Page 28 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

THE NUTCRACKER

Axel

We power-walk down the train aisle, rushing to the reader brunch like a couple of jerks who keep people waiting.

“We’ll just say we slept late,” Hazel offers in a rushed whisper.

“We didn’t oversleep. We over-sexed,” I point out. I mean to be helpful, but she hisses Axel at my back. “Just telling the truth.”

“If anyone asks,” she says, “it was accidental sex.” We cruise past high-backed chairs filled with passengers drinking coffee, reading news on their phones, staring out the windows as we near Spain.

Bossy, bossy Hazel. She’s too feisty, too busy, too entertaining.

I glance back at her, rolling my eyes. “There was nothing accidental about the nutcracker of your legs.”

Her shoulders shake in laughter, but then she tries to swallow the sound so I don’t notice. “Do you need a cast for your balls, Axel?”

“Already took care of that, baby. I made one myself.”

“That better go into your next book.”

I’m glad she can’t see how I’m smiling over the accidental sex.

The accidental kiss.

Maybe tonight we’ll accidentally sleep together again. A man can dream.

“But seriously,” she continues, “just say we slept late.”

That’s my Hazel. She never lets up.

At the end of the car, I stop by the luggage rack, spinning to face her. “Baby,” I say, reassuring her quietly. “No one is going to ask, and the more you say, the more obvious it is you’re covering something up.”

I should know. That’s what I’ve done, religiously, the last few years, saying zero about my feelings for her. It’s worked well enough.

“You think so, Axel?” Her question sounds pointed. Specific to me. Like I’d definitely know the answer about covering up stuff.

“Yeah, but why are you asking?” I ask, half dreading the reply. What if she’s got a microscope into my feelings?

She shakes her head. “Just something I thought of, but it’s not important.”

I should leave this alone, but what if it’s about last night? Or tonight? Or ground rules? “What is it?”

If she wants to cut me off, she can do it now. I don’t want to wait any longer.

“It was about…” But she stops, annoyed with herself. “It’s just about Max, how I found out he was cheating, but that’s over, so it doesn’t matter.”

I draw a sharp breath, irritated to hear his name again.

Or maybe I’m still irritated over how I handled things with Max and her at so many points, including the way she found out. I should have said something sooner, but at least I can say something now. “He didn’t deserve you,” I say firmly. “Don’t give him any real estate in your head.”

That doesn’t cover everything, but it’s a start.

She smiles softly. “Thanks.” I’m about to turn around and resume our race to the dining car when she reaches for my arm.

It’s a friendly gesture, nothing that could be interpreted as more by anyone watching.

But I feel the fondness in it. The heat too.

“And I’m really glad your balls aren’t casted.

Because,” she says quietly, then checks the scene behind her before she finishes with, “I want you in my bed again tonight.”

Fuck yes.

That’s enough of a ground rule for me for now. Another night.

“I’m there,” I say.

I might want more than sex, but I’m nothing if not a realist. I’ll take what she’s offering, and I’ll give her another night of the best she’s ever had.

As an attendant yanks open the door to the dining car for us, I wipe the smile off my face. A man doesn’t smile this hard unless he’s gotten laid, and I’m not going to sandwich-board my sex life for the tour group—my sex life that just earned a sequel.

I fucking love trains.

Inside the dining car, a man with an expensive haircut, a strong jaw, and clearly custom-fitted slacks and shirt greets us. “Good morning, Mr. Huxley and Ms. Valentine. We’re thrilled you could join us.”

This dude has rich motherfucker written all over him. He must be JHB himself. “Thrilled to be here…Mr. Bettencourt?”

His dark eyes twinkle. “Yes. J. Hudson Bettencourt.”

When he gestures for us to follow him to the table, I shoot a look at Hazel like wow . Her eyes pop open, and she mouths oh my god .

This is unexpected, seeing the reclusive guy himself, but maybe he’s one of those billionaires who likes to show up unannounced, though I don’t actually know what billionaires like to do.

He’s the first one I’ve met.

“Here’s your table,” he says, stopping at one full of readers.

“Thank you so much,” I say.

Hazel seconds the sentiment.

