The Room(hate), page 21
Hey Dennis,
You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Fucker.
Laughing my ass off,
Sebastian
41
Kenzie
High fives were given all around the room. Astaire’s Ghost Fucker was officially live and proudly published by Ink House, along with the advertising budget to match an anticipated best-seller.
I think Noah was the only one in the room who didn’t seem surprised it had come together as planned.
“Do you think your friend will mind the bad reviews?” Travis asked.
The book had been live about two hours and it was already boasting about two-hundred reviews across all platforms with a two and a half star average.
“Nope,” I said. “I told her it’d probably go that way. She’s just excited to have something to talk to her followers about. Are you sure nothing we did was illegal?”
Noah looked up. He’d been tapping at a keyboard with a focused look on his face. We were still in the control room, but Travis had somehow managed to find plates of finger food he was sharing with Adrian.
“Illegal?” Noah asked. “Definitely. Several parts were illegal.”
“You didn’t think I’d want to know that before I got involved?”
“Would you have backed out if you knew it was illegal from the start?” Noah asked.
“No,” I said. “I guess not. But what if we get caught?”
“We won’t. There was a point where it was theoretically possible, but that point already passed. I cleared our tracks completely. There’s no trace anymore. We were never involved, and every last digital signature will point to things going exactly as they appear. Dennis reached out to Astaire, offered her an advance of forty thousand dollars for her Ghost Fucker manuscript. He then proceeded to book promotional opportunities for Ghost Fucker, send out advance review copies, and launched the book. It’s iron clad.”
“Wow,” I said. “I’m impressed.”
“And this is when you honor your end of the arrangement,” Adrian said. “We had a deal, Sebastian.”
“Yeah. As long as Noah did like he said and got me out of my contract, you can publish my next book when it’s finished. But I want to keep my old agent. He was good. You’ll have to poach him from Ink House, but that shouldn’t be too hard if he knows it’s for me. I want my old assistant, Nilla, too.
“We’ll retain your entire staff,” Adrian said dismissively. “Anything else?”
“I want you to have someone read Kenzie’s manuscript. My agent will be representing her. If you think it has legs, I want you to publish it. But I don’t want you to do it as a favor.”
I nodded my head. I’d talk to him about this part, and he’d said the lines just as we’d practiced.
“Deal,” Adrian said. He got up, brushing his hands. “If that’s all, I have a wife at home. I enjoy looking at her more than all of you.”
Travis made a sound like a whip cracking. “Imagine being stuck with just one woman. Incredible.”
“I don’t need to imagine not wanting to look at you any longer,” Noah said.
“Those guys love me,” Travis said once both his partners were gone. “So I’d say I saved the day, right?”
Sebastian put his arm around my waist and pulled me to his side. “In one way or another, I guess you did.”
Eventually, Travis got the hint that we wanted the room to ourselves. He scooped up what was left of the cheese-stuffed peppers and carried them out of the room in his arms. “Have fun, kids!” He called over his shoulder.
“Thank you,” I said, taking Sebastian’s hands in mine.
“This whole thing working was more your doing than mine. You were right. Travis was actually kind of capable. Or at least he had access to people who were.”
“I don’t just mean about the book stuff. Thank you for giving this a chance. I know it wasn’t easy for you.”
“It wasn’t, but I started to get the impression I didn’t have a choice. Loving you was inevitable, wasn’t it?”
“Did you just drop a love bomb on me?”
“I did,” he said. “I love you, Kenzie. You’re everything I was missing and all the things I didn’t even know I needed.”
“You needed a lactose intolerant woman who snores?”
He hesitated. “Yes?”
“Well, I guess I like you too.”
He playfully tilted my chin up with his finger, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Say it.”
“Bossy, aren’t we?”
He gave no response, unless looking smolderingly good counted as a response.
“Okay. I guess I love you too.”
He put his fingertip in the center of my chest and walked me back until I bumped against the wall. “Not good enough.”
“I do love you,” I admitted. My cheeks burned hot to say the words aloud. “But it took a while for you to grow on me.”
He smirked. “You can’t bear to just say it like a normal person, can you?”
“You didn’t fall in love with a normal person, did you?”
He lowered his head and planted a soft, tender kiss on my lips. “I hope you know you’re mine forever,” he said.
“Forever is a long time.”
“Then you’re stuck with me for a long time.”
I lifted his tie and ran my thumb across it, shrugging. “I can think of worse ways to spend forever.”
42
Epilogue - Kenzie
Four Months Later
I’d never necessarily considered myself “sexy” in any traditional sense. Being with Sebastian for five months did help. The man acted like I was a complete “smokeshow,” as the kids say. But my pregnancy had reached a point where I couldn’t imagine being seen as anything but a beached whale.
Laying on the couch to watch a show? I practically had to grunt and flop my arms like flippers to roll myself over and get up. Eating? I had to fight the urge to inhale and skip swallowing all together. The worst was probably that my horniness had not decreased. It had just kept getting more and more out of control. I’d lost count of the times I snuck into Sebastian’s office while he was writing to demand pleasure.
