Page 59 of Smoke and Fire
Inner Me crooned gently in the back of my mind.This,she said.We want more of this and we want it with Bastian.
I didn’t correct her. Instead, I sat with the thought for a moment and didn’t hate it.
“We can try,” I said.
Then I scrambled off the bed with a happy little shout and headed to the counter, where my phone charged. “It’s launch day!” I cried to no one in particular.
No messages from Bastian yet.
Dahlia:Thanks for taking my shift today. Let me know if things crash and burn.
Mav:No problem. I needed to audit some processes anyway. It's been awhile since I had to work here. Now I can update the binder.
Dahlia:GIF
A GIF of a little girl with bouncing ringlets blowing a kiss showed up on the screen. With Maverick covering my shift, I didn’t have to worry about the launch happening without me. Asking him had felt a bit desperate, but now I was glad I did. I wanted my wholeattention on the launch.
With the fire, tourism in Pineville had almost halted entirely. Hardly anyone wandered in for coffee yesterday, and Katrina didn’t show herself again. I thought I saw her down the street from Bastian’s house when I fed his cat. The person disappeared before I could be certain.
As his assistant, I felt like an extension of Bastian. He’d hired me to help things roll smoothly, and I couldn’t do that while tamping beans and carting around gallons of milk. I wanted to be here for him.
Not that he’d even notice, but whatever.
Outside, growing light crept in from the edge of the horizon, which left the forest steeped in black. I shivered at the creepy effect and pulled my blanket closer around my shoulders. Never had I ever and neverwouldI ever venture into the dark forest all by myself.
Bears. Moose. No thank you.
Another drink of coffee sent a bolstering shock through my system, pulling me a little further out of my sleep haze. I’d turned on every light in the RV to make sure I didn’t fall back asleep. This perpetual lack of rest was going to add up.
Still so worth it,Inner Me sang, luxuriating in the deliciousness of book fourteen’s heart-stopping kiss at the end.
“All right.” I opened the laptop. “Time to get this party started.”
Before I came into his life, Bastian had only posted occasional updates on social media. The haphazard moments when Jess appeared sent fans into wild tizzies.
He’d once posted about a RaiseMoney campaign collecting money for a company that supported special needs Olympics back in April. So many people donated to it with Jess’s subtle nudge that the fundraiser finalized within twelve hours. They even wrote an article on it, thanking her for what she did.
Fortunately, my undeniable talent for the perfect GIF had spruced up his social media accounts in the last week. Not much, or it wouldn’t feel sincere. I’d posted once every other day, responding here and there with appropriate emojis. Try as he might, he couldn’t deny that emojis had as much response power as words, particularly as tiny little visuals.
The posts themselves were easy. I’d haunted emails he sent to Priyanka—apparently she demanded weekly updates—copied some of these words and tweaked them to make sense, then put them up. The fans had gone bonkers. One post garnered 1,000 comments and made me wish I had access to see if sales jumped.
Maybe Bastian didn’t need a constant flow of books. Maybe he just needed to talk to his readers.
When I opened his email, there wasn’t much to see. A few messages from across the ocean written by readers that had already started reading. A store requesting a book signing on his next tour. Notifications from Tweetastic—wait, Jess had a Tweetastic account?—and some vague emails from his publisher that I filed into his label. The social media accounts were a different result entirely.
I scrolled through the growing, burgeoning posts. Some of them were intentional spoiler threads already filling out. Selfies with various versions of the book populated. One woman posted a picture while driving, then talked about the narrator of the audiobook making her cry because she’d waited so long for this novel.
I grabbed my phone to text him.
Dahlia:Your life is bananas.
Not expecting a response, I set the phone aside. Moments later, it buzzed with a notification. I blinked, stared at it, then checked. My heart galloped for a moment when his name appeared.
He responded so soon!
Bastian:The launch is going that good?
Dahlia:You can text this early in the morning?