Then he joins Amy at a table. Shortly after, she pops up and cups her mouth. “And this morning is our special reader brunch where we dive into readers’ favorite question—where ideas come from. But first, enjoy your breakfast, everyone.”

JHB seems to be enjoying his meal once Amy joins him at the table in the corner. He’s attentive, focused on her the whole time.

I catch Hazel’s eyes as we eat, tipping my forehead toward them, asking silently, What do you think is up?

“Get it, Amy,” Hazel whispers, with a crystal-clear answer.

“The billionaire and the single mom,” I add.

“Meant to be.”

We’re seated again with the Book Besties, Nikon Man, and Redhead College Girl, and once we’ve finished eating, Jackie sets down her coffee cup and declares, “I’m ready for my first question.”

After a glance to check that I’m ready too, Hazel tells the woman, “Go for it.”

Jackie holds up her hands as if to show she’s unarmed before she starts in.

“Look. I’m one of those people who doesn’t mince words.

I don’t hold back. I say what’s on my mind.

” Jackie’s normally enthusiastic, happy-go-lucky, so this intense side of her is new.

“And I want to know if Lacey is ever going to get together with?—”

I brace myself for what’s coming next. Will Lacey and Nate, the rich dude down the hall, ever get it on? Our readers had been shipping the ER doc and the broody suit ever since we pubbed our first co-written romance.

“With Noah?” Jackie asks.

I did not see that coming.

Noah? The doctor Lacey works with? For real?

Hazel snaps her gaze to Jackie, mirroring my confusion. “Noah?”

With an emphatic nod, Jackie says, “Yes. I always saw her with the cute-but-surly ER doc. Noah’s sarcastic, but in a way that you could tell he had it bad for her all along.”

What is she talking about? Noah does not have a thing for Lacey. Noah’s just her annoying work colleague.

I scratch my chin, confused, looking to Hazel for her thoughts.

Apparently, this character matchmaking is shocking to her too, since she’s shaking her head. Then she asks, “You think Noah has been into Lacey?”

Jackie nods, big and long. Maria chimes in next with an oh yes .

But Alecia tuts her friends, before she says to us, “I’ve got a dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House that says these two are wrong, so could you please, please, pretty please with a well-done ribeye on top write the dang book with Lacey and Nate? So I can say I was right, I was right, I was right .”

I flash a smile at Hazel, who flings one right back at me. They say in our secret writer code that the readers are wrong but we don’t want to be rude to them. We mastered the signals when we worked together.

Funny to be using it again.

Though, funny’s not the right word. More like warm, or even…comforting.

“Those are the three most satisfying words in the English language,” I say, deflecting for both of us. I’m not going to tell the Book Besties that they’re dead wrong about Lacey’s love interest. We were writing her with Nate, not Noah.

But Lacey’s fictional guy hardly matters since her book is dead.

I’m relieved that Steven the Nikon Man has no interest in Ten Park Avenue .

He motions me closer once the servers have cleared the table.

His wife must have taken off, since he’s alone.

“Been dying to ask you something. It’s about the scene in Vienna in A Beautiful Midnight when the hero races through the city center on his Vespa. ”

“Hit me up, Steven,” I say. One table over, the college gals chat with each other, seemingly uninterested in this book dissection.

“Now, I did a simulation on whether it’s possible to reach all those locations in ten minutes, like in chapter twenty-two.

” Steven breaks out his phone and shows me a map of places in my book, then spends several minutes telling me that it’s not possible to pull off the chase scene from my story on a Vespa.

He’s engaging enough to distract me from Jackie’s far-fetched idea. “That’s all plausible, Steven. But the thing is,” I say, pulling the ace from my sleeve, “his Vespa was souped up.”

I’m about to tell him where to find the mention of the tricked-out vehicle when the redheaded college gal—Uma is her name—pipes up with, “It says so in chapter fourteen, paragraph four. That’s how he pulls it off.”

Damn. She has a steel memory and bionic ears. “Uma’s right,” I say.

Steven’s eyes flicker with you’re kidding me . “No way!”

“Yessss,” Uma says, then since she’s done correcting him as he reader-splains to me, she returns to her conversation with her friends, whipping her gaze back to them.

