Page 63 of Role Play (Off the Books #1)

Back downstairs, I grab my coat and pull on my fuzzy Muk Luks. “A quick walk,” I tell my father, stepping out into the night.

The November air is crisp and sharp, filling my lungs with a bracing chill. The streets of the West Village are quieter than usual, most windows darkened, though a few still glow with warm light. Our footsteps echo on the damp pavement, a steady rhythm in the night silence.

“Where’s Forrest tonight?” Dad asks after we’ve walked half a block.

I tighten my coat around me, the cold penetrating despite the wool. “Working.”

“Does he often work late?” Suspicion lines his tone.

“Why?” I mutter, preparing myself for the worst.

“I’ve warmed up to the idea of you not living alone.

I thought it was too quick to move in together, but, on the other hand, it’s nice to know my little girl is being protected.

” Dad awkwardly crosses his arms and pats his shoulders.

“He’s a strong-looking guy. Could probably fight off an intruder. ”

I’m sure he’s expecting a witty, Sora response. But I’m not in the mood for a multitude of reasons. “Probably,” I mumble.

He sighs, the sound forming a small cloud in the frigid air. “I owe you an apology, Sora.”

I nearly trip on an uneven piece of sidewalk. In twenty-seven years, I’ve heard my father apologize maybe three times, and never with much sincerity.

“For dinner the other night?” I ask, trying to keep my voice casual. “It’s fine?—”

“No, it’s not fine.” He stops walking, turning to face me under the glow of a streetlamp. Its light casts deep shadows across his face, highlighting the wrinkles I hadn’t noticed before. “And it’s not just about dinner. It’s about everything.”

A dog barks in the distance. Somewhere a car alarm goes off, then falls silent again. The city breathes around us, alive even in the late hours.

“I’ve been a terrible father in a lot of ways,” he continues, his voice rougher than usual. “But the way I’ve treated your writing, your career…that’s been inexcusable.”

“Dad—”

“Let me finish.” His eyes hold a type of shame I’ve never seen before. “I’ve been telling myself I was protecting you. That I was being tough because the world is tough, and you needed to be prepared.” He shakes his head slowly. “But that was a lie. I was projecting my own fears onto you.”

We resume walking, our pace slow, measured. A gust of wind sends dead leaves into a tango across the sidewalk, and I shove my hands into the pockets of my peacoat, which is starting to feel paper-thin against the glacial evening.

“What fears?” I ask, genuinely curious. “You’re J.P. Cooper. You’re successful, desired, respected, untouchable?—”

“Depressed,” he interrupts, the confession hanging low and heavy between us.

“Every single day. I act like I’m immune to all the painful parts of being an author, but it’s why I was so reclusive when you were growing up.

I was emotionally tortured, constantly at the mercy of reader expectations, the pressure of providing for our family, the feeling that I was a failure every day. ”

I’m stunned into silence. This is the man whose confidence I’ve envied my entire life, whose certainty seemed unshakable.

“The truth is,” he continues, “my apathy was a shield. In reality, every criticism felt like a knife. Every review, every sales report, every comparison to other authors—they all cut brutally deep. I built this persona, because I had to. You’re either the king of the rock, or you’ll get torn apart limb from limb by the hyenas.

I was never brave enough to let the world see how vulnerable I really was… But you are.”

“What?”

“I read your book— Lovely .”

I halt. The fiery fear consumes me head to toe. My most daunting critic of all finally read my book and I can collapse from the anxiety. Because Dad’s opinion…means everything .

I immediately get defensive. “Look, I’ll be the first to say it—I was on a deadline. It was admittedly a little rushed. And there’s a part two coming that’ll fill in a lot of the gaps from his perspective. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but?—”

“It took me a few chapters to recognize the story,” he cuts in. “It sounded so familiar, for a moment I was worried you ripped off some Lifetime movie I’d seen years ago?—”

“ Hey !” I bark out. “Rude.”

“But then I realized why I knew it.”

We lock gazes, and it’s clear. Dad knows the secret about this book that no one else does.

Every time I tell people what Lovely is about, I tell them it’s a story about high school sweethearts who reconnect years later.

A second-chance story. A promise of hope.

Never once did I admit out loud that it’s Mom and Dad’s story.

Dad pulls my book out of the brown paper bag.

