Page 39 of Room 1212

“How?”

“Well, back then, you weren’t worried about hurting my feelings.”

Drew shook his head. “My dad had this expression. ‘Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.’”

I let that sink in for a moment. It seemed almost too catchy an expression to contain a lot of depth, but when I thought about it, I could see there was some truth to it. The people who mattered most in my life, their opinions were the ones that were important to me. Drew didn’t mind what decisions I made with my career because he loved me for me. His love, our baby growing inside me—those were the things that mattered. Not a stranger’s opinion of my book.

“Do you still love writing?” he asked, his eyes assessing me.

“Well… yeah,” I admitted. “It’s easy to forget sometimes.”

“It is,” he agreed. “You don’t ever need to write if you don’t want to. I’ll support you and any decision you make regarding your career. If you want to take a break from publishing, I’m totally okay with that. If you want to self-publish monster porn under a pseudonym, you go right ahead.”

I couldn’t help laughing. That actually sounded kind of fun.

“For today, though,” he said, standing and unzipping his hoodie, “I just want you to have fun.” When he pulled open his sweater, my eyes widened, taking in the sight before me. Drew was wearing a t-shirt with my face on it, and it said:I love Jordan Kepler.

“You are not wearing that in public,” I groaned covering first my mouth in shock, then my eyes to block my own massive face staring back at me, and when that failed to make it go away, I reached out and tried to cover his shirt.

He smirked mischievously. “How many hands do you have?” he asked slyly.

I wasn’t sure what he meant until he turned to look over his shoulder, and I followed his gaze. I saw his coworker Noelle and a handful of the seniors from the retirement center. At Drew’s nod, they all pulled off their jackets and sweaters to show that they too were wearing shirts with my face.

“Noooo!” I groaned, but I was also laughing and blushing straight down to the tips of my toes.

“You can’t cover them all,” Drew said, grinning as he dropped a quick kiss on my cheek. “It’s noon. Time for you to read.”

I sighed, but I had to admit, the dread I’d been feeling had eased slightly.

Though the crowd of fans was smaller than I was used to, they were still avid. They seemed genuinely excited to be here, and I noticed a lot of them were clutching their well-worn copies of my books to be signed.

To fill some of the time, I decided to read a chapter from my book, and as I read, my voice loud and clear, I noticed a few people who’d been browsing through the bookstore turn to listen. I watched as their faces shifted from curiosity into interest. Eyes lit up, smiles widened. It made me feel… warm. It wasn’t what I’d been expecting today.

After I finished reading, thanking the crowd for their applause, I sat back behind the table and waited to sign some books.

Everyone was kind and polite—no rude, sexy alphas looking to take me down a peg today—and I found myself smiling and laughing more than I had in ages.

“I’ve read all your books,” one woman gushed. “This one wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but I think in the end, it might’ve been my favorite out of all of them.”

“Really?” I asked, trying to hide my surprise. “What do you think you liked better?”

“Well, it made me miss my wife, actually. She passed away a few years ago, but I saw a lot of her in your lead character, Seth. He just seemed so…real. It brought so many memories back, things I thought I’d forgotten. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard when reading a book before.”

I found that my own eyes were tearing up in sympathy, and I had to force my hand away from where I was clutching my chest over my heart. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said, though I knew the words wouldn’t mean much coming from me.

Instead, though, she reached out and clasped my hand in hers. “Please don’t apologize. You gave me a beautiful gift. Thank you, truly.”

The next hour progressed much the same way. There might not have been as many fans here, oohing and ahhing about the hot sex and hard bodies, but the compliments felt genuine and heartfelt. My words had reached some hidden part of their souls. These readers felt like I had seen them, that I had made them feel accepted and loved.

Little by little, my imposter syndrome eased off my shoulders. I’d been so worried that my book sucked, that I was a phony, but my words had found a home in their hearts—and more importantly, they had found a place in me.

Over the years, I had somehow allowed my writing to become a chore. I hadn’t been writing for me but for the paycheck. And somewhere along the way, resentment had taken the place of inspiration. I’d fallen out of love with myself. This new scary venture had reignited my passion for writing, but more than that, it had shown me a different kind of future, one that I could share with the people I loved.

I decided that I couldn’t keep writing for someone else—not my agent, not my publisher, not even as a fuck-you to my parents. I needed to write for me, and hopefully, someone out there might love my books too, but that was just a bonus.

As the crowd petered out, Noelle brought the seniors up, pushing Betty in her wheelchair. Betty was my favorite, though I couldn’t tell the others that. She was blunt but fair-minded, and she had a wicked sense of humor.

“You make my face look good, Betty,” I told her, pointing at her shirt.

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