Page 58 of Always a Chance
“Are you second-guessing it?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I trust Talia to write it the right way. It’s just a lot.”
He worried his lip, his eyes drifting out to the beach, a perfect tell that there was more he wasn’t saying.
“Spit it out, Tanner.”
He sighed. “I just want you to be careful. Talia has been away from Gulf City, from you, for a long time. She’s a big-city journalist now, and they chase the juiciest stories, no matter what they might be.”
“Talia wouldn’t do that,” I said immediately. “She won’t write anything I don’t want her to.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am. Can I go now? I’d really like to do the one thing I’m good at anymore.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, but I yanked open the door, forcing him out of the way, and slid into my car.
By the time I got home, I’d lost any patience.
Aidan sat in the living room, surrounded by women who bore way too much resemblance to him to not be creepy. I’d heard the story earlier. Ashlyn was dumped at an anniversary dinner. Angelina broke up with her boyfriend of three months when he got too serious. And Alaina found out her fiancé was cheating.
Something was definitely in the water.
Aidan rushed me when I walked in. “Save me.”
“Sorry, man. I can barely save myself.” I left him to their constant chatter.
Growing up with so many sisters shaped who Aidan was. Sensitive. Kind. Attuned to what women needed in a way I could never be. It also meant he cleaned up a lot of heartbreak.
I shook my head with a sigh as I dropped into my computer chair and looked over my notes. My fingers flew over the keyboard to type up everything I’d written at the beach.
By the time I was done and had added it to the pages I wrote before, I had six full-fledged chapters and a story developing. Before I could think better of it, I attached them to an email and sent them off with a familiar message.
Do your worst.
27
TALIA
I couldn’t stop reading. When I woke up this morning, I checked my email and found one with a single line.Do your worst.
My favorite thing to do.
It felt like I was seventeen again as I printed out the pages and sat down on the couch with a red pen and a giant mug of tea. Felina and Gianna played cards at the table, their palms slapping against the wood.
Even that didn’t distract me from Johnny’s beautiful words. Yet, my pen still got plenty of work. At one point, a side character bothered me so much that I wrote that he should cut him entirely.
Not like I expected him to listen. He was a bestselling author, and who was I? Nobody. Someone who couldn’t even get hired for the digital team at a company she’d worked at for years.
I wasn’t hooky enough. Well, Johnny certainly was.
Last night, I was up long after the last sounds of my family faded away, but I finished. The article was done, written, ready to send off.
And that meant one thing: it was time to go back to New York. Someone had to champion this thing, get it published, and that someone was me.
My phone buzzed with a text.
Johnny:Come outside.