I clap Steven’s shoulder. “Yes. Check it out. It’s a quick mention but it’s there.”

Scrambling, he flicks through the book on his phone, and when he discovers the little detail, he whistles appreciatively.

Then, because we’ve talked about me enough, I ask him what he does for a living.

“I’m a lawyer, but I want to be a writer,” Steven says, a little sheepishly. “That probably sounds ridiculous.”

“Not in the least,” I say, then I pull my chair closer. “Have you started your first book?”

“I finished it, actually. It’s, well, it’s a thriller. That’s probably obvious,” he says, and it’s funny to see this side of him—the nervous and worried side. He’s been such a lawyer all along, fast and sharp with questions.

Now he sounds like a writer.

“Let’s just say I’m not surprised,” I say.

“It’s edited too. I hired a professional editor. I’d like to try to find an agent or self-publish it. It’s just…” He stops, winces, scrubs a hand across his chin. “The reviews. How do you deal with them?”

That’s his worry? He came to the right guy. With a laugh, I say, “Badly, most of the time.”

His shoulders seem to lose some of their tension. “Really? You seem so…impervious.”

Glad my facade works. But there are times when I need to let it down. This seems like one of those times. “Some days I have the thick skin of a rhino. Other days, I’m cellophane,” I admit with a shrug.

“Yeah?” He sounds relieved. “That’s good to know. Well, that it’s hard for someone like you.”

I flash back to a comment Hazel made during dinner at Menu, that I was obsessed with reviews.

That stung, but only because it was true.

Also because that obsession was messing with my mind.

“It is, but I’m trying to get better. I used to care about them too much—the good and the bad.

The bad ones sent me into a tailspin, but I let the good ones go to my head.

I had to get a better handle on all of it. ”

“How do you do that now?”

“My favorite way is to just ignore the bad ones. As for the good ones, well, I like praise. We all do. But my agent made me a deal. He shares a handful of good ones, along with a promise to send me a bottle of the best single malt for my birthday if I don’t Google myself anymore.”

Steven laughs. “Does that work?”

“I’ve abstained from review searching for three weeks. Never underestimate the power of scotch.”

He sighs, seeming relieved, then winds himself up again. “I’d be too worried that I got something wrong in the story. Some detail.”

Everything about this guy added up. I thought I could write his character bio easily—assertive dude who likes to find flaws, take copious pictures as evidence of said mistakes, and then dissect those errors alone with his wife before she says enough already, just shut up and fuck me.

But he’s got a vulnerable underbelly. I suppose we all do.

“Look, you’ll make mistakes. You won’t make everyone happy.

But everything you write is a choice. Think about why you want to make that choice, and then when you put your book out there, let it go.

Anyone who creates something has to do that—a singer, an actor, a dancer, a poet.

Hell, athletes have to deal with this all the time,” I say, thinking of Carter.

He has to deal with reporters and sports analysts Monday morning, analyzing him week in, week out.

“It’s part of the job. You learn to listen to the people you trust, and you try to filter out the rest. Or put your head in the sand—the ostrich strategy works too. ”

Steven nods, taking that in. Maybe that’s enough for him, because we shift topics and talk about the best and worst parts of the law until we arrive in Barcelona.

The chat with him keeps Jackie’s questions about Ten Park Avenue on the back burner.

For now at least.

Today is my day to shine. Barcelona is my place and Gaudí is my companion. You can’t write about the Spanish city without knowing the architect whose work defines it.

In Barcelona, I don’t need to play mental tricks like I did in high school, or like I did at the reader expo back in New York. I’ve spent countless hours researching for the novels I’ve set in this city. Here, my knowledge is my trick.

But as I show the group around Casa Milà detailing how my hero slipped into an apartment in the private residence at night using the physics of the undulating walls of the building itself, an unexpected, new idea taps on my brain.

It won’t let go. Like at the podium back in high school English class, I’m in two places at once. I’m speaking while I’m picturing something else.

I’m talking to the group about how my hero climbed up the side of the building while I’m thinking about another guy.

Someone back in New York.

Someone I just can’t get out of my head.