The Write Stuff (Write Stuff 1)

"Don't forget about the bra," she deadpanned, blatantly eyeing my chest.

Now that I was soaking wet from cold water, I may as well have not been wearing a shirt. There wasn't much of my bosom left to the imagination. "I'm going to murder you in your sleep," I said, folding my arms across my chest. Her quiet whispers turned into hard laughter. I knew it was time to throw in the towel, or in my case, my wet T-shirt.

My departure was as awkward as my arrival had been, but I didn't allow myself to dwell on my performance until I was on my way home. Natasha and Alec had both been gracious, though I could tell they were amused. I groaned out loud in my jeep as I thought about my nipple peepshow. I could have used a Scooby-Doo do-over for the whole morning.

At least Severus was happy to see me when I got home. He wouldn't judge me for my shameful behavior.

"It wasn't my finest moment," I muttered to him as I headed for my bathroom.

Thirty minutes later, I was showered, had squeaky clean teeth, and was dressed in clothes that were actually acceptable to wear in public. Of course, that didn't mean I had anywhere to go or anything in particular to do. My writing zone had fled somewhere between my fluorescent orange smile and my dip in the ocean. Any other time I would have called Olivia to hang out during the brief respite between writing marathon sessions, but I was still pissed at her.

Instead, I decided to give my apartment the kind of cleaning it deserved. I wasn't an overly messy person, but I was a stacker. Rather than put things away, I had a tendency to build small piles. It was mostly junk mail, magazines and books. Only when the piles began to take up too much counter space would I shove things in drawers or closets to get them out of sight. At least cleaning up gave me an excuse to work off my nervous energy. I set to work on my linen closet, which was where many of my stacks ended up. My towels and sheets took up the first three shelves, while games and any of the textbooks I'd been too lazy to sell back to the college bookstore sat on the bottom two shelves.

Most of the books spilled out onto the floor when I opened the door because of my typical uneven stacking method. Once again, I debated taking them to the campus bookstore, but from what I'd heard, they didn't pay you squat anyway. I shoved them back into the closet again, figuring it wouldn't be worth my time and effort.

After the linen closet, I moved to the kitchen. I usually ate takeout more often than I cooked for myself, but the kitchen still remained the drop-off point for everything I brought into the house. Scattered within the mounds of junk mail and various types of book swag I'd collected, I found some bills that needed to be taken care of.

Sliding into one of the high back barstools at my counter, I absentmindedly reorganized the bowl of fruit Olivia had forced on me a couple weeks ago. She had convinced herself that if she placed it within sight, I would be compelled to ignore my junk food in lieu of eating an orange or banana. The untouched fruit now looked even less appealing covered in fuzz. Not to mention the smell. I tried to tell her she was wasting her money, but Olivia was as stubborn as I was. It was a vicious cycle. Eventually one of us was bound to break. Better her than me.

I sat the empty bowl on the counter after dumping the fruit in the trash can. My thoughts drifted to my short time at the beach as I attempted to categorize what had happened earlier. There was no excuse for the way I acted. I'd always been a bit of a "shy mouse" as Olivia liked to say, but I was capable of acting like a normal human in social circumstances. I'd been around my fair share of good-looking guys. Hell, I sat behind Chip Price in English class my entire junior year in high school wrapped in a cologne haze and waiting for him to turn around to flash me one of his panty-dropping grins. So what if the only time he ever really turned around was to hand back papers from the teacher? What mattered was how each and every one of those grins made me feel special and caused my toes to curl.

Today, though, was a different story. Alec was drop-dead gorgeous, and his abs should be put on display in some sex god museum, but I wrote romance for crap's sake. I could describe a sex scene in a way that would make a biker blush, but throw me in a situation with a hot guy, and I acted like I'd found my first crush. One thing was certain: at twenty-two I was way past the age for a schoolgirl crush.

The thoughts continued to filter through my head as I sat at the counter in limbo. I knew I needed to get back to writing. Wicked Lovely was supposed to release at the end of next month, and I still had another twenty thousand words to wrap up the story. My editor was expecting the manuscript in two weeks, which meant I really had no time to mess around. I just couldn't get my mind into writing mode again today. I debated spending some time on Facebook and Twitter, but even that held little appeal. Facebook especially was a complete time suck. I knew from previous experience that a minute would turn into five minutes, which would slide easily into an hour.

