staring blankly at my screen, running through all the shit I’d accomplished over the course of the three hours I’d been awake—thanks to the late night I’d had.
“Tell me what you did today,” Liz prompted.
Here we go again. “You don’t even want to know.”
“Humor me,” she insisted.
Leaning back in my chair, I closed my eyes. “Well, my kitchen’s clean. Right down to the inside of the vegetable crispers in the refrigerator.”
“What?” Liz did not sound humored. “No one wants to know that notorious bad boy Jacob Wild cleans his own refrigerator.”
“Maybe not. But it’s true.”
“Seriously, Jacob.”
“Seriously. I’m quite handy with the cleaner. In fact, I also scrubbed all the bathrooms,” I told her with a huff. “All four of them, upstairs and down.”
I still had no clue how I’d ended up living alone in a thirty-two-hundred-square-foot condo with four fucking bathrooms, but here I was.
“Jacob.”
“What? You asked.”
Liz sighed deeply into the phone.
Since she wanted me to humor her, I continued. “The floors in every room of my condo ... fucking spotless. At this point, I’m pretty damn sure I could eat off them—hell, probably even in the bathrooms—if I was so inclined. But no, before you ask, I don’t have any plans to do so.”
Not exactly my thing, no matter how fucked up I’d become lately.
“Ja—”
“Nope, hold up. I’m not done. I didn’t just get in touch with my inner Mr. Clean. I found plenty more to do. The books on the shelf in my office … well, you’ll be happy to know that I put them in alphabetical order by author. Then by title. Then back again.” Liz sighed, but I rattled on. “The loose blade on the ceiling fan in the guest bedroom … no longer squeaks. The strange rattle in the hall bath exhaust fan … no longer rattles. And all those one-off socks that had piled up in my laundry basket … yep, sorted and paired.”
“Okay, I get it,” Liz said, sounding both frustrated and, yes, slightly amused.
“Plus I took a nap.”
Liz sighed again.
“I know those aren’t exactly the things my readers would expect me to do in my spare time, but there it is. The secret’s out.”
“I think that’s a secret we can keep under wraps for a little while longer,” she told me. “What I want to know is what you’re working on. As far as your book.”
I sat up straight, moved my finger over the track pad, and brought the laptop screen to life once again. “To be honest, nothing.” I wasn’t lying, either. On the laptop monitor in front of me right at this moment … the only thing that I should’ve accomplished for the day thus far…
Not a goddamn thing.
“Wait,” I added. “Hold up. That’s not entirely true. There are two words—Chapter One—staring back at me right now.” Those two little words were taunting me, pissing me off because the cursor rested on the line beneath that and I had nothing.
Absolutely fucking nothing.
It was safe to say that this bout of writer’s block was beginning to affect my attitude.
“How do we ease the writer’s block, Jake?” Liz’s tone morphed from frustrated to sympathetic as she seemingly read my mind.
I knew she meant well and I really did appreciate it. But it wasn’t that simple and Liz knew that. Which was why I didn’t respond, instead taking a deep breath and trying to relax.
“Okay,” Liz finally said, her tone much calmer than before. “I’m not going to bug you about it anymore.”
“Today, you mean,” I noted.
“Yes, today.” Liz chuckled. “But I want you to know I’m here. If you want to hash it out, I can help you.”
“If there was anything to hash out, you’d be the first person I’d call.” If anyone could help me, I knew Liz would be the one.
“How’s your niece?”
I glanced up at the picture of me and Abby on my bookshelf. “She’s … good. Really good.”
Although my world had been turned upside down a year ago, Abby was in a much better place these days. Only now, Abby seemed to be getting on with her life, while mine had pretty much stalled out.
“Well, I suggest you go out, have a few beers, maybe get laid, then get some sleep, and start again tomorrow. It will come back to you, Jake. I know that.”
Laid. She wanted me to get laid.
Liz the Editor was morphing into Liz the Pimp. Nice.
As for things coming back to me, I was beginning to doubt that was the case, but I knew