Page 12 of Based on You

I stared at her. Her dark eyes were bright and lit up, and she leaned forward, her words tumbling out faster and with more heat than they had in months.

"Love isn't all that great, kid, you know." I couldn't help myself.

She whipped her head around to glare at me, her mouth dropping open. "Oh my god, Uncle Simon, you seriously had to ruin the moment and say that!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." I laughed and threw both hands up in surrender. "Tell me the name of this brilliant author."

"Her pen name's V.M. Ashby," she said, proud.

My whole body went still.

It was the name from Devika's slide. Five million rabid followers, dropping serialized chapters every Sunday at midnight, legal identity a blank. And here, in my house, was Olivia, propped up on her pillows at one in the morning, reading her work.

"You're a big fan, then." I fought to keep my voice level.

"Of course I am! She actually answers comment threads sometimes. She takes the time to talk to her readers. She wrote this deeply personal post last month about dealing with grief, and it was so well put that everyone on the platform was sharing it." Olivia's hands fluttered as she spoke, the tablet resting against her drawn-up knee. "She writes like she understands the ugly things in life. Like she's lived through them."

She kept talking, and I sat back and listened. She read me an angsty passage out loud. I asked questions about the plot, and she kept going, summarizing character arcs and wild fan theories. Somewhere in the blur of the night, I lay back on the mattress and let my eyes close for what I figured was a minute.

I woke to a pale wash of morning light through the blinds and a vicious crick stabbing at my neck.

Olivia was sound asleep on the mattress beside me, the dead tablet face-down on the wrinkled duvet, her dark hair fanned across her face.

For eight months, I'd wanted a single night where she was just safely there, and I was allowed to be there alongside her. Last night, because of a made-up online book, I'd finally gotten it.

I peeled myself off the bed slow, pulling the heavy duvet up over her shoulder. I clicked off the lamp and slipped back down the hall to my own bedroom.

I had to find V.M. Ashby.

It wasn't for Devika's pitch deck anymore. It wasn't for the projected launch metrics or the corporate revenue. I needed to find her for the raw, hungry look on Olivia's face when she'd whispered, she writes like she really understands things. For the sound of laughter coming through the drywall. For giving me back this one good night with my niece.

I didn't fall back asleep.

Later that morning, I walked into the Beckett Media tower in a sharp, dark purple suit, my eyes gritty and heavy from the sleep I hadn't gotten. I stepped off the private elevator and glanced down the long corridor toward the executive assistant station.

The desk was empty.

I scanned the area, confused. No trench coat draped over the back of the chair, no steaming mug of coffee waiting on my side of the desk, no printed briefing folder squared away in its usual spot. Violet was always here before me. I couldn't recall the last morning her station had sat empty when I arrived.

Frowning, I looked down at the clean surface of the desk.

Her soft-leather notebook sat right there, left open. The page facing the ceiling was packed with frantic handwriting.

I stopped where I stood.

She practically lived in that notebook. I'd caught her writing in it at her desk in the early mornings, often through her lunch hour. Her pen always flew in a bizarre shorthand, and she had a habit of angling the cover toward her chest the second she heard the elevator chime. I'd watched her snap it shut and shove it into a drawer more times than I could count. I'd never read a single word of it.

I rationalized hard. The daily schedule might be jotted in there. The Beatrice Holm call list. The revised strategy-team agenda.

I also thought, caught somewhere between honesty and a flat-out invasion of privacy, that I wanted to know what she wrote.

"Mr. Beckett," a crisp voice cut in.

I flinched and spun around. A woman marched toward me down the carpeted hall. She was short, neat, and carried the stiff, combative bearing of an HR rep who'd learned to walk into rooms that were never glad to see her. Her face was vaguely familiar in the unhelpful way of the thousands of faces in this building. Seen, filed, never placed.

"I'm Alice, from Human Resources," she said. "The head of the department needs your final confirmation on a few urgent items."

"Of course." I turned back toward my office door. "Come right through."