Page 9 of Blue Hawaiian
“Marc showed me a couple of articles you wrote forChicago Live. It’s great you found work as a writer. How do you like Chicago?”
She cringed, remembering her initial enthusiasm. After graduation, she’d taken a bold risk, following Simon to a new city, miles away from Southern California. She’d even secured a decent job as a full-time writer for a website calledChicago Livethat catered to locals and tourists looking for fun and excitement in the Windy City. But that was before winter set in. Before March, when everything went to hell.
In the space of two weeks, she lost her boyfriend, her apartment, and her job. Now, after four months of slogging through temp work and burning through her savings, she had to move back home to Riverside. But she hadn’t told anyone yet. If she let the news slip while she was in Maui, her mom and her sister would see her as they always had—the same old Jess, prone to bad judgment and epic screwups. Rather than admit her failure right away, she planned to wait until after the wedding to drop the bomb.
The touch of Connor’s hand, resting on her bare knee, brought her back to the present. She shivered. “What?”
“Are you okay?” he said. “I lost you there for a moment.”
“Sorry. I was thinking about Chicago. What did you ask me?”
He gave her a quizzical look. “If you liked it there.”
She shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“Just okay?”
She couldn’t tell him the truth. Not when it would reveal how much she’d failed. But her breakup wasn’t something she had to hide. “I don’t know if Marc told you, but I moved there with my boyfriend, Simon. Or rather, myex-boyfriend.”
“Your ex, huh? What happened?”
She looked away, her gaze falling on the sliding door leading to the balcony. Like her, Connor had left the door open, allowing the roar of the waves to filter in. She inhaled deeply, trying to cast off any lingering sorrow over the breakup. Simon hadn’t just replaced her with someone else; he’d delivered the news in the cruelest way possible. He told Jess he’d fallen for arealwriter. Not someone who churned out tourist propaganda.
When she was able to face Connor again, she had her emotions under control. “Simon dumped me in March and gave me two days to move out of the apartment. His new girlfriend didn’t exactly want me around.” At Connor’s shocked look, she added, “I’m camping out on a friend’s couch. But it’s only temporary.”
Until I move back home in a month, like the loser I am.
Connor scowled. “Sounds like a jerk.”
“He didn’t start out that way. When I met him, I was blown away by his writing. He’s incredibly talented. But…” She paused, aware she was sharing more than she had intended.
Connor rested his hand on her knee again. “But what?”
She was tempted to push it away, but it had been too long since anyone had touched her with affection. “The longer we were together, the less he respected me, because I was writing lifestyle articles for a tourism website while he was pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing.”
“You’ve done more than write articles. What about your fantasy epic?”
Heat rose in her cheeks. The shame left a sour taste in her mouth.
“Jess. What did he think of it?”
She kept her voice even, not wanting to reveal how hurt she’d been. “He said it sounded like something a teenager would write. Which is partially true. I never let him read the manuscript because I was afraid he’d laugh at me.”
Connor’s lip curled in disgust. “What an ass. He didn’t deserve you. And he didn’t deserve to readQueen of the Forgotten Landseither.”
She laughed. “I can’t believe you remember the title.”
“Did you ever finish it?”
“No, I set it aside.” She held up her hand to stop him from protesting. “It was eight hundred pages, and I’d been working on it for seven years. I was never going to finish. But I did start something new after the breakup.”
“Another fantasy novel?”
“Nope. It’s a mystery. All twisty and everything, with lots of red herrings.”
Her new project was the one silver lining in her whole miserable spring. When she’d been at her lowest, she channeled her emotions into her writing, creating a story unlike anything she’d ever written. A mystery complete with messy family dynamics and a dual timeline. She was still in the early stages, but the story held a lot of promise.
“Sounds great.” Connor raised his glass. “Here’s to new beginnings.”
