Work In Progress (Red Lipstick Coalition #3) - Staci Hart Page 0,6
story together. I was a perfectionist, which was part of the reason I had a stack of manuscripts that would never make it past twenty thousand words and should never see the light of day. Every day, I sat down to write. Every day, I walked away with jack shit.
I’d never had a muse, but I’d always wanted one. And today, with Amelia Hall shooting down my heroes like tin cans, I felt like she might become mine.
My thoughts finally landed on something I could give voice. “When we talked about my story, I felt inspired. It was a sense of possibility, a sense of understanding. When I think about my stories, it’s like…it’s like playing tag in the fog. The ideas are there, but the second I reach out to grab them, they’re gone. But talking to her was like a break in the clouds. I thought for a second I could see.” I took another swig. “How’s that for writer-y, Teddy?”
“Passable,” he offered.
My smile hitched up on one side. “Send her the NDA, would you?”
“Yeah, all right,” he conceded. “I think she should come here. I wanna meet her, and I don’t want any of your manuscripts emailed.”
“Sure,” I started, unsurprised by his suspicion. “Have her come to the house in the morning, if she’s around.”
Theo’s phone appeared in his hand like magic, his gaze dropping to the screen along with his attention. “I’m on it.”
My brother, jack of all trades. He was my manager, my publicist, my assistant, and a pain in my ass. He also happened to be my best friend, but I wouldn’t admit it to him, even under duress.
He wandered back toward the living room, absorbed in the slab of titanium and silicone in his hand.
“How are you really, baby?” Ma asked gently, her accent—the one I tried so hard to hide—betraying our Bronx roots.
I met her soft, dark eyes and felt my resolve crack. “I’m okay. How are you?”
She chuckled. “Oh, no. Nice try. You’re not turning it around on me.” She watched me for a beat. “You really think she can help you?”
“I do,” I answered honestly. “A new perspective will do me good. I’m one breakthrough away from everything being peachy keen.”
“I just worry,” she said, looking down at her hands where they rested on one another on the granite surface. The top hand trembled. We watched it without acknowledgment.
“I know, Ma. But I’m telling you not to. I’m gonna figure this book out and make Blackbird a dump truck full of hundred-dollar bills.”
“And you’re not gonna get in any trouble,” she added.
My smile was back, irreverent and cocksure as always. “You say that like it’s impossible to imagine.”
That earned me a laugh. “And you say that like I didn’t raise you. You and your brother were the angel and the devil, day and night. My straight arrow and my rule-breaker. I’ve never met a more stubborn kid. Or one so eager to find trouble.”
“I’d argue that trouble found me.”
“You’d argue the paint off a wall, Tommy,” she said on a chuckle. “And you’d muscle your way into a fight in a heartbeat.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault I have a sour taste for assholes.”
“Like Paulie Russo?”
My face pinched in distaste, a surge of anger rising at the mention of his name. “Paulie Russo was a stupid piece of shit who liked to make himself feel big by beating up on Jenny Costa. It’s not my fault he ran into my fist at prom.”
Her face flattened. “I’m sure Jenny appreciated that, but you almost got kicked out of school. It nearly cost you your diploma. And history repeats itself, honey. You almost lost your career because half of America thinks you’re a Nazi.”
That surge of anger roared to a tsunami in my chest at the mention of the coup de grâce of bullshit lies. “God, I will never hear the end of this, not in a hundred years. I broke a skinhead’s nose. How am I not a goddamn national treasure?”
“I know you had nothin’ to do with them. There was no way you coulda known when you drunk stumbled on them in Washington Square that they were white supremacists—”
“Half of them were in suits! It’s not like they walk around wearing swastikas.”
“I know,” she soothed.
“And I stopped to listen, wondering what they were on about. I mean, there were cops everywhere, just waiting for them to step outta line. I shoulda known to keep walking.”