Page 9 of Pick Me
Piper’s unsmiling face on the Zoom call made me jittery, because I wasn’t great at lying. I felt like she could see my duplicity
as I faked enthusiasm for Austin and Abby’s story.
I did love them—I loved all the characters in my books—but I still couldn’t connect with them, which meant our sexy little threesome was stuck on the
front porch.
Luckily, I was alone in the apartment, so Meredith couldn’t critique my on-screen performance. She was back at Harmony, teaching
despite the giant, clunky boot.
“So when do you think you’ll be able to get some pages to me?” Piper asked. She took her black-rimmed glasses off to wipe
the lenses, which made her face look like an unfinished painting. The Superman/Clark Kent phenomenon was real, because I could
only see Piper as my editor when she had her glasses on. With them off, she looked as kindly as a kindergarten teacher, all
swoopy bun and pink cheeks. But once the glasses went back on, business .
“I’m getting there.” I clumsily sidestepped the question.
I’d never missed a deadline or questioned an edit in all my years of working with Liaison, which made me assume that I had
a bank of goodwill I could withdraw from when necessary. Piper’s expression suggested otherwise.
“Brooke, I need a firm date,” she said, her clipped accent making it sound like an order. “We can give you a little wiggle room on the first 10K but only if it doesn’t alter your final due date.”
Liaison ran on efficiency. The category romance world was simultaneously ravenous and oversaturated, so in order to capitalize
on their readership, Liaison needed to churn out books at a breakneck speed. Missing a writing deadline could push a book’s
release date back, and a lapse meant that our readers might wander off to find a horseback HEA from a different publisher
and leave us in the dust.
Not only that, but my output directly impacted the rest of the team. Beta readers, line edits, the cover design, foreign translations,
social media content—all of it was mapped out nearly to the hour on Pro Depot, our project management platform. I was used
to seeing green next to my name, not an angry bloodred.
“I can get something to you by the tenth,” I replied before I could second-guess if it was the truth.
I padded in what I hoped was enough extra time past my actual deadline, banking on the fact that I could muster up a thousand
words a day. My eyes landed on the paddle and ball sitting on the edge of the coffee table, where I left them after my lesson.
Piper sighed and leaned slightly off-screen to write something down. “Okay, I suppose we have to make that work.”
“I’m so sorry; I feel terrible about the delay,” I said in a rush. I decided that the best course of action was honesty after
never venturing much past the “How was your weekend?” version of small talk. “I’ve just been in a bad place, uh, mentally
lately. Writing has been really hard for me.”
We were colleagues a couple of time zones apart, not friends, so exposing myself felt awkward. I braced for her no-nonsense “keep calm and carry on” response.
“Oh, Brooke. I’m very sorry to hear that. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I paused to process, because Piper’s expression had transformed from taskmaster to maternal concern.
“I thought I could power through.” I shrugged. “I’ve never dealt with writer’s block before, and I just assumed that I’d get
back to normal once...”
Once my heart healed.
“Once I rediscovered my muse,” I finished. “I’m getting there; it’s just been bumpy.”
“I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been struggling. In any other scenario, we’d make adjustments to account for you needing time,”
Piper explained. “But this book is already well underway and to make major changes now will have a cascading effect on the
rest of the timeline.”
“Of course,” I said quickly. “I totally understand.”
“Related, there’s something else I wanted to address on this call in addition to your current timetable.”
I swallowed hard and tried to keep my face expressionless as I waited for what had to be a bombshell. My hands went clammy.
“I recognize the timing isn’t ideal considering you’re having a rough go right now, but we’re wondering if it would be possible
for you to write books two and three in this series at the same time, once you finish this one?” Piper asked. “We’re looking
to release them back-to-back.”
My mouth dropped open. Here I was, staring into an endless white space that was my current output, and the thought of trying to write two more books in my state of mind felt like diving headfirst into that vast unknown.
“There’s no pressure to give me an answer now,” she continued. “And if it’s not possible for you, we can assign one or both
to Janet Li. She’s looking to transition out of mafia romance.”
I snapped my mouth shut. I knew that I wasn’t the only Dakota Sinclair—the pen name had been churning out books for close
to ten years—but for the past couple, I’d been the only contracted version of her. I still needed to find my way as Brooke
Murphy, writer, but for now I felt comfortable living in Dakota’s skin.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to share her with another writer, but I also didn’t know if I had the inspo to churn out three back-to-back, no-breathing-room cowboy romances given my current output.
Plus, if I was being totally honest with myself... I was sort of tired of writing side plots about sick cows, irrigation
issues, and land disputes. I felt myself yearning for a world where the stakes were different. Bigger and less tied to scary
real-world shit like climate change and predatory rancher billionaires.
But Dakota was my port in the very unpredictable storm that was the publishing industry. I wanted to write, I needed to write, and doing it as Dakota was the only way my work got out there. And without Liaison pushing me, well, I worried
that I’d stop writing fiction altogether.
“Wow, that’s quite a shift in production. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to give that some thought?” I asked.
“Of course,” Piper said. “We’re roughing out the calendar now, so just keep an eye on Depot as we firm up the dates.
” She paused. “We plan to release them in quick succession no matter what, so please don’t feel pressure if it’s not going to work for you.
We’d love to have you write them, but we understand if it’s too much. ”
I’m sure she didn’t mean for it to sound like a threat. She probably thought that the fact that they had a plan B would take
the pressure off me, but all I heard was You’re replaceable .
“Okay,” I said in my cheeriest voice. “I’ll get back to you either way soon. And I promise you’ll get some Austin and Abby
vibes from me in a week. I have a good feeling.”
My gaze landed on the pickleball paddle again.
“Lovely,” Piper replied. “Looking forward to it. Talk soon, ta .”
Instead of stewing about the Liaison drama, I felt drawn to grab the paddle and ball. A couple of meditative bounces would
be a good energy shift from the tension of the call to the stress of the blank page.
Of course, I managed two bounces before the ball fell off my paddle and rolled away. I dropped to my knees to retrieve it
from under the futon. A text sounded out from my back pocket when I was contorted with my arm stretched out and my ass in
the air.
It was Owen, like he could sense my sorry attempt at coordination.
Hey. Good session this morning. Don’t forget to practice.
I held up the paddle, snapped a pic of it with my bookshelf fuzzy in the background, and sent it to him.
Nice. And a color-coded bookshelf? Scared of you. I looked up your name and couldn’t find any of your books. Where are they available?
I usually didn’t tell people about Dakota, seeing as I was contractually bound to keep it a secret, but Owen didn’t strike
me as the type to out me on a Goodreads forum.
I write as Dakota Sinclair. Shh, don’t tell!
A pen name, got it. Which one should I read first?
I frowned at my phone. He was serious about reading one of my books?
Definitely The Hart Ranch Brothers Book One; Rogue Cowboy.
I blushed when I remembered the extended sixty-nine scene after Trent and Eliza’s midnight skinny-dip. How was I going to
look him in the eye once he knew I’d written the phrase “come on my tongue, you sweet girl”?
Done. See you Sunday.
I put my phone down and picked up the paddle, deciding that I’d keep practicing until I was able to do ten bounces in a row.
Twenty minutes later, I was a WIP that made it to twelve.