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“It’s just…do you think we could be like…completely opposite of who she writes?”
“I guess it’s possible. If we’re just characters who don’t really exist outside of her books, I guess anything’s possible.”
His shoulders slumped in relief. “Thank God. Because…well, for a long time, I’ve felt…like I was being forced to be a slob.”
Now, that was interesting. “Really.”
“Yeah, it’s strange, but when Lindsey first moved in and had to clean my house, I kept thinking, why is she doing this? It’s my house. And when she was giving me all those facts about bed bugs and toilet water flying and landing on your toothbrush, I was thinking…yes! That’s totally disgusting and I need to get some alcohol and spray down the house!”
“Except, then you’d be more susceptible to setting it on fire.”
“I know,” he nodded. “But no matter how much I wanted to clean, I was a total pig. And that’s another thing! I was jacking off with her in the same room, and I was completely unapologetic about it. I mean, who does that shit? It’s so disrespectful.”
Interesting. I crossed my arms over my chest and watched him carefully. “So, you’re telling me that you’re actually a clean freak.”
“Totally! And I kept having all these disgusting feelings about being so dirty, but couldn’t figure out why I kept doing it. I thought I had a split personality disorder or something.”
“That’s totally understandable. Now that you mention it…nope, I would still impregnate Maggie just as much as I have,” I grinned.
“You’re sick,” he rolled his eyes at me. “No means no.”
“Yes, and I would listen if she actually said it. I have a feeling Maggie is just as twisted as I am.”
“Wait, does that mean that I’m still in love with Lindsey? Or will I fall in love in this…stasis and become a new man?”
“So far, everything’s been the same for me. I guess…I don’t know. We’ll have to see what happens tomorrow night and take it from there.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, though he looked a little worried about the whole thing. “I guess.”
“Don’t stress about it. After tomorrow, everything will be clearer.”
“Yeah, that’s if Hunter, Craig, and Rob actually come back from the dead. What if she sees this and decides it was the perfect way to kill off some characters?”
Shit, I hadn’t thought of that. “No, she wouldn’t…her readers would hate her.”
“They hated her when she killed off Cassie, but she had no regrets about that.”
And now that I thought about it, I wondered if Giulia would find some weird way to take her revenge on us for fighting back. This was war, after all. We were just fighting someone who only existed to us beyond the pen. And if she wrote us in, she could also write us out.
One by one until there were none of us left to fight her.
And what would happen then? She’d start another series and it wouldn’t mean a thing to her because she still had all those other books with us in them. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure about our plan.
36
GIULIA
I doctored up my tea the way I liked it and took the steaming cup into my office, setting it on my table. After checking the essentials for the day, I opened my book Playing With Fire and reread the last chapter I wrote to get back in the mood. Gabe, Chance, and Jackson were talking about the extremely loud sounds Rob and his woman made while sleeping together.
Now, I had to find a way to get all of them home and have some dramatic ending. Maybe I should kill someone. I picked up my tea and thought it over. At this point in the series, I could guess what the characters would do without really thinking about it. Readers would get bored if I kept adding the same thing over and over again. It was time for a shakeup.
I wasn’t being dramatic when I had that sit-down with Rob. As much as I wanted to let him have a win, I just wasn’t sure this woman was the one for him. Maybe he didn’t ever need a woman. After all, this woman didn’t even speak English. Rob was basically making it up as he went along, hoping what he thought she was saying was real.
So, if I was going to kill her off, I needed something really good, something that would make the readers feel bad for Rob, but also give him his moment to shine. I grinned, setting down my mug as I got to work.
I rolled to the woman sharing my bed and ran my hand down her smooth skin. She moaned when I reached her ass and continued down to the apex of her thighs. How the hell had I gotten this lucky to find a woman like this halfway around the world? And how did she keep her skin so silky smooth out here? I’d have to find her beauty regimen.
I laughed to myself as I wrote about Rob’s curiosity about her skincare products. I couldn’t picture any of these guys actually worried about the state of their skin, but that’s what made it so funny.