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Not this again.
“Wyatt, I’m not discussing this anymore. We will never see eye to eye on what went down, so let’s just agree to disagree,” Levi says.
“Fine, Levi. That’s fine. But you’re the one who drove her away.”
So tired of running interference between these two. Maybe I should just let them beat the shit out of each other.
I decide to speak up. “You know what I see here? The three of us missing Amalia. Instead of blaming anyone for casting her off, let’s talk about whether we should try to reach out to her again. Talk to her. Discuss where things went wrong.”
There. I said it. We agreed it was over with her, but from the sound of the nonstop bickering among the three of us, it’s anything but.
“Shit,” Levi says. “She’s probably moved on by now.”
Fuck, I hope not. It hasn’t even been that long.
“Only one way to find out,” I say.
Both guys look at me like I’m the mastermind with a plan.
Bad move. Because Iwillcome up with a plan. Or at least, a first step. Which they may or may not like.
“This is what we’re gonna do. Levi, how fast can you pen another sexy story?” I ask.
He looks around sheepishly, avoiding my gaze. “Actually, I’ve been working on a couple new stories for a while. You know, something to keep my mind off… things.”
Wyatt smacks his hand on his chair’s armrest. “I knew it! Iknewyou liked writing that stuff, man. And all along you wereacting like you were so far above it. Damn, you’re a freaking phony, Levi. A total hypocrite.”
“You know, Wyatt—” Levi starts to say.
But I cut him off. We simply cannot keep rehashing the same bullshit over and over.
“Stop,” I say. “We’re going to take your story, Levi, whichever one is closest to being finished, and we’re going to bring it to Amalia. We’re going to say this is our peace offering, and that we hope she’ll consider it for publication.”
“Um… well… I don’t know,” Levi stammers.
I lean forward in my chair. “And, you’re going to publish it under your own name. No more hiding. And if Empire Ink Press does not want your work, I will shop it around to other publishers.
“Oh… that’s a… um, well that’s…”
Wyatt jumps to his feet. “Brilliant, Henry,” he says, high-fiving me. “We’ll bring it to her in a pretty bow, and she won’t be able to say no, not to the story, and not to us.”
That’s the idea.
Wyatt and I both look at Levi, who’s considering possibly the biggest risk in his career, which is a huge freaking deal, because he doesn’t take risks, pretty much ever. He plays it safe and follows the rules, especially the rules of the literary world.
A lot of good it’s done him, too. They dropped him like a hot potato the minute he no longer fit into their tidy little box of propriety.
Levi nods his head as my suggestion takes hold. “You have a point,” he says, tapping his fingers. “If you think about it, there’s nothing left to lose. And if readers like my romance, then I’ll know I’m doing something right.”
“Get your shit together, both of you. We’re catching a cab downtown first thing tomorrow morning,” I say.
53
AMALIE
“Hey,there are some people in the conference room waiting for you.” Ralph settles into his office chair and starts going over the morning’s emails.
“Can’t be me. I don’t have any meetings this morning,” I say, continuing to scroll through a job listing site.
