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Yeah, she knows my panties are combusting over here just from being so close to her grandson. Gulp. Talk about sweating it over here. I’m wetter than if I had my booty parked in a sauna. Uh, wet as in sweat. Not wet as in…never mind.
“So, you like books?”
It’s the most benign question his granny has asked me, and she appears genuinely interested. “Don’t get me started on books,” I gush, completely enthused. Right now, it doesn’t matter if she likes me or not. I could talk about books all day. All month. All year. Forever. Even when I’m a ghost. “I love books.”
“What do you read?”
“Everything! Oh my gosh, everything and anything.”
“Oh, good. I know where I can send my texts on astrophysics. I think they were quite dry myself, but if you’re keen on it….”
“Maybe not that,” I say easily with a laugh. I had ordered chocolate milk, and now I take a big gulp to wet my throat to get ready to talk about the kind of books I do like, but Atlas’ granny beats me to the conversation with a different question.
“I heard you want to be a writer. That’s a hard way to make a living, isn’t it?”
Atlas snorts and nearly spits out his milkshake. He rams a hand up to his mouth and wipes his lips with it before swallowing hard. “Granny!”
“No, that’s okay,” I whisper.
I’m pretty much immediately crushed with all my old insecurities. I can hear the voices of everyone—that’s pretty literal—telling me that I’m not going to make it. Teachers, friends, my parents, my brother, extended family, friends of friends, and people I don’t even know online in groups that are supposed to be for writers to get support from each other. I swallow down the lump in my throat and determine for myself here and now that I’m not going to go down or out like this.
I believe in myself, and that’s enough for me.
Plus, it’s just a question.
“Uh, it’s not easy, even once you’re established. I’m quite disciplined, so I guess that helps. Plus, I believe in doing something I love, and I love literature, so I want to contribute to that. I have a lot in my head that I want to get out.”
That sounds stupid, that’s what gets out of my head, but I know I’m being too critical because I’m nervous. I want Atlas’ granny to like me for some reason. I guess I want everyone to like me. I’m not desperate to be liked, and I don’t need validation or anything, but who wants to be disliked? Plus, she’s Atlas’ granny. He probably listens to her. Even though I keep protesting his help, there’s a big part of me that would be hecking sad if he stopped coming around.
Which, duh, he’s going to after he gets those photos. After the house is finally finished and his job is done.
“What do you need to get out? What kind of writing do you want to do? What kind of stories do you want to tell?”
To my surprise, the questions aren’t mean. Again, she just seems genuinely curious.
“Oh, I guess there are a lot of things. Fiction, obviously.” I blush before I even deliver the punchline. “Romance. Doesn’t matter what genre or trope. I just want to tell love stories.” Maybe because I’ve had such a woeful lack of love in my own life. Aren’t you supposed to write about what you know?
Or you can just fake it until you make it, obviously. Shut up, Doubting Doubts Doubters Doubt Pants.
“Well, if anyone can make it as a writer, it’s the girl who just about got smothered to death in a heap of books.”
“Death by books, especially super cool old books, would be a good way to go,” I readily agree.
Atlas’ granny pegs me with a hard look that is just a little too personal, a little too scrutinizing, a little too see right through me. “You like adventure? Or do you just like writing about it?”
That wasn’t what I was expecting she’d say, and I relaxed. We’re still talking about books. Kind of. I can do this. “I don’t know. I’m…I’m pretty shy, actually. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like trying new things. I do. I—”
“She went and lived out in the country in her great-aunt’s falling-down haunted house all by herself and made that work. I’d say that’s plenty brave, plenty of new things, and plenty of adventure,” Atlas interrupts and winks at me.
Good gah! Be still, my heart. Be still, my pulse pounding in my neck and at my wrists and in my thighs. Be still, my overheated lady bits.
“Well, technically, you helped make it work.” Somehow, that comes out calm as a zucchini. I mean, a cucumber. Okay, fine, not so calm on the inside. “And it was also plenty of toilet monsters, falling through porches, and having raccoons dive bomb through my ceiling kind of adventures.”
