was happy to shut up and lean back against the wall.

On the fourth floor, three women and a spindly youth boarded, instantly recognized McGregor, and proceeded to tell him at length how much they loved his work.He did not ignore them, but he seemed stiff and uncomfortable.Maybe he didn’t do conferences.

On the third floor, several more people crowded in, clutching their book bags and coffee cups.Cherry, my PA, was among them.She spotted me, and leaned around a short, bearded man to exclaim, “Oh, Keiran!I’ve been trying to text you!”

“Have you?”I pulled my phone out, checked it, and yes, I’d had two texts from her in the last two minutes.

“Damn,” I murmured.“Finn muted my phone this…” I caught her expression, realized what I’d said, and swallowed the rest of it.

Cherry beamed at me.“Oh,yay!When you skipped his Smoking Gun interview, I was afraid you two—”

I raised my brows meaningfully and she cut herself off, blushing.“Grace has to cancel,” she said quickly.

“What?”

It sounded more indignant than I’d intended, and everyone in the elevator stared at me.

“She’s not feeling well.”

“She’snot feeling well?”

“Nooo.She was so sorry, but she sounded terrible.She’s definitely coming down withsomething.”

Our fellow travelers shrank back a couple of centimeters as thoughterriblewas catching.Actually, it was.

I processed this new intel, sighed, and said, “Okay.That’s all right.I’m sorry she’s under the weather.”

I was, and I was also definitely going back up to bed.

Cherry nodded but suddenly gave an evil laugh and whispered way too loudly, “Ariel Newsome was telling everybody in the bar last night what you said to Millie.”

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