–Me: You have a point.
–Devlin: It’s called dating, not lying. Birds always fluff up their best feathers to get the chicks. It’s the same thing. If she gets mad because she found your ugly feathers, oh well. She should’ve inspected the merchandise better.
Spoken like a true player with lots of nonsensical mixed metaphors thrown in. I ignored his advice and texted Felicia to work up a list of a few decent places for me and Emily.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Emily
I rolled my shoulders to unkink the knots. Staring at all the teasers, graphics and posts for the book launch made my eyes ready to fall out. The manuscript was edited, proofread and formatted in record time…but the process had still taken three weeks. Less than a day remained before the release date. It felt like nausea had been roiling in my gut forever, and had now gotten to the point that it just felt buzzy—like a million angry bees were trapped inside. Sweat slickened my palms, and I wiped them on my pants.
This was it. My Fair Molly was the best book I’d written, and had the most extensive publicity and promotion campaigns to push it out into the world. If it failed, I didn’t know what I’d do.
Probably throw up. Then cry. Then consider fleeing the country so I could avoid seeing the ads.
My gaze landed on the lavender flowers Killian had brought yesterday. The purple bouquet smelled amazing. He said I needed to relax, and since it wasn’t easy with so much riding on this book, he decided to bring me something to soothe my nerves.
He was just too damned thoughtful, like he knew exactly what I needed before I even said it. And that made me more optimistic about the decision to go with him to Dallas.
“How come you know how I’m feeling?” I’d asked him.
“Because I feel the same way when we have a new song or album coming out.”
I’d never understood what “my heart melted” meant until then. My exes hadn’t understood. They’d considered me neurotic and paranoid. But not Killian. If
I were writing a perfect boyfriend for myself, Killian would be it.
You have it bad.
Yeah, I did. It was almost enough to make me believe in true love, because true love wasn’t about grand gestures, but everyday things someone did for the person they loved.
My phone pinged.
–Skye: Don’t forget to send me your cover, blurb and links for My Fair Molly. I’m going to post them in my reader group and feature the book in my newsletter.
–Lucy: Ditto.
I smiled with gratitude and affection. Although Skye, Lucy and I didn’t write the exact same type of romance, some of our readers overlapped. And asking them to help me promote the book had been on my to-do list.
–Me: Thank you! I’m just so nervous.
–Skye: Prerelease jitters. You’ll kill it.
–Lucy: Seriously. I used to puke before every soccer match in high school, but I did fine.
That was true. She’d received an athletic scholarship to college. And they both understood what it was like to launch a book themselves, although they’d never had the kind of stakes that I did with this one.
–Skye: Don’t forget to eat and sleep.
–Lucy: Right. We don’t need you nearly passing out again from a lack of sleep like you did with the last release. We have a signing to attend.
Right! I’d almost forgotten in my pre-launch frenzy. We were all going to the signing in San Francisco this weekend. Which would be amazing, since I hadn’t seen Skye and Lucy in months. There was something so exciting and energizing about spending time with like-minded friends who understood everything about the author world. And I loved meeting fans who liked my work enough to take the time to come see me. I knew there were people reading my stuff, but seeing them in person made it feel all so much realer. And when they told me how much my work made them laugh or brightened their day, it made me realize once again why I’d chosen to be a writer—to allow people to escape into a book world I’d created and feel happy.
–Lucy: Blue’s coming. It’s going to be so much fun.
–Skye: So is Zack! The hubs can hang out and amuse each other, while we sign, sign, sign.
I’d known Skye was bringing her husband because her parents-in-law wanted to take the kids for the weekend. But I didn’t realize Lucy was going to bring hers.