Page 3 of Offsides Attraction
“Excellent. It will be great to hook-up with Maggie—” Lucas broke off at Cal’s frown.
“Excuse me?” Cal’s eyebrows disappeared beneath his heavy bangs.
“I meant see. See Maggie again. We went to community college together before I transferred to State,” Lucas quickly explained.
Also by v Amazon
Some books include the Also By information on the same page as the author bio, but many have a separate page dedicated to sharing more works by the same author or publishing house that the reader might be interested. This page can be a very powerful marketing tool.
The text on this page is typically center aligned.
Chapter 2
We so appreciate your interest and your support, but…
Penny pulled her eyes away from the letter. She knew the beautifully written rejection letter verbatim, but her eyes kept straying to it. But no matter how well written, it still stung. She’d invested time reaching out to authors and their publicists hoping to have Get Lost added to their book tours. Author visits brought exposure and additional revenue to the store.
“Penny? Pen? You still there?” Tanya asked.
“Yes, sorry. So, where did you and Mr. This-Week go to dinner? Let me live vicariously. Please,” she begged. Penny turned her back on the letter and focused on her friend’s words. Tanya was an excellent storyteller. Penny had told her for years to write her own stories instead of working as an editor at the medium-sized publishing house she’d started at, or technically, they’d started at. Tanya’s story dropped Penny into a day-in-the-life-of a single-woman in New York City. She sighed.
“Do you want me to stop?” Tanya asked.
“No, keep going. I’ll wallow in my would’ves, could’ves, should’ves when we’re done.”
“You know, it might not be too late. We’ve always got overflow. I could pitch you as a contractor, and you could do the job remotely.”
“That’s the reason right there. I don’t want to work remote, and each manuscript would remind me I am.”
“I wish you were here, too. But at least you still get to work with books,” Tanya said. But for how long, Penny wondered. She waved her hand toward the corkboard and all the other rejection letters moved to the side. Holding them in place, she used her other hand to guide the newest rejection letter toward the others. It quivered in place before Penny flicked her finger and stabbed it to the board with a unicorn push pin. Stabbing it felt good even as the guilt nibbled at her, like it always did.
Aunt Elspeth didn’t allow magic in the bookstore or in their office. She didn’t want to risk a customer seeing something they shouldn’t. But instead of encouraging discretion and caution, she’d banned it. Another sore point she and Elspeth didn’t agree on, but as the minority partner, Penny held her tongue and refrained from using magic. Unless she was alone in the office with the door closed.
“I do, but I’d enjoy it more if I had a solid plan moving into Q-four. All my ideas have fizzled and every time I bring it up to Elspeth, she brushes off my concerns as if we’ll have a great season just because she wishes it so.”
“How great does it need to be?” Tanya asked.
“October thru December are always the critical months for us, but this year it feels a bit more important.”
“Probably feels that way with a month-long European vacation looming in your future,” Tanya said, and Penny could almost see her friend rolling her eyes.
“Visiting family in Scotland in March is hardly a vacation.”
“But it won’t be a hardship, either. You’ll have a great time, you know you will, and once that’s done, you’ll have your two weeks in the south of France. Now that’s a vacation, even if the weather might be iffy.”
The only iffy part is the cost. Penny hadn’t shared with anyone that Get Lost was on shaky financial ground. The first nine months of the year were always lackluster, but until this year, they’d always broken even each month. The cold and record snow last winter had kept people at home and there were some days the only activity they saw was the book clubs they sponsored.
Spring sales had been mediocre, and although summer was better than she’d forecasted, they hadn’t made up for losing the winter months. And if Penny didn’t come up with some stellar marketing to drive people into the store for their holiday shopping, she could kiss goodbye her two weeks of hiking and biking and staying at that cute villa surrounded by lavender fields.
“You’re right. It will be a lovely vacation. Speaking of, any plans to come visit your long forgotten friend. It’s your turn.”
“Not that you’re keeping score or anything.” Tanya laughed. “I’m out of PTO, but the boss mentioned something about comp time for that huge project last month, so maybe?”
Penny asked Tanya about the new neighbors, the ones that should have been hers, and the little bodega down the street. Tanya caught her up on all the office-gossip, and the industry news that didn’t make the papers. Each snippet reminded Penny of all that she missed, but like a masochist, she settled into the worn office chair—putting her phone on speaker mode—and encouraged Tanya to tell her everything.
Penny’s watch vibrated, and she bolted upright, grateful that she’d set an alarm in case her day got derailed. She crossed the small office and locked the door before slipping off her shrug and pulling her dress over her head. She kicked off her sandals and tugged on her biking shorts.
“Penny, are you okay? You sound out of breath.”