I grabbed my phone and debated asking Siri for advice on where to stash a body before deciding I'd been mad at Olivia long enough. That was how our friendship worked. Neither of us had ever been able to stay mad at one another for longer than an hour or two. Right now I needed the sanity of my friend to show me how ridiculous I was being, so I tapped the screen to dial her number.

Olivia answered on the first ring, like she had been expecting me to call. "Took you long enough."

I rolled my eyes. Nothing like being predictable. "Psh, you're lucky you're not buried in some swamp. How could you do that to me?"

Her laugh fluttered through the phone. "How was I supposed to know you'd show up looking like one of those bad Wal-Mart customer pictures people post on Facebook? Believe me, if I would have known that was the look you were going for, I would have shielded the eyes of the kids on the beach. That was a train wreck."

"Screw you, whore. That's your last warning." I debated hanging up. Maybe I didn't need her after all.

"Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said swiftly. "I'm just teasing. Come on, don't be a sourpuss. I'll treat you to lunch," she cajoled. "I found a new Mexican restaurant I want us to try."

"Another one?" Olivia was on a perpetual quest to find a decent Mexican restaurant in central Florida. Every month or so, she'd stumble across a new one. Personally, I didn't think any of the previous restaurants had been that bad, but she deemed them all crap. Olivia had lived in California at one time and boasted that you didn't know good Mexican food until you'd tried some of the restaurants just north of the border.

"I'm bound and determined to find a place that makes authentic-tasting taquitos. Not something you pulled out of your freezer and nuked," she said, taking a dig at me. It was common knowledge between us that I would starve if not for my microwave and my obsession with cereal. If something couldn't be nuked or poured into a bowl with milk, it didn't belong in my kitchen. Olivia liked to tease that if I ever made it big with my writing, the first thing I should do is hire a cook. It was a nice pipe dream. I wasn't exactly killing it with my books, but the income had already far exceeded what I ever thought I would make. When I started college, I knew I wanted an English degree. I had harbored hopes that it would be a springboard to nurturing my love of writing, but realistically I had planned to use the degree to become a teacher. Now in my final year of school, I was beginning to think maybe this writing thing could become permanent. Maybe I would never make enough to hire my own cook, but I would like to travel the world someday. Truthfully, just the idea that I was doing what I loved and that I was able to do it full-time was all I could ever ask for. I was living my dream at twenty-two. No one needed to tell me how lucky I was.

Chapter Three

Olivia was already halfway into a margarita when I joined her for lunch an hour later.

"Thanks for waiting for me," I joked, pulling on my hoodie. It was a gazillion degrees outside, but the restaurant had the air inside blasting at an arctic level. Not that I would complain. I'd rather be cold than sweat my ass off, but living in Florida all my life had taught me to bring a jacket or sweater anytime I ate out.

Olivia slurped up the last of her strawberry-flavored drink. "Never fear. I plan on ordering another. After this morning, I think we could both use a few." >"Whatever, skank. I tried to tell you I couldn't come, but you freaking said you needed me, like right now," I said, mocking her desperate tone from our phone conversation earlier.

"I didn't mean you couldn't take two minutes to change your clothes."

I held up my hand, stopping her before she could say another word. "Just remember, paybacks are an uberbitch." I tried to dust off and smooth out my clothes, but the attempt was futile. The only thing that would improve my appearance at the moment would be a genie popping out of a magic lamp.

Looking around, I noticed every female eye on the beach was still glued to the man candy show. For good reason. He was pure sex on a damn lollipop stick. Water glistened and rolled down his lean, muscular body in a way that I would have believed had been Photoshopped if I wasn't seeing it with my own eyes.

Unfortunately, Mr. Sex on a Stick took full notice of my appearance, but not for the reasons I would have preferred. Messy clothes or windblown hair would have been better than why his eyes had momentarily fixated on my chest. A slight gust of wind had blown across the beach at just the right angle, cluing me in that I had forgotten to put on a bra before leaving my apartment.

Yep, I was going to bury Olivia in a shallow grave. I wished I hadn't left my phone in the jeep because I would have asked Siri where the best place was to dump Olivia's body. Siri would help. Siri would have never led me blind into an embarrassing situation like this.