Page 20 of Decked By The Grumpy Golem
You're a damn fool, Gideon Flintman. The biggest idiot I've ever met.
For all these years, I told myself I was doing the right thing, making the noble choice, sacrificing my happiness for hers.
But saying it all out loud doesn't make me feel righteous.
It makes me feel like exactly what Ernesto called me.
A coward.
Chapter Nine
Lucia
Isitcross-leggedatmy old desk, fingers flying over the keyboard, words spilling faster than I can type. My heart hammers, my tea has gone cold, and my fingertips have gone numb from pounding the keyboard like they have a personal grudge against it.
But I feel like I’m weightless. I feel like I can swim across the ocean and climb the highest mountain. I feel invincible.
Because for the first time in a long, long time, the blinking cursor isn't mocking me anymore. For the first time in months, words are spilling out of me like sweet,sweet honey.
The story unfolds on the pages in front of me like water through a broken dam. I’m writing a second chance romance about a successful city woman who returns to her small hometown and runs into the brooding local craftsman who broke her heart a decade ago. The hero is tall and broad-shouldered, with gray eyes, and he kisses like he can cure the entire world’s woes with his mouth.
I know exactly who he looks like and what this story is about. I hate that I know. I also really, really don’t care. The relief of actually having words on the page drowns out the small part of me that insists I should stop putting Gideon on the page and find myself a new hero.
My heroine is fierce and independent, a widow who's built a successful business but never quite learned to trust her heart again. Not the most original of concepts, but I can almost feel her lost, broken heart whisper to me through the white pages and I know what she needs.
I’m writing their first kissing scene now. He’s there, all grumpy and strong, shouldering the burden for her when she needs it, although she’s bratty and doesn’t want to ask for help. Then she pushes him a bit too far and he kisses her.
My cheeks burn as I type the kissing scene, and all I can think about is the feel of Gideon's mouth on mine, the way his hand tangled in my hair. The memory makes my pulse race and my fingers stumble on the keys, but I push through it. This is the perfect scene, the perfect feeling.
I try to tell myself that this is fiction. This is just a story about people who happen to look like me and Gideon but definitely aren't us.
Right. I’m not fooling anyone. I brush my trembling fingers over my lips, then pull my hand away with a shake of my head.
Ugh. I’m going to get hurt. I know it. Three days since I last saw Gideon and we flirted by text. Three days of waiting for a phone call that didn’t come.
But it’s okay. I’ve survived Gideon Flintman once. I can survive him again.
My heroine will get her happily ever after and I won’t. What I have with Gideon is not a true second chance story and it’s certainly not a romance.
It’s a fluke, that’s all it is. But it’s a useful fluke if it gives me back my muse.
I swallow, then dive back into the story, writing what comes next. I craft more conflict to inflict on my heroine and place her right on the path of my stubborn hero. I throw all I have at them, and it feels glorious. I’m writing like I’m a first-time author again and the words just burst through my brain.
The house is blissfully quiet. Mom and Dad drove to Augusta for some last-minute Christmas shopping, and Mateo and Mara took the twins to see a matinee showing of some animated holiday movie. I have the whole afternoon to myself, and after nearly a week of constant family interaction, the solitude feels like a gift instead of a burden.
I lose myself in the rhythm of writing, in the satisfaction of watching my word count climb. Two chapters done. Three chapters. Five chapters. The story takes on a life of its own, my characters becoming more real with each paragraph.
I push back against my chair as I finish the fifth chapter and exhale a long, satisfying breath. This is enough to send to my agent. It may not be enough to get me completely out of trouble, but it’s enough to show goodwill.
And it’s possibly the best five chapters I’ve ever written.
Without losing my stride, I put everything in an email and send it over to Derreck. When I finally glance up from my laptop screen, the sky is dark and snowflakes fall in fat, thick sheets. I blink, disoriented, and check the time.
Six thirty.
Shit.
The twins' Christmas concert starts at seven, and I promised I'd be there. Promised Isla and Arwen I'd watch them sing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" with their kindergarten class. I can already picture their disappointed faces if they scan the crowd and don’t see me there. I can’t show up late, or worse, not show up at all.
