Page 138 of Smoke and Fire
Thirty minutes passed in between my acceptance and his appearance, and every minute felt like a lightning storm. Fraught with moments of terror, but more often with a general sense of uneasiness. Thoughts of this going awry plagued me, but I backed myself out of those. I couldn’t predict the future, and even if I did, how bad could it be?
Moments before he appeared in the parking lot with that long stride, computer under his arm, I had finally settled my nerves down. This was nothing but assistant-level work, done on a computer, from the privacy of the RV. Not a path I’d ever seen for my life, but it was going to be just fine. Pineville had been an exploration into the new and unknown. So far, it hadn’t disappointed me.
“This is okay,” I whispered as he stalked toward the shop. My voice turned to a squeak. “This is totally fine.”
The bell jangled as he let himself inside. My gaze darted to his second romance novel splayed on the counter. The strange dichotomy of a man like him writing books likethatstruck me. Lovely romance. Not even the hot-and-heavy, although he had moments of that too. His women were imperfectly strong, his men were out-of-the-box but not creepy, and somehow the whole thing felt like walking through a park with Jane Austen. Minus the dresses and societal expectations and overabundance of caution around the opposite gender.
Which I could also use more of, perhaps.
I couldn’t blame his uncertainty around revealing himself as Jess, now that I thought about it. What would I have thought if Lizbeth tried to convince me that a wildland firefighter like Bastianhad penned Rodrigo? I would have laughed and laughed and laughed, then told her to knock it off. And, in essence, I had done that right to his face.
Was it ridicule he wanted to avoid?
The spotlight?
If so, why?
These were questions that bubbled restlessly inside, but I wouldn’t ask them. Not yet, anyway.
Bastian’s gaze caught the book in front of me as well, but I couldn’t read the expression that followed. Was it amusement? Uncertainty? Not sure. If he’d really been hiding behind Jess’s name, did he ever get feedback on his novels? Or did they just sprout fully formed from his mind?
With eyes that stormy and beguiling, I didn’t doubt magnificence came to him unaided.
“Hey,” he said, and I realized I’d been staring at him for an awkward amount of time. I shook the last of my thoughts free and managed a smile.
“Want anything to drink before we get started? Black, straight, decaf?”
He nodded.
Nailed it,my inner voice sang. My intuition had never let me down.
After pouring the coffee in a mug that saidI’d rather a book, thanks,I joined him with a bottle of orange juice at the table. No one lurked in the parking lot and a bell would ring if someone approached the drive through, so I sat across from him. The Frolicking Moose wasn’t usually open this late, but things had been so slow I wanted to give it a little more time to pull in money.
Bastian opened his computer, typed in a password, and turned it to face both of us. His gaze met mine.
“You ready?”
I made a beckoning motion with my hands.
“Bring it.”
For the next thirty minutes, he reviewed a surprisingly simple set up. One email account for Jess, and then a private one. I’d have access to the one for Jess. Over 1,000 unread emails already populated the main inbox. Haphazard attempts at organizing the messages seemed apparent, but never followed through.
“Jess has done some AMA’s and a few other online forum appearances, but nothing physical,” he said. “No podcast interviews, videos, conferences, or book signings. Nothing that would assign a voice, picture, or physical trait to her.”
His habit of referring toJessas a third person intrigued me. Did he see himself as two people? Is that how he separated his life in his mind? I pushed those aside to ask, “AMA’s?”
“Ask-me-anything. They’re an hour long question-and-answer session where people can write in question, and Jess would respond to them. They’re all online. You can just type AMA into my email search and pull up the ones she’s done. That’ll help you know how I respond to questions that readers write in, since you and I really don’t know each other all that well.”
For some reason, his admittance of the fact felt incredibly vulnerable. Our eyes met for a quick touch, then skated away again. In it, I felt a burn I couldn’t deny. Was it because I didn’t want it to be true that we hardly knew each other? Or because everything about Bastian felt . . . different?
Like playing with fire.
“Then how is she selling?” I asked with a little clearing of my throat.
“I wrote a lot of books fast.” He shrugged. “Wrote the first four, then pitched to agents. Pri helped me find a mid-sized publisher that put it into the world, where it did well. As more books were released quickly, traction grew. I kept writing, they kept publishing.
“Around book sixteen, a few influencers got a hold of the series. They started to spread the word. Traction grew, so I kept going. When more success came, more marketing dollars funneled to me from the publisher. My name grew big enough it created more opportunities for the publisher, so they continued to fuel Jess. The books carry themselves from a rabid fandom now. You should see the social media group that’s formed.”
