Better Than People (Garnet Run 1)

“Only, they thought it would have an older market than our kids’ books and they wanted to pair Davis with an artist who does middle grade books. One who’s a bigger deal than me. And that fucker agreed. Well—” Jack cut a look at Simon, suspicious and mocking. “He said his agent agreed and it was a done deal before he could get me on board, but I know that’s bullshit.”

Simon’s heart ached. “Fuck,” he breathed.

“Yeah, cheers,” Jack said, toasting him with his empty coffee mug.

Simon raised his eyebrows to say, What happened next?

“I called him and he dodged me for days. Finally I got him on the phone and I put it to him straight. I said that I’d told him my idea and he’d stolen it. He acted like I was nuts. Said he thought I’d meant for us to work on it together. That he knew I couldn’t’ve intended to do it myself since I wasn’t a writer, so of course he’d thought I wanted to collaborate. And it was out of his control that the publisher had replaced me.” Jack shook his head. “Fucker.”

Simon asked, “What’d you do?” A flush of relief went through him when the words came out.

Jack’s sigh seemed to deflate him. Mayonnaise chose that moment of weakness to strike, pouncing on his hand and sinking playful teeth into his wrist. He lifted her with one hand and cuddled her against his chest where she started purring immediately.

“Nothing.”

“Huh?”

“What could I do? I told him to go fuck himself. That he was a greedy liar and he knew exactly what he’d done. I called our editor and explained what had happened but she wasn’t the one who’d signed the book. She said that I could sue Davis, but what the fuck. Who sues someone? Whatever. Probably I couldn’t have written it anyway.”

“But—but it’s your story! About you and your brother!” Simon said, outrage loosening his tongue.

“Yeah. Sucks. And now every time I go to draw it just reminds me of that. Of Davis. Thought he was my friend, man. Known the guy ten years. Guess trusting people is for suckers.”

Jack looked so sad, so lost, that Simon desperately wanted to disagree. To say something that would comfort Jack. But what could he say? He had no experience trusting people. No experience at all.

Jack’s broad shoulders were slumped, his full mouth pulled into a scowl. He was cradling Mayonnaise to him like the cat was all he had to hold on to in the whole world, and Simon couldn’t stand to see him like that.

Can I see your art? Simon typed, and showed Jack his phone.

Jack blinked at him. “You’d want to?”

Simon nodded and, in an act of bravery he couldn’t quite account for, reached out a hand and stroked Mayonnaise’s soft ears where they rested against Jack’s stomach. His heart trip-hammered, Mayonnaise purred, and Jack said, “Okay.”

Resentful at being displaced when Jack dragged himself to his feet, Mayonnaise scampered off, and Simon followed Jack through the living room where the pack sat and lay in various adorable configurations, and to a door that had always been resolutely closed when Simon had been in the house. He’d assumed it was Jack’s bedroom, thought maybe the animals weren’t allowed in there, but when they reached it, he looked to the right and saw a door open onto what was clearly the bedroom.

A huge, wooden four-poster bed was covered with a navy blue wool blanket on which Puddles cuddled with a cat Simon hadn’t seen before.

“That’s Louis,” Jack said about the plump black and gray cat with wide green eyes and sweet, flicky tail. “He and Puddles are in love.”

Before Simon could follow up on that, Jack opened the studio door. He turned, blocking the doorway, with the first hint of uncertainty Simon had seen from him.

“Just, um. It’s not real art, you know? Just...whatever. Come in.”

The room was small and smelled of wood and paper and something vaguely metallic that Simon assumed was ink. It was a bit musty, as if from disuse, but midday sunlight streamed in through the three large windows that made up the back wall, bathing the wood floor, with its collage of rugs and papers, in a cheery yellow glow.

There were sketches and torn-out bits pinned all over one wall and a huge whiteboard hung on the other, broken into squares like a storyboard. A bookshelf on the third wall showed the thin spines of comics and picture books and thicker, battered spines of art books.

Jack’s drawing table was a huge slab of wood resting on two sawhorses in the spill of light. Simon walked to it slowly, giving Jack time to stop him. Sitting on the far edge of the table, a thin layer of dust gilding their covers, were three hardcover books, with stories by Davis Snyder and illustrations by Jack Matheson.