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Palmer
I press the delete key on my computer over and over, erasing the only two sentences I’ve managed to squeeze out in the last hour. My forehead falls to the keyboard.
This is it. My short writing career is over.
If I can’t write two decent sentences, how will I ever have a manuscript to turn in to my editor in two months? I won’t be able to pay my bills. I’ll lose the house. I won’t be able to clothe or feed Adley.
A whirl of cold air gushes through the back door, alerting me that someone’s here. Winter has officially arrived in my small town of Lake Starlight, Alaska.
I grab my cochlear implants and put them on.
My parents had tried to get me the implants when I was younger, but I wasn’t a candidate, but as technology advanced over the decades, that changed.
I don’t bother standing because I know who’s coming in, and the two of them have been used to seeing me in this exact position for the past several months.
Hudson sits on the chair next to me and stares at me with those judgmental eyes. Does my best friend really think writing a novel is so simple? Maybe he should try it sometime. The man makes his living gallivanting around ski slopes. I glance around, searching for our brown-haired little girl.
He says, “She’s with Theresa. They’ll be over in five.”
I nod, standing and lifting my coffee mug.
He follows me into the kitchen and grabs the pot before I can. “How many have you already had?”
I roll my eyes and swipe at the pot, but he holds it up high. I sigh, but his smirk says he’s not going to give in until I answer.
Setting my mug down, I lift my hands and sign, Three. Sue me, it’s crunch time.
He chuckles, pouring my cup of coffee, his jokester face on the entire time. “One day, you’ll need an IV to get enough.” Grabbing his own cup from the cabinet above the sink, he pours himself a cup, goes to the fridge, and grabs some milk to put in. Again, he shakes his head at the lonely items in my fridge. “And I trust you to take care of our daughter? Good thing I’m only next door.”
I roll my eyes again and give him a vulgar gesture before heading to the kitchen table. After taking a sip, I put my cup on the table and lift my hands. Although I have cochlear implants, I still sign a lot. Force of habit, I guess. Plus, Hudson and I have always signed in front of Adley, even if we’re talking to help her learn, along with the weekly class she takes.
Let me guess, you made her a three-course breakfast with freshly squeezed orange juice? I lift my eyebrows because when she stays at his place, Adley usually has a Pop-Tart in hand as she goes out the door, hair barely brushed.
His lips tip up, and he looks out the window toward his house before he takes a seat across from me. “Theresa brought breakfast over this morning.”
She didn’t spend the night, right?
“No. I’m abiding by the rules.”
I’m just saying it seems like it’s getting serious.
“Um…not sure about that.”
I kick him under the table. I bet you the time is coming.
“Time for what?”
She’s going to want more.
I love Hudson. He’s my best friend. The lines blurred one drunken night, and that’s how we were blessed with Adley, our three-year-old daughter. Just as I knew he would, he stepped up, leaving his nomad life to settle down in my hometown of Lake Starlight. He even bought the house next to mine so we could raise her together.
Hudson isn’t the kind of guy who wants to settle down, so his commitment to his daughter is usually what pulls on the heartstrings of his conquests first. Unless it’s his thick, dirty-blond hair that’s only ever styled by his fingers and the scruff along his jaw that grabs their attention first. My best friend isn’t hard on the eyes.
“She knows where we stand.”
I sip my coffee and stare at him over the rim of the mug.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” I can tell by the tone of his voice that he knows he’s grown closer to Theresa than any other woman he’s taken to his bed.
