Page 31 of How NOT to Seduce a Rockstar
The rapture.
The exact moment I got home, ignored the desperate cries of my bladder, and lunged for my Olivetti like God Himself was calling me.
I couldn’t remember how long I’d written.
I couldn’t even remember how many pages I’d cranked out.
But I remembered exactly how it felt.
It felt—drunk or not—like the truest, most right thing I’d ever written.
Yeah, okay. I always said that when starting something new. It was my motivational mantra: “This time it’s different.” But usually, it was just a single step above the last book.
This time, though? This was a whole flight of stairs.
A gin-fueled epiphany, sure. But a powerful one.
Because yes—the truest thing I’d ever written, at that moment, was about a slightly unhinged roommate who, after reading a Victorian-era seduction manual, decides to seduce the most famous rockstar on the planet as if it were some sort of guided spiritual cleanse.
And yet—andhere’sthe paradox—it felt more real than anything I’d ever written under the banner of “serious literature.”
I don’t know. Maybe it was just the gin. Or maybe it was truth, slipping through the lines. At least that’s what I believed last night, as I wrote like a woman possessed, heart ablaze, bladder screaming.
Then, at some point, I must have dropped everything. Run to the bathroom. Come back. Collapsed onto the bed like a sack of potatoes with a literary calling. And passed out instantly.
I wondered: would I still think those pages werebrilliant now?
Now that I was sober. Cynical. Back in full Bea mode.
A part of me was afraid to find out. I fidgeted under the covers. Rolled to one side. Then the other. Grabbed my phone. Put it back. Pretended I was just looking for a comfortable position, when really I was just hiding from myself.
I was disgusted. Truly.
“Pull yourself together, for God’s sake,” I muttered, like that would somehow shake me out of it.
I got up. Went to the bathroom. Peed. Splashed my face with cold water—the kind that makes you regret being born but also snaps you back to life.
Back in my room, I opened the blinds: Manhattan glittered in the distance like a hyperactive mirage made of glass, metal, and possibility.
I wondered what Mr. Bronson was doing right then. Probably reading some overly ambitious manuscript filled with words like “oneiric” and “symbolic dissonance.” I wondered if he ever thought about me. If anyone else had ever stormed into his office and shouted in his face that they deserved to be read.
Enough stalling, I thought.
It was time.
I sat down at my desk.
Stared at the stack of pages—face down, carefully aligned, with just a pinch of superstition—next to the Olivetti, like it was asleep too.
There had to be at least a dozen. Maybe more.
I sighed.
Reached for the stack. Flipped it over.
And started to read.
I tried to be as critical as possible. Cynical. Ruthless, like a talent-show judge with the flu.
