Page 7 of If I Stopped Haunting You

Teeth grinding, Pen ducked her head and focused on the drop of amber liquid sliding down the outside of her glass. She snatched the whiskey and swallowed it in one gulp, gasping as she wiped her hand over her mouth. She didn’t drink often, but oh, did she need that drink now. Betrayal sat at her side, its claws scraping down her arm as she tightened her hold on her empty glass.

“I’m getting another drink.”

She slid out of the booth and shoved past Storm, heat building behind her eyes as she rounded the corner and leaned back against the wall. This was not how she expected their first meeting to go. What had she done in the last four months? Nothing, nothing at all. This retreat was supposed to be it, the place she finally found thatsomethingshe’d been missing all these years. But she couldn’t do that if Storm was here.

Damn it, why had she made that declaration at the panel? If she didn’t pull a bestseller out of her ass, she’d remain the laughingstock of the book community forever.

Pen sniffed and closed her eyes. What a fool she’d been.

Chapter 2

NEIL

What the fuck was Penelope Skinner doing here? Neil eyed Laszlo sidelong, but his friend would not look at him.

“Laszlo,” he started. Laszlo took a long swig of his cider as Daniela Mitchel leaned forward on the table, eyes blazing with curiosity. “I know you can hear me,” Neil groaned.

“It’s going to be good for you.” Laszlo nodded, as if he were trying to convince himself. “This is what the two of you need.”

“Laszlo.”

“Just try for me. You can both be civil, can’t you?”

Neil could try, but Penelope Skinner had never made it easy. Though he wanted to resist the urge, he couldn’t stop his gaze from drifting around the corner. She leaned against the bar, head in her hands as the bartender filled her glass with whiskey. She looked… She looked like the life had been drained out of her.

Over the last few months, he’d stared at her picture for hours and rewatched the recording of their panel time and time again. He knew every shadow, every line, every facial expression. Although her physical appearance had changed, her demeanor had not.

“Well, this is juicy,” Daniela drawled.

Neil ignored her, his attention focused solely on Penelope Skinner. She’d made him doubteverything. Made him doubt his success,his seat at the table. Penelope Skinner had made him doubt his own ability to write. Before the Incident, Neil had simply praised the conviction with which she held her ground.No onehad ever called him out before, and then she had to do it on a panel in front of hundreds of people. Yet, in taking him down, she’d taken herself down too.

He grabbed Laszlo’s arm and yanked him to the side. “Do you have any clue what she did to me, Lasz? I haven’t been able to write a single fucking word in four months.Four months.”

“I know! I know and I’m sorry, but I didn’t have a choice.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t have a choice?” Skinner hissed, rounding the corner. She held a fresh glass of whiskey, just less than a finger’s worth of the amber liquid in the glass. Neil found himself suddenly distracted. He’d never taken her for a whiskey drinker.

Laszlo wouldn’t meet either of their eyes, his attention turned to the floor, sandy hair a mussed mess as if he’d been running his fingers through it nervously. “It was a last-minute change,” Laszlo started. “Okay,” he amended, “that’s also a lie.”

“Laszlo,” Neil ground out.

“I may have fibbed a bit! To both of you… But it was the only way.”

“Why?” Skinner demanded. She set down her whiskey and pinched the bridge of her nose, her glasses fogging up. She pointed at Laszlo, her tone accusing. “Did you only invite me becausehecanceled?”

“Pen—”

“You did! You really chose him over me?”

“No, it’s not that. I didn’t think you’d want to come if he accepted, and he’d backed out last minute, so I called you. But after you bought your ticket, he called and said he’d changed his mind and wanted to come! And instead of being honest, I figured what better place to work out your problems with each other than in acastle. I haven’t seen you since… and I hardly hear from you. But you said yes!” He threw up his arms and sighed. “He’s my friend too, Pen. I can’t be in the middle of you two forever.”

“You invited her becauseIcanceled?” Neil asked quietly.

That hurt. They’d known each other since sophomore year of college. They’d been dormmates, then friends. Neil was supposed to come first. He knew he shouldn’t make Laszlo choose, but Neil should have come first.

Laszlo sighed, defeated. “Yes, okay. And after she accepted, you reached out and walked back your answer. Was I supposed to tell her she couldn’t come?”

“Yes! Yes, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.”