It’s worn and dog-eared. The pages are bent and the cover has a coffee ring stain on it.

Basically Dad has committed every cardinal sin in the book girlies’ manifesto.

But it’s proof. He read it. From the state of the book, it looks like he obsessed over it.

He puts the book into my hands, which teeters precariously because I’m still frozen in shock, my hands simply shelves attached to the wall of my body. Reaching back into the bag, he pulls out a black Sharpie. “I wanted to get the author’s signature.”

He spins around and hunches over, patting his shoulder, instructing me to use his back as my signing table. “Make it out to J.P. Cooper—not ‘Dad.’ Colleague to colleague.”

I sniffle as I uncap the pen, my hand trembling so much I know my signature is going to come out a squiggle. After opening the weathered book to the title page, I rest it against Dad’s back, trying to savor what feels like the most monumental moment of my author life.

“One more thing,” he says, right as the black ink dots the title page. I rip the pen away.

“What?”

“Sign it with your full name. Sora Cho-Cooper.”

“Okay,” I croak out. Just as I suspected, my signature comes out an ineligible scribble. Hands shaking from the cold and the magnitude of the moment, it’s the best I can do. “Done,” I tell him before he spins around. I hand the book back.

“Thank you,” he says, studying my signature, pride glazing his cold, red cheeks.

“I can get you a better copy,” I offer. “You massacred that.”

He shakes his head. “No, thank you. I have notes in the margin I want to revisit.”

I nod, pressing my frigid lipsicles together in a smile.

The silence between us is hell-raisingly loud, bursting with all the broken promises, lost moments, and missed opportunities.

We seem to relive them all at once in the chilly quiet.

And then word by word, we rewrite our history.

An unspoken understanding that from now on, things are going to be different.

“You said there’s a book two?” Dad asks, lifting his bushy brows.

“Yeah. From the hero’s perspective.” I shrug.

“I got it back from the editor, and she seemed unamused. I still have to go through her edits, format the book, and ask the cover designer to finalize the files. I’m supposed to publish it by December, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to. I can’t bear to see it fail.”

He gestures forward and we continue to walk as we talk, reaching a small park, deserted at this hour.

A single swing moves slightly in the breeze, chains creaking.

Dad leads me to a bench, and we sit side by side, breathing like dragons, our breath forming ephemeral white puffs of smoke in the midnight air.

“Can I give you some advice? Author to author?”

“Sure. I’ve only been begging for four years, but better excruciatingly late than never.”

He rolls his eyes, and it comforts me. Like his grumbly annoyance is chicken soup straight to my soul.

“A story can’t fail. It exists, so it did its job.

Don’t fear the criticism. It’s coming, Sora.

It’s as guaranteed as the sunrise and sunset each day.

But it means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

If you don’t want to publish your story because you feel it isn’t quite right, or you didn’t get to say what you wanted to, delay it.

Take your time. Experience every grisly part of being an author—the writing, the rewriting, overcoming doubt, fear, and shame.

You have to let it all in, and give it room to breathe.

Every single painful, harrowing part of this experience is necessary .

The best stories are written from broken places. ”

I smirk at him. “Broken places? Is that why you kill off all your main characters?” I may not have read Dad’s books. But I’ve read his glowing reviews.

He smiles. “You leave fantasy to the fantasy authors. Death is a necessary part of life. But what I meant is when you start a story from a broken place, it has a funny way of repairing your heart. The best stories come from pain, because they are intended to heal, Sora. That’s the whole point of writing— to heal something . ”

I stare at him, this man I’ve spent my life idolizing and resenting in equal measure, suddenly seeing him through new eyes. Behind the impenetrable walls was a broken man, who wrote to mend all the wounds the world gave him.

My eyes water, washing my lashes with tears. “Thank you, Dad. That’s all I ever wanted from you.”

“I tried for so long to protect you from the hell I went through,” he says, his voice softer now, more tender. “But I realize now the best way to protect you isn’t to keep you from the fire. It’s to stand in the fire with you.”

He hands me the book I signed and taps the cover. “This is from your mom’s perspective. And the second one is supposed to be from mine?”

A little embarrassed at his revelation, my answer is small. “Sort of.”

“Do you have any idea how hard this was to read? All my mistakes documented on the page.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. It’s just fiction, and I was convinced you’d never read it?—”