AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Guys feel emasculated by my success,” she says. “Or they think it makes me less sexy somehow.”
Clearly she’s been dating the wrong men. “Maybe they’re not man enough to handle you.”
She scoffs. “Now you sound like one of those guys…what are they called? The assholes with the faux psychology term?”
“Alphahole.”
“Exactly.”
I smile. “Describes me to a T.”
Her eyes go to the tattoo on my arm. Then her fingers. A soft brush of my wrist.
My entire body roars to attention.
She catches herself touching me, but she doesn’t stop. She traces the line. “Sometimes, they’re guys in a suit. Sometimes they’re bad boys. With tattoos.”
“That is the perfect way to describe me,” I joke.
“A tattooed bad boy. Watch out, Orange County.”
“Is that all it takes? Tattoos?”
“I think so, yeah.” She traces the line up my arm. “Here, anyway. There isn’t a single tattoo shop in Irvine, Newport, or Huntington Hills. The Irvine company would never allow it. And the Huntington company isn’t about to let the Irvine company outclass them.”
She continues tracing the line up to my bicep.
I squeeze my hand to keep myself from letting out an audible reaction to her touch, then turn my arm over to give her a better view.
“What do you call this style?” Her fingers are on the sparrow woven into the sleeve.
“The artist called it pop-classic.”
“Of course.” She laughs. “The future head of Marvel Studios needs comic-inspired ink.”
Marvel.Right. “I don’t dream that big.”
“You do, too. It’s just different. You want to run your own small press. Publish cult classic comics.”
“I do.” How the hell did she guess that? No one guesses that. Even though it feels obvious to me. It’s not the most original goal for a graphic novelist. Especially not one who works for a large press. There’s a lot I love about my job. I still work with artists and writers. I still bring their stories to life. But I rarely bring a fresh, exciting idea to the world. Mostly, we publish long-running franchises and big-budget cash-ins. There are good graphic novelizations. There are good TV shows and movies turned into comics. But we end up putting out a lot of books of fan service. Nothing new, unique, challenging.
“You’d be good at it, I think,” she says. “Working with artists, developing stories. Why don’t you do it? Your grandma must have the money. She’s always talking about her nest egg and how she wants to live rich, die broke.”
All at once, the air leaves the room.
Grandma’s death.
Grandma’s health.
My whole body tenses.
Deanna must notice—she’s still got her hand on my arm—but she doesn’t say anything about it.
I jump onto the opposite topic. Life. Our wager. “Have you ever felt passionate about someone?”
Her eyes go wide, and she retracts her hand. Her lips curl. “Why?”
“Maybe that’s why you don’t see love as something romantic and magical.”