To his credit, he gave no sign of being bothered by my gigantic pregnant stomach. If anything, he loved it. He was always coming up from behind me to put his hands on it or wanting to press his ear there to listen.
I rested my hands on my belly, which was also the world’s most amazing portable armrest. It was launch day for my book, and Sebastian had taken it upon himself to invite every human being we’d ever known over to his house.
Adrian’s wife, Juliette, had come and was also pregnant, but not as far along as I was. The two of us were talking outside while the guys all gathered inside around the beer and snacks. The last few months had been good for Sebastian. Gradually, he’d become something close to friends with Noah and Adrian. It was probably too generous to say he’d been getting along with Travis, but my brother had been embroiled in his own drama recently. He wasn’t even able to come today.
“Have you had any weird cravings?” Jules asked.
I’d learned she born into insane wealth, but left it all behind. Somehow, her paths had crossed with Adrian Terranova last year, and the two of them had rockily hit it off from there. They both lived in the city, and the baby was going to be their first.
“Nothing too crazy,” I said. Does dick count?
“I’m embarrassed to admit this,” Jules said. She lowered her voice and leaned a little closer. “I’ve been crazy about ketchup for weeks now. Yesterday, I had two slices of bread with nothing but ketchup and pickles between them. I’ve been dipping my grilled cheese and macaroni and cheese in ketchup. I can’t control it.”
I laughed. “How has Adrian handled the pregnancy?”
“He was already protective, but it’s on overdrive now.”
“Yep,” I said. “That’s exactly how Sebastian is. I thought he was about to choke out a squirrel for startling me on our walk the other day. Thankfully it got away before he caught it.”
Jules laughed. “Adrian keeps looking up all these weird things online that are supposed to help me. Yesterday, he rubbed coconut water on my belly for half an hour. It felt nice, so I didn’t complain, but I have no idea where he’s finding this stuff.”
“At least he’s trying to be helpful,” I said with a shrug.
Trinity emerged from the house, waving. “Yo!” she said. “Sorry I’m late. I was too busy landing an interview for the perfect job.”
I looked to Jules. “She thinks every job is the perfect job.”
Jules grinned.
“This is really the one,” Trinity said. “If you work there for six months, they will pay for you to study culinary arts abroad. All I have to do is survive six months without getting fired or quitting. How hard could that be?”
I decided not to point out that based on her work history, it was apparently impossible.
“Are you excited?” Jules asked.
“Yeah,” Trinity said. “Seriously. Why aren’t you having a panic attack? Why don’t you look terrified out of your mind? I mean, this is your dream, right? What if something goes wrong? What if the reviews are terrible or some glitch makes you publish Ghost Fucker under your name?”
Jules laughed. “I still can’t believe you guys did that.”
I glared at Trinity. “I was doing my best not to dwell on everything that could go wrong, thanks. Now that you’ve reminded me, yeah. I do feel a little terrified.”
“Good. That’s healthy,” Trinity said. “Sebastian told me to tell you to get inside. He said it will be going up any minute.”
I took a deep breath and shook out my arms, trying to knock loose all the butterflies. “Okay. I guess it’s time.”
Sebastian put his arm around me when I came inside and kissed me on the temple. “How are you feeling?”
“Bloated,” I said.
“About the launch.”
“Like I’m about to throw up.”
“It’s going to be great. You deserve all the success that’s going to come your way, Kenzie. I mean that.”
I pulled up his arm and kissed the back of his hand. “Do you think there’s time for me to get some more of those mini hotdog things before it goes live?”
“Adrian,” Sebastian said. “How long until it goes live?”
Adrian was standing at the kitchen island with a laptop open. Jules was beside him and whispering something in his ear, but they both looked up at Sebastian’s voice. “Any minute now,” he said.
“Does it matter if she sees the literal moment it launches?” Trinity said. “I mean, what is that going to tell you, anyway?”
“It’s symbolic,” Sebastian said. “And yes, it matters. This is Kenzie’s dream. It’s her moment. She’s going to remember this for the rest of her life.”
Trinity rolled her eyes but smiled. “You’re such a sap.”
“I am. And I also have everything pulled up on this computer.” He lifted his hand and pointed to a laptop on the coffee table. “Everything is pulled up already, so once you lift that screen, you’ll be able to see your book on every digital marketplace.”
I saw the laptop wasn’t completely closed, probably so I wouldn’t have to type login credentials and water down the moment.
“Is it go time?” my dad shouted. He’d been watching something on his phone beside my mom, but he popped up on his stubby legs and started looking around like he’d already missed something. “Why the heck didn’t anybody say anything?”
“Dear, they’re just about to start,” my mom said. “You didn’t miss it.”
“Oh. Well, what are we waiting for?” he pumped his fist and shuffled over toward the coffee table. Jasper emerged with a plate of little hotdogs. He’d either read my mind or overheard me. I didn’t care. I popped one in my mouth, thanking him, then took two more for the road and let Sebastian guide me to the couch by the coffee table.
I’d made Sebastian let me invite everyone from the writer’s retreat. He was still sour that someone had leaked our relationship and pregnancy to the media, but I was over it, and didn’t really care to figure out who it was. It was definitely Astaire. I’d actually seen that she posted a livestream video of Sebastian and I arguing and then me revealing the baby was his. But he didn’t need to know that, and to her credit, she’d deleted it once she realized it was causing us grief.
