The Boy Who Has No Faith (Soulless 5)

“Was he one of your clients?”

“No. But I’m a fan.”

“Have you ever considered being a writer yourself?”

I released a laugh before I took a drink.

“I’m being serious. You’re clearly passionate about it.”

“Everyone wants to be a writer. But you either are one or you aren’t…and I’m not.” I drank from my glass again. “What made you write your first book?”

He turned back to his beer and stared down the neck of the bottle before he took a drink. “Not sure. I had the idea and just sat down and wrote it. I submitted it to publishers with the assumption it would never make it to print.”

He was totally oblivious to his talent.

“Then they wanted another…and another…and I just kept going. But then I left NASA and started my own company, and my time was spread thinner and thinner. Now, I barely have time to do anything besides work.”

“I feel like you have a little bit more time than you used to.”

He nodded. “I do…because of you.” He raised his head and looked at me.

Just the acknowledgment was better than any thank-you I could ever get. “Do you ever do book signings or anything?”

His repulsed reaction was a sufficient answer, so he didn’t even need to say anything.

“May I ask why?”

“You can figure it out, Emerson. I don’t like people.”

“That’s obviously not true because you wouldn’t work so hard if you didn’t. What I think you mean to say is, it’s difficult for you to be around a lot of people at once.”

He shook his head. “It’s not for me.”

“Is it social anxiety?”

“I don’t get anxiety. I just…don’t like it. You have these people lining up to meet you, and they’ve read every word on every page like the bible. They know the story better than you do, so their expectations are so high, and of course, I’m a total disappointment, so they’re disappointed… And it’s just a big-ass disappointment.”

My lips softened into a smile.

He glanced at my reaction. “What?”

“It’s not that you don’t care. You care too much…like you do with everything else.”

He shook his head and drank his beer. “You’ve giving me more credit than I deserve.”

“No, Derek. You deserve every ounce of that credit.” He had a big heart underneath that coldness. He kept it hidden away because it was too soft, too kind. Whenever he let it live outside his body, it was trashed by people who didn’t know how to take care of it. It was easier to pretend not to care at all. This man was too soft for this world, and the cruelty broke him. “When Cleo offered me the job, it took some time to convince me, and the money was the biggest reason I agreed to leave a job I already enjoyed. But helping you has been so rewarding that the money doesn’t matter anymore. I’d do it for much less.”

He stared at his beer like he couldn’t meet my gaze. My words were just too raw for him. “I’m surprised you would say that…after the way I’ve treated you.”

“I see all of you—and the good outweighs the bad.”

He still didn’t look at me. “And you should never tell your boss you’d be willing to take a pay cut.”

I grinned at his joke. “You’re too nice to ever try.”

He drank from his beer again, as if to erase what I said.

“Can I ask what happened with Fleur? Your personal life is none of my business, so if you don’t want to share, I won’t be offended. You aren’t obligated.”

There was a long pause, a super-long pause, like he needed the time to really think of his answer before he spoke. “I ended it. For good, this time.” He stared at the opposite wall. It used to be blank, but now it held a painting I’d picked out for him. “It was one of those on-again, off-again type of relationships. It was never really a relationship at all, because I told her repeatedly I’m not the monogamous type, but we had such a volatile physical relationship that it just kept happening…even though I find no merit in her as a person.”

I’d been in that position before, and I got my heart broken. Except, I wasn’t some psycho bitch.

“I’m sorry about the way she treated you.”

“You don’t need to apologize. You aren’t responsible for what other people do.”

“But it’s humiliating that I was involved with a person like that all, even if she was just some woman I was sleeping with.” His beer was empty, so he left it on the table and retrieved another before he sat down. “The reason I was so pissed off today was because last night I realized she had taken my phone when I was asleep and changed the settings so she could see my phone’s location at all times.”