I shrugged. “WatchThe Bachelor?”
“I’ll watch anything else but that.” He moved back towards the couch and sat down. I sat down, too.
“Mike?” I asked.
“Becca?”
“What’s going to happen in the morning? Are you going to run me out of town again?”
I felt his shoulders shrug next to me. “I don’t know. I really don’t know what to do with you. You’re like a boomerang that keeps coming back. If I ran you out of town again, I’d probably find you up another ladder or fence somewhere tomorrow.”
“I think my climbing-up-things days are over.”
“Well, they should be. You suck at climbing,” he replied.
I laughed a little. “I do.”
There was a little lull in the conversation. A pause. I waited for him to speak again.
“Did you really, really not know I lived here?” he asked, looking over at me.
I locked eyes with him. “Honestly, honestly, I had no idea you lived here. Not until I saw you when I was coming for dinner.”
He smiled at this and then shook his head. “That’s crazy,” he said, half under his breath, “that, out of all the places in town, you landed up here.”
“There weren’t many free rooms to choose from,” I said.
He nodded. “We’ve only just finished that room, Ash put it up on the booking site a couple of days ago.”
“I must have seen it moments after it was listed, then.” I smiled at him.
Another silence fell over us and this time I could see something, an emotion, playing in his eyes.
I cleared my throat. “I broke a promise to you when I came back to town. And I feel really bad for that. I’m sorry,” I said.
He nodded. “What are you really researching in this town?” he asked.
A bolt of guilt-tinged anxiety shot through me. I didn’t want to lie to him. But this story had just taken on a whole other meaning, because he was now involved in it personally.Shit!It suddenly hit me how terrible this was. Secretly researching his family. Staying in their home. Enjoying their hospitality when I was really just . . .using them?I was such a bad person.
“The book is set in a small town . . . I was just trying to get a feel for one, that’s all,” I stuttered.
“Why this town, specifically?” he asked.
“I googled ‘Best small towns in South Africa’ and this came up. It looked quaint and perfect.”
He looked at me for a while, his eyes peeling back my layers, trying to look inside. “I’ve asked this before, but, seriously, is researching your book really worth all this trouble? You got injured today, for heaven’s sake!”
“That was an accident. I just wanted to see the library. I couldn’t sleep and I needed a distraction.”
“And yesterday you were the most wanted person in town.”
I got up and walked around in a small circle. And then I stopped. “I’ve had two years to write this book. TWO! And do you know how many words I’ve written? Zero—that’s how many.” I shook my head. “I’ve had this writer’s block . . . No, it’s more than that. I’ve been plagued by this fear, this terror that maybe I only ever had one book in me. And how the hell am I supposed to write another one that can compete with the last one’s success? How is that even possible? What if it fails? What if it’s not as good? What if no one buys it? What if it gets bad reviews? What if . . . ? What if . . . ?” My anxiety was rising by the second.
Mike walked up to me and put two big hands on my shoulders. Comforting, warm hands.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
He smiled at me and my anxiety immediately started to disappear. I forced myself to smile back at him.
