Page 51 of Written By a Woman

I shook my head and released Mary’s face to drop my hands in front of me, letting my gaze fall there too as Mary asked, “What do you mean?”

“I—” My heart raced in my chest with the words, “Obviously I have a very…confusing crush on the man. I can’t get my hopes up that it might be reciprocated on his end. That makes what I did with my book that much more inappropriate.”

There was only a beat of silence between us before Jamie asked, “What if he reciprocates,andwon’t be offended at the thought of starring in your romance novel?”

But it was Mary who responded, an analytical tone to her words, “The thought of Zaid not being even remotely interested in you is highly unlikely, Signe. You’re beautiful and smart and funny. Why wouldn’t he be?” Mary released a heavy breath before resting her weight on one hip and crossing her arms over her chest, “While I agree that writing a man into your romance novel that you have a real crush on is inappropriate on paper, I don’t think Zaid is the kind of person to not hear you out if you talked to him about it. Especially if he knew you did this before you two started being friendly with each other.”

I released a heavy sigh, rubbing my cheek with my palm in thought, “While it’s an exciting thought, it’s a huge gamble. The thought of him reacting poorly and me having to tank the story is too big of a risk. This is mydream…” I glanced at my two friends, who gave me sympathetic looks.

Jamie rubbed her forehead, “This is a messy situation.”

I nodded in agreement, “I’m meeting with my agent and editor later today, to discuss how to fix a plot hole I’m stuck on…maybe I’ll bring up the possibility of just changing the character’s name. Just to sever an additional link to Zayne and Zaid.”

I felt a wobbly smile tug at my lips as I stared at my two friends. Even though I wasn’t quite sure what to do to make any of this better, I did feel a little bit of relief that I had opened up to them about this. That they were trying to help me, instead of judging me.

“Thank you for listening,” I added, “I’m sorry I kept my secret from you.”

Mary and Jamie both exchanged a look so quickly, that I would have missed it if I blinked.

“Of course,” Jamie replied, “Thanks for trusting us.”

“I still don’t exactly know what to do, but I feel a little bit better with the two of you in the loop,” I smiled at both of them, surprised to see Jamie start gnawing on her lip before quickly darting into the changing stall. Someone else had finally vacated it and almost stumbled over from Jamie’s enthusiasm to finally have her turn.

Mary and I giggled at Jamie’s antics, glad that she seemed so excited to try on the jeans that she had picked out.

* * *

Later that night,I inhaled a deep breath of encouragement, stretched my shoulders as if I was getting ready to run a marathon, and shook my hands out before finally accepting the incoming video call.

“There you are!” Michelle greeted me when my image was finally displayed on the screen.

“The one and only,” I grinned with my fingers flat under my chin, “Sorry for the delay, I just needed to finish up some stuff first.” Which really meant I needed to sit on my bed and spiral about every decision I had ever made up to this point in my life.

“Should we get started?” Layla, my editor spoke up. She had jet-black hair that fell in loose waves past her shoulders. You could tell by the way she sat with one leg propped up against her chest on her chair, that she was wearing pajama bottoms with her black tank top. Flowery tattoos teased her collarbones.

“Yes, but before we do, I wanted to run something by you both,” I held a finger up and took a sip of my tea, waiting for their response.

“The floor is yours,” Layla nodded, folding her hands on her knees and resting her chin on top of them, dark eyes locked on her screen.

“What if we changed Zayne’s name to something else?” I tried so, so hard to balance that line between casual and serious. Like I wasn’t desperate for this change to happen, but also, I had thought about it a lot and thought this suggestion was important.

“Oh,” like I had surprised her, “Um. What else did you have in mind?”

I froze.

Frick.

I should have thought about this more instead of actively trying not to think about it in case I talked myself out of bringing this up.

“I don’t know, what if we named him something like…Zander…or maybe even something that isn’t a Z name?” I tilted my head in thought, “What about Sam? Or Connor?”

Michelle’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion, “Connor?”

“Yeah,” I lifted a shoulder, “I’m just not sure if Zayne is a good fit.”

Layla blinked at me, before speaking up, “I’m not sure Connor is a good name for someone with the character’s Arab background.”

I shrugged again, “What if he wasn’t Arab? We could change that too.” Damn, I was sounding over-eager here.

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