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“Thanks, Erin,” Libby said.
She pulled off the shirt and put her other one back on, covering her scars once more. I noticed she gave herself another look in the mirror before we walked back out to the front, and I wished I knew what was going on in her head. But I wasn’t going to push her. She kept the shirt when we put the other things in the return pile, and we paid for it before leaving.
I made up my mind to let her be the one to show her dad the shirt. If she so chose.
This one was up to her.
And I was letting her have it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Neils
“Whatdoyoumeanhe quit? I thought we had these guys locked in under contract,” I demanded.
I shoved myself back from my desk a short distance, looking up at the ceiling as I held the phone to my ear. Jason had called me early that morning to let me know he had bad news for me, but I wasn’t expecting him to tell me that we had lost an editor entirely. I was used to minor setbacks, but I didn’t see this coming, and I didn’t know the first thing about finding another.
I would need to have a good one to pick up where our last guy left off, but the fact was I didn’t know what made a good editor, so I would have to take my time going through the applications.
The only redeeming thing I saw was that it would buy me more time with Erin without us having to be upfront about our relationship with anyone else at this point. We could keep up the same front that we had in place of her working for me and helping with Libby.
“They’re under contract, but it’s a piece of paper at the end of the day,” Jason told me. “They get a fee, of course, when they break a contract before fulfillment, but it comes down to whether they can afford that kind of hit. Which, I guess in this case, he could.”
“Fuck that,” I said. “What does that do for the rest of us?”
“Clearly, we’re going to have to get a replacement for him, and the sooner, the better,” Jason said. “I don’t have time for this bullshit right now with the launch date coming up, the final copy on your end coming in a few weeks, and having to deal with the edits from the last segment now. I don’t know when we’re going to have the time to find someone who can jump right into what we have going and not throw off the whole process.”
“Fuck,” I said again. “This is not what I was thinking you were going to say when you told me you had bad news for me, and now I almost wish it had been something else.”
“Feel that,” Jason said. “Anyway, you can start looking on your end when you have the chance, but first I want you to worry about the next section of the book you’re writing. You might be able to find a good editor in half an hour, or it could take the entire day, and you might not find someone you like. I would rather you did something measurable with your time today and got that book done rather than wasting it on finding someone to edit.”
“I just don’t know what good it is to get the book done if we’re stuck on the editor front,” I said. “I can get it done, but then what? It’s just going to sit there?”
“On the off chance I find someone on my end, I will get them started on the book right away, and you can still keep moving with the final section. If you take the time off to find an editor and fall behind with your own deadlines, it could throw off the project in a different way. Just keep on, but keep an eye out in case you find someone who fits the bill.”
“Great,” I said. “I’m assuming you’re going to put some time and effort into this today? You might not have the time for it as you said, but if you’re not going to let me be the one to try to find someone, then I want to know we’ve got someone on the job. The last thing I’m in the mood to deal with is falling off schedule because of something stupid like this.”
“I told you I’d be on it,” Jason said. “I did want to tell you out of respect for the fact I didn’t want to freak you out about anything, remember that.”
“I know,” I said. “But I don’t know what you want me to do when you tell me that we are now short a team member. Of course, I’m going to show a level of concern with this.”
“True, true, but that’s not what I mean,” he said. “I’m talking more along the lines of just keeping you in the loop because you’re part of this team.”
“Technically, I’m the boss,” I said.
“But I’m the one who deals with the shit, so you don’t have to. I’m telling you again, just leave this all to me, and I’m going to have it figured out. I just wanted you to be in the loop in case it came to that. That’s all.”
“I expect you to keep me in the loop even more now,” I said. “I want to know as soon as you find someone who can fill the position. I’m not going to rest easy until I know we have that spot filled once more.”
“I will,” he said. “But I want to also know that you’re not going to spend your day hunting down an editor when I need to know you’re working.”
“I’m leaving you to be the one to fill the space unless I know someone perfect,” I said. “Now I’m getting off the phone so you can do that. I’ll expect an update this afternoon.”
“You got it,” Jason said.
We hung up with each other, and I sighed. It pissed me off the way some people were. The fact someone had just broken their contract with me as though it didn’t mean anything really got under my skin. I hated the entitlement of some people and how they did things, and I wished there was more that could be done in this situation rather than just imposing a monetary fine on him.
But all that was what Jason was hired to handle, and from the sounds of things, he was. I knew he was just keeping me up to date on things that were going on, but that didn’t console me much. Not when I was worried about how this was all going to come together and the timeframe I was dealing with.
