Page 23 of The Write Stuff

“Well, it could have gone better.”

Her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “What did he do?”

“It could have gone worse, too,” I assured her. “It was just … really, really awkward. I don’t want to talk about it.” With great determination, I started pulling out knick-knacks for the shelf.

If I thought that was going to work on Lucy, I was sadly mistaken. “Oh, don’t even,” she scolded. “I want to know absolutely everything.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” I used unpacking as a reason not to look her in the eye. She could always tell when I was lying. “He was a little snotty at first and brought up the Klingon.”

“He did not!” Lucy was many things, but disloyal wasn’t one of them. She might have found my mastering Klingon weird, but she was the only one who could make fun of me for it. If anybody else tried, she was all over them. “What a putz! What did the other authors say?”

“The guys were strangely excited.”

“I told you that was a great way to get a guy.” She looked proud of herself.

“They’re both married. With children,” I added as an afterthought.

“Ah, well.” Lucy held out her hands in a “you win some, you lose some” gesture. “Did they at least stand up for you?”

“No, but Huxley apologized right away. He realized it wasn’t nice.”

“Not nice? That was an asshole move if I ever heard one.”

“He felt guilty about it,” I insisted. “He was just as thrown as I was. I think he wanted to run for the door when he saw me.”

“What happened after that?”

“Nothing. We agreed to let it go, and everybody ordered dinner. We talked about everything but the fact that Huxley’s mom committed assault on our mom, and then it was time for the reader event.” I shrugged, as if to say, “that’s all, folks.”

Lucy was far too in tune with my moods to believe that. “There has to be more.”

I groaned and flopped on the ground, out of sight. “I might have accidentally eavesdropped on him talking to Brody and Nathan. They asked for the full story. He didn’t give it to them. They asked if we ever hooked up. He laughed as if that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard and brought up the Klingon again.”

“I’m going to punch that guy in his Klingons if he’s not careful,” Lucy seethed.

For some reason, having her on my side — even though she was wearing a sparkly pink cowboy hat and was about to hit me up for plane ticket money — made me feel better.

“We talked about it when we were walking on the riverwalk after,” I added. “We’ve agreed that we’re not going to discuss the past and stay out of each other’s way.”

It didn’t become obvious that I’d said the wrong thing until Lucy fell absolutely silent. She was so quiet, in fact, I assumed the call had dropped. It happened frequently on her ranch. Apparently, they didn’t have great internet out there.

“Luce?” I forced myself to sit back up. She was on the screen still, glaring. “Are you frozen?”

“No.” She looked constipated she was so focused. “I’m just trying to work something out in my head.”

“What?”

“What were you doing on the riverwalk with him? Did you guys go there together?”

“Oh, no.” I shook my head. “I was trying to avoid him, so I took the long way around the restaurant when I left. Turns out, he did the same thing. Thanks to our attempts to avoid one another, we actually ended up in the same spot with nobody around.”

“And?”

And what? “Um … that’s it.”

“It doesn’t sound like that’s it.”

“Well, it is.”