Thirteen
I wasn’t an author, but I did know one. Harper would want her notebook back anyway, even if it was blank. Maybe my asking her for advice would stop her from suing me for breach of her crazy contract.
Authors are a strange breed.
I pressed on the illuminated doorbell and waited outside on the small porch of her ultra-modern townhome. Quintessential Seattle, but the style didn’t fit what I thought I knew of Harper. I would have pictured her in something different. Older, quirky, definitely smaller. A house boat or cute little cottage. Something with stacks of books piled precariously high. Maybe a soft throw blanket thoughtlessly draped over a soft leather chair. Not this boxy, sterile monstrosity with no history and no story.
The door opened, and Harper blinked at me, her hair pulled up in a high ponytail and an oversized sweater hanging down to just above her knees. Those kitten leggings almost had me relaxing my grip on the unfilled notebook. No one who wore bespeckled cats could be that scary.
Her gaze zeroed in on the pink book in my hand, and she launched forward with a squeal, gripping my wrist and pulling me inside without so much as a greeting or invitation. The book slipped out of my fingers and I braced myself.
Pages rustled. “It’s empty.”
“Harper.”
She looked like I’d kicked her puppy. “But I had this great idea for a new novel. I’d even started plotting it out.” A whiteboard filled with different colored writing sat on an easel behind a desk. “I needed your notes to really get into the character’s head.”
“Harper.”
The notebook fell to the floor as she slumped down in a swivel chair and stared at her storyboard. “Now I’ve got to start all over. And with my agent breathing down my neck and my deadline looming before me.”
She’d gone into her own little world, her eyes slightly glazed over. She was talking, but to no one in particular. Least of all me.
I kind of felt bad that she’d been counting on me and I hadn’t followed through, but if she could help me out with my little problem, I’d sit down and let her interview me to her heart’s content. “Harper!”
My raised voice finally snapped her out of her trance, and she looked over at me, eyes slightly narrowed.
“I need your help. With Landon,” I quickly added so she wouldn’t shut me down before hearing me out.
A brow rose. “I’m listening.”
Where to start? Thankfully her office was a small corner in her living room, so I walked over to the bright yellow mid-century styled couch and sat down. Looking around the room for inspiration on how to put everything into words, my stomach knotted up. Honestly, now that I was here and she was staring at me so expectantly, I was having second thoughts. Maybe I should just find Landon and lay it all out. See if he was on the same page and go from there.
“Shut. Up.” Harper laughed as she leaned back in her chair, the spring squeaking. “You fell for him, didn’t you?”
Didn’t really see why she was laughing, but whatever. “I know it’s insane. Claire told me I should write my own happy ending, which made me think of you, hence the reason I’m here, but I think I’m just going to find him and tell him how I feel. Thanks anyway.” I stood back on my feet.
“You’re going to walk up to him and say…what?”
My neck heated. I hadn’t thought it all through, and her look of incredulity didn’t calm my nerves. “I don’t know. I’m sure something will come to me.”
She tsked. “Oh, grasshopper. You’ve come to the right place. Sit.”
“But I really think—”
“Sit.” Her tone of voice and sharp look had my knees buckling until my backside rested against the yellow suede again. “Now, I have just the thing.” She opened a filing cabinet behind her and withdrew a manila folder. “Ah, here we are.”
“What’s that?” Hopefully she couldn’t hear my wariness.
“This is the answer to your problems. This is going to tell Landon how you feel without you ever having to say a word.” She looked up from her folder. “Allison Krause will be proud. Trust me.”
“Okay.” I inched forward to get a peek. “But what is it?”
“This is my file of grand gestures.” Her eyes were doing that creepy shining thing that they’d done at Carol’s back before any of this had ever started.
“You mean like John Cusak and the boombox?”
“Or in your case, Drew Barrymore on the pitcher’s mound.”
