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She took the change of topic and ran like a third grader at recess. “It’s kind of sloppy in the beginning, but yeah. More or less.”
“It looks like a hell of a process.” His eyes lit with interest, and he edged closer to the table. “How does it work?”
Sloane’s heartbeat stuttered. “What?”
“Sorry, is that rude? To ask a writer about a book she hasn’t written yet?” He averted his eyes, as if the toes of his loafers had suddenly become fascinating.
An unexpected laugh welled up at his genuine concern. “They’re not top secret FBI documents or anything. You don’t have to worry.” She paused, trying to dislodge the curve ball from her chest. Aside from a smattering of writers in her online courses, nobody had ever expressed that much interest in the particulars of what she did. And why would they? Half the people in her family were expecting her to change careers any minute now, and the other half were just hoping.
“Oh. So how come you use five different colors of Post-it notes?” Gavin loosened his tie and moved to stand next to her, as if it were the most normal thing in the world for her to tell him about her job.
As if her answer truly mattered.
“Well, obviously I have two main characters, a heroine and a hero.” Sloane lifted the purple and yellow squares of paper accordingly, moving a few of them from the outer rim of the table to the pages of legal paper as she continued. “And then there are internal conflicts, which are the issues they each bring to the story.” She motioned to the scattering of green notes in front of them.
“You mean like emotional baggage?” He leaned in closer, so their shoulders touched.
She smiled at both the contact and the question. “Exactly. But if you’ve got internal conflict then that also means…”
“External conflicts,” he finished, and Sloane gave the pages of legal paper beneath her hands an affirming tap.
“External conflicts. Otherwise known as all the things that happen to keep the hero and heroine apart.” She tossed the remainder of a half-used stack of blue Post-it notes to Gavin, which he caught with a confused frown.
“But it’s a love story, right? Why are the guy and the girl apart?”
A fair question, to be sure. “Because people who fall in love too easily make for really boring romance novels.”
“So much for happily ever after,” Gavin said, arching a caramel-colored brow.
“Funny you should mention that.” Sloane ran her thumb over the edge of pink Post-its, fanning herself in an exaggerated sweep. “Pink is for the steps they take to get to the resolution. See?” She pointed to the last four sheets of legal paper, all flanked by notes on pink squares. “Happily ever after.”
“I had no idea it was so involved.” He skated a glance over the whole thing again. “So, how does it get from this to an actual book?”
“Well, it’s different for everyone, but I’m old school. I start out with the handwritten pages, just to gather my thoughts in one place, but then as the idea grows, I add finer details with the Post-it notes. That way I can shuffle them around if I want, or remove them easily if I decide they won’t work. Then, once it all starts to gel, I have to get on the laptop in order to keep up with myself. But it’s nice to have the written notes to go back and cross-reference as I draft.”
His soft whistle emphasized his surprise. “It sounds pretty fast-paced.”
“Sometimes. This is nothing compared to being on deadline, though.” Sloane winced at the realization that she might have seen the last of her deadline days, but she shoved the awful sensation aside. Five weeks from now, she’d be the living embodiment of getting things done, and the book in front of her would be long gone from her system.
Losing her job because her creativity went off on a lust-induced tangent just wasn’t an option. No matter how strong the outline was.
Or how delicious the lust.
“Whoa. From the look on your face, I’d guess meeting deadlines isn’t the most fun part of your job,” Gavin said, and Sloane pasted a smile onto her face.
“Actually, it is.” She hauled in a breath, forcing herself to relax. “But you’re right. Sometimes it’s just kind of fast-paced.”
“You really love it, don’t you?”
The question startled her right down to her socks, but she answered it without hesitation. “Yeah. It just…fits me.”
He lifted a hand, barely skimming it over her cheekbone. “It’s written all over your face.”
“That is a terrible metaphor,” she said with a soft laugh. But she curved into his palm anyway. Oh, God, she felt so good with his hands on her, even in the most innocent of touches.
“Sorry.” His look said he wasn’t, but who was she to argue? “It’s true, though.”
Sloane stared at him through the late-night quiet of the kitchen and said the only thing she could think of.
