Page 35 of One More Chapter
Lucy and Juliet laugh, but I’m still stuck on the domesticity of this. They’re trading the silly little flaws of their men, while I’m trying to wrap my head around living with the one that got away.
“Howisliving with your little vacation fling?” Juliet asks. I groan and toss my head back against the back of the couch.
“I wish I could say it was horrible, but he has gotten a lot better since I kind of yelled at him about cleanliness—save for the sock thing.”
It’s the truth. I wish it wasn’t. I wish I had a reason to be angry with him. I toe the balled-up sock that sits feet away from me on the floor. When I glance up at my friends, I realize that no one has said a word. They’re all staring at me like they want to stage an intervention. I groan.
“Just say what you want to say.”
“Babes, we are just looking out for you,” Juliet starts.
“We’re onyourside,” Lucy nods.
Claire takes a breath, and as the person who knows the most about this situation, I fear her words might weigh the heaviest.
“We’re not at all saying you have to marry the guy—he broke your heart, and you have every reason to keep him at an arm’s length. But maybe making peace with him would at least give you some closure on the situation—not to mention make working and living with him easier. What’s stopping you from just airing everything out?”
I sigh all the way down to my toes. I haven’t said this aloud to anyone yet, but here with my people feels like a good place to start.
“I thought he was the one.”
I am not quiet by nature. I am loud and opinionated and when I enter a room, people know. But this declaration comes out like an embarrassed ghost. I curl up into a ball, wrapping my arms around my tented knees to shield myself from their advice and their pity. I’m about to start feeling the torrent of my dejection when two tiny hands bat at my shins.
“Told you she was starting to pull herself up,” Juliet says, breaking the tension. Hope is standing at the edge of the couch with a board book, batting it against my legs. I pull her up into my lap and let her flip through it while I talk.
“I told him everything,” I start, distracting myself by running my fingers through Hope’s soft curls. “About the guys in my past who have messed me up. The reasons I don’t trust easily. I told him that the next man to find a place in my life would have to treat me with care and honesty. And when he…”
I hesitate at the crossroads I’ve brought myself to. My heart aches so heavily with this story, and I’ve decided it hurts enough to need a distraction. Claire already knows about my secret authorship. It’s time I let my other friends in as well.
“When he asked me, that night on the beach, if I was going to write us into one of my books, I told him, ‘I only write the men who have wronged me into my books.’ He said, ‘Good thing I won’t be one of them.’”
My little plan works. Juliet and Lucy hold up hands like stop signs and begin babbling half questions. When Claire eyes me with a look that says both,You’re crazyandI know exactly what you’re doing, I stand and usher the group into my office. Much like the day that Claire had discovered the secret of my author status, I give Lucy and Juliet time to get out their squeals and their fangirling before I give them the story of PJ Layne.
“I got an idea for a story one day, and when it turned from a passion project at night into a full-fledged, one-hundred-twenty-thousand word beast, I figured I might as well try to publish it myself. I didn’t anticipate it spiraling into what it has become, but the stories keep coming, so I keep writing them. I got an agent after my third went viral, and here we are.”
I shrug. It’s the CliffsNotes version, but it will do for now. The girls stand slack jawed, gaping at the back-stock of books that are half-unpacked and half-sitting-in-boxes.
“I just… I’m so proud of you, Pen,” Lucy says.
“This isamazing,” Juliet echoes. “And to balance this with teaching?”
I shrug as blush warms my cheeks. I don’t take well to praise—which is kind of hard when you’re an author. The DMs I receive of people praising my work are a Catch-22 of loving what I do, and loving the fact that I can hide behind my anonymity.
“Thanks, guys. Sorry for keeping it a secret for so long.”
“Absolutely none of that,” Juliet says, lifting Hope off the floor before she can put one of my books against her teething gums. “You have your reasons.”
I nod, and before I can even field a question about why, Lucy brings my day full circle.
“You don’t have to answer this question at all, but do you make enough to sustain yourself without teaching? I mean, I have these books on my shelf. I’ve seen themeverywhere.Like, why not write full-time?”
“If you wrote full-time, would I get Spencer’s book faster?” Claire—self-proclaimed PJ Layne superfan—cuts in.
I laugh, thankful for the break in the tension.
“I do.” I lift a copy of the nearest book—my first bestseller—and flip aimlessly through the pages. “But I think I’d go stir-crazy if I worked from home writing all day, you know?”
It comes out shaky because I know I’m not telling the truth.