Sadie, Elijah, and Bronte had planned to stay with us for a week, but two days ago, both Elijah and Marcus had gotten a call from their cousin, Archer, in Texas. Although we didn’t know what’d happened, we’d helped them pack to go and help him with whatever the problem was. Weirdly enough, the day before it, Remy had also gotten a call that had him packing and heading to Kissimmee without telling anyone why.
This left just us women to hold down the fort, and we were doing that with a beer and the book.
Getting into the hot tub, I waited for them both to get comfortable.
“Well? What did you think?” Santana suddenly burst out.
I took a mouthful of my beer, but Sadie was free to answer, coming out with, “Child, who hurt you?” and making Santana’s head jerk.
“Oh, God, was it awful?”
“No, no, not at all. I couldn’t put it down,” Sadie told her. “But I was caught up in the romance between them, and then there were people getting stabbed through the eye, a body being found in the trunk of their car, or that guy rolling the dice and when he throws it an eyeball rolls with them…” she made a gagging noise.
“I wasn’t expecting it. Maybe some angst and killing, but, girl, you write in a way I could picture it like it was right in front of me.”
And that was the most accurate description of Santana’s writing possible. She had a gift, one that I hadn’t expected when she’d first told us she was an author.
Chewing nervously on her lip, a move I’d come to expect from her now, she looked between the two of us. “So, it wasn’t good?”
I gaped at her incredulously. “You mean you don’t actually know how good you are?”
“I just write what comes to me. A lot of the time, I forget half of what I’ve written, so when I apply the edits after they come back to me, it’s like reading I’m it for the first time,” she told us softly. “But I always feel a bit down afterward because I’m over-analyzing what people are going to think about the book and plot.”
“Well, I can’t speak for Sadie, but I have some brutally honest feedback about the plot, the book as a whole, the characters, and your writing. Are you ready?”
Looking up, Santana nodded, but I could see she was bracing for impact. “I was thinking the same way as Sadie when I opened the book, expecting a romance with a twist of angst and a whiff of blood.” At the description, Santana chuckled as Sadie snorted.
“But I got hooked on the characters in the first chapter, even though they hadn’t even met yet. There was something broken about Lucas that just hit me in the feels. And then when we met Lora-Lee in the second chapter, she was the polar opposite.” I shook my head, still amazed by how addictive it’d all been to read.
“Girl, I kept stopping work to read another chapter. I’d allow myself two hours of working—I even set the timer on my phone—and I also made an excuse to get off a Zoom meeting so I could get back to it. I’ve never done that with a book in my life.”
“What she said, except I don’t do Zoom meetings,” Sadie interrupted, then looked to the side thoughtfully. “I do FaceTime, though, but that’s not a meeting. It can be a pain in the arse if it’s my brother or sister, sometimes even Nan and Dad, but I wouldn’t call it a meeting. But if we cut out the whole Zoom thing from what Addy just said, it’s a matchy-matchy.”
There was a brief pause, then she mumbled, “Except I used parenting as my time filler. It’s the first time I’ve begged Bronte to have a flipping nap. I swear she was doing it on purpose.”
A giggle burst out of Santana at the pout on Sadie’s face, and it wasn’t a fake one either. No, our new friend was definitely sulking over what’d happened.
“When does the book come out?”
At my question, Santana’s eyes widened. “In a month. We’d planned for it to be earlier, but when I looked at who was publishing when and discussed it with my agent, we decided next month would be better.”
“Well, I’d never read a real thriller romance book before, and now I’m thinking I’ve missed out. They’re odd bedfellows, really, but they went together really well.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, her cheeks heating with the praise.
“But lemme just add, that scene with the dice and eyeball Sadie mentioned? Holy shit, I didn’t expect that at all, and when I thought about it later that night, I freaked out.” I burst out laughing at the memory of how I’d had to fall asleep with the pillow over my eyes because I figured it’d protect them if someone broke in.