Cooney, Reggie, Astaire, and even Frank and Margaret were here. Frank and Margaret had vanished a few minutes after arriving and I immediately regretted inviting them. Chances were, they were having some ritualistic sex in one of the spare bedrooms. I just hoped it wasn’t our bed.
Cooney had spent most of the time helping Jasper with the finger foods, and I was almost certain Astaire was trying to get into Noah’s pants, but he didn’t appear to be interested. Reggie had been uncharacteristically tame. It sounded like the task of writing his great “no comma” novel was wearing him down, but he was stubbornly refusing to quit.
Everybody formed a little circle around me on the couch. Adrian checked his phone. “It’s up.”
I took a deep breath. Sebastian had kneeled down beside the computer and was watching me with intense focus. I smiled at him. “Relax, it’s just a book launch. If it flops, I can always write another one. You don’t have to look so nervous.”
He licked his lips. “Go ahead,” he said, eyes locked on the computer.
I smiled, sucked in a breath, then lifted the screen. The display blinked on, but my focus was on the engagement ring sitting where the “h” key was supposed to be. All the keycaps on the computer had been replaced so they spelled out the words “Will you marry me?”
I lifted up the ring. My hands were shaking. I tried to say something, but the only sound I managed was something like a gurgle. “This is a ring,” I said.
“Oh that’s smooth,” my dad said. “The old ring in the laptop trick.”
I barely heard him. Sebastian was still kneeling, and it all clicked. He was asking me to marry him. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. Chills ran up and down my spine. “I—yes,” I blurted. I launched myself from the sitting position to wrap my arms around Sebastian. A less muscular man probably would’ve tipped backwards, but he caught me easily. He hugged me hard, then pulled back and kissed me. “Good,” he said.
“Good?” I laughed.
“I thought you might tell me I still had more forgiveness to earn. Or that you’d try to talk me out of it for some strange Kenzie reasons.”
I laughed. “Wow,” I said, looking down at the ring. “I’m so happy. But this ring is really ugly.”
His face fell.
I laughed. “I’m sorry. That was a bad joke. It’s perfect. This is perfect.”
“Check the damn book!” Trinity shouted through cupped hands. “I came here for a launch party, not a mushy kissy party. Boo.”
I glared over Sebastian’s shoulder at her, and just to piss her off, I gave him a long kiss. I let him slide the ring on my finger and tried to ignore the feeling of Astaire snapping pictures and video from beside us.
Once I’d thoroughly enjoyed my moment, I went to the computer. I took a look at the screen. It was my book pulled up on Amazon. There were several other tabs showing it on different retailers. The last tab was the dashboard showing how many copies had sold so far. I hit refresh and saw over forty reviews had already come in. They were almost all five stars, and the few I scanned were glowing.
I let out a breath it felt like I’d been holding my whole life. I sank back into the couch and couldn’t stop smiling. “People like it.”
“They don’t just like it,” Sebastian said. He was beside me and reached over to scroll through some of the reviews. “They love it. They’re already asking when the next book will be out.”
“Oh, well,” I said, putting the back of my hand to my forehead. “I can’t deal with the weight of their expectations.” I spoke in a deep voice, trying my best to impersonate Sebastian. “I think I won’t be able to write the next book unless a gorgeous woman with a great personality sweeps me off my feet.”
He gave me a level look. “That’s funny.”
“No,” Adrian said. “It’s not. If her book keeps this up, I’d rather she write as many as she can. These numbers are already incredibly strong.”
Nilla inched closer. “If you need any help, you have my number. I’m guessing you’re going to be doing book signings, tours, and speaking events.”
I snorted. “I doubt that.”
Sebastian put his arm around me again and pulled me into his shoulder. “I’m so fucking proud of you,” he whispered in my ear.
The words sent tingles across my skin. I smiled, closing my eyes. I hugged him back and couldn’t stop smiling. Even if things went downhill from here, I knew I was lucky, because people spent their whole lives dreaming about being this happy and never managed it.
43
Epilogue - Sebastian
One Year Later
I sat in the front row between Trinity and Lance at a writer’s convention. The room was already packed. There was a microphone on the stage, and I knew Kenzie was back there, probably nervous as hell.
Abigail was on my lap making cooing sounds. Trinity kept trying to reach over to tickle her and Abigail would grab her finger.
“Mom’s coming out soon,” I whispered in her ear.
The conversation in the room died out when Kenzie took the stage. She was dressed professionally, and the look was adorable on her. Kenzie was about as far from the professional type as I’d ever met, but she could fake it well enough for these things.
She had already written two more books to round out her three-book series since our launch party last year. In that time, I’d finally finished my next book. Adrian’s team was already well underway with the process of preparing it for launch. I still didn’t find it easy to write, but that didn’t seem like the end of the world anymore. Writing and my books weren’t the only thing in my life now. I had Kenzie and I had Abigail. If I had a bad week of writing, I could just remember my girls, and it never seemed to sting as badly.
