eyes flicked to the ceiling.
“That’s all I was after,” she said as she stood, “your consideration.”
She had no idea how much she’d been considered since I met her.
“If we do this,” I started, “I’ll need you in the office daily, if the shop can manage without you.”
Her face quirked in thought. “Four days? I think I need at least one in-house.”
I nodded once. “I’ll have an answer for you tomorrow. No need to come in—I’ll be in touch.”
She smiled, nodding once right back at me before turning to leave.
And I watched her go, wondering if my sister would praise or pummel me for agreeing to Laney’s terms.
Because we all knew I already had.
11
Imitation Superhero
LANEY
I was on fire.
Music played at Wasted Words the following evening, and I sat at a booth in the bar where I’d been for several hours, working on the campaign I wanted to pitch to the team. If Darcy would just give the green light already. He’d promised me an answer today, but today was very nearly over, and I’d heard nothing.
I didn’t know what had possessed me to challenge him yesterday. Maybe Cam should have told me she’d fire me if I didn’t do what Liam said. But the freedom of knowing there would be no consequences had made me unreasonably bold. And now all I wanted to do in the whole wide world was prove him wrong. I wanted to best him so badly, something in me crackled like electricity at the thought of winning.
I’d been in a design hole for hours, a hyperfocused vacuum of creation. When I looked up, my beer had been replaced again without my noticing Greg approach, so I just gave him a wave across the bar and got back in it.
Darcy had been right about the campaign I’d proposed—it was too vague, and the average joe didn’t know who Rochester was—but I had a new idea, one that elevated the campaign to a height he would take seriously. The campaign would be similar to what I’d already come up with, but rather than the long, clunky tagline, I’d tightened it up to this slogan: Meet Your Next _____. We could use it for everything. Meet your next book. Meet your next superhero. Assassin. Zombie slayer. Duke. Viking. Sports stud. And the best part? It worked for both the bookshop and the mixer. Not only could we use words like first date, but even the other illustrations were relevant. There were mixers when somebody could meet a zombie slayer or assassin or duke. It was the multitool of ads. I could have my cake, eat my cake, and stuff the cake in Liam’s face when he lost.
Really, it couldn’t have been more perfect. I’d been working on illustrating people who resembled famous comic heroes and heroines without infringing copyright. Like a faceless girl in a tank and cargo bootie shorts, with a long braid hanging over her shoulder and a gun strapped to her thigh. In her hand was a grappling hook. Everybody knew who she was with treasure hunter in the blank rather than Tomb Raider. Thor, he was easy too, being a Norse god and all. The superheroes were hard, though. I couldn’t exactly draw Batman and expect to get away with it, but with some creative gymnastics, I had all kinds of options. Tomorrow, I’d start on the romance side. I just had to finish the Not-Elektra assassin I was working on, and I could pack it up and head home before the bar started to get busy.
I was deeply entrenched in drawing Not-Elektra’s hair when someone slipped into the booth across from me. Bleary-eyed, I looked up, smiling when I saw Wyatt.
“Ooh, fries,” he said, reaching for the mostly empty basket.
“Ew, those are cold.”
He popped one in his mouth and shrugged. “Still good. Mmm. Salty.” Dusting off his hands, he said, “Aren’t you going to ask why I’m here?” His smile tugged up on one side.
“Wyatt!” I said with dramatic flair. “Whatever are you doing here?”
“Glad you asked. I knew you’d been here through what should have been dinner and figured you needed to be fed something more nutritious than cold fries.”
“Well, they weren’t cold an hour ago.”
“So I was thinking we should get shawarma.”
I laughed. “The healthy choice.”
“I was going to suggest pizza, but we had that on our last date.”
“Date, huh?” I asked, amused. “The way I remember, we ate pizza on the walk to my place, talked on the stoop, and you wouldn’t