Switch Stance

by M. E. Carter

  “Three times,” I admit, my face turning red once again. And not a nice shade. No, my face gets all splotchy red, like I’ve been slapped several times over. “You weren’t in Atlanta a few weeks ago.”

  Sharon giggles and points out it wasn’t the only mistake I’ve made in the last few seconds. “You do realize you came in through the wrong door, right?” No, no I didn’t. “Don’t worry, I’ll take you the back way, so you don’t have to walk past the crowd again.”

  Donna takes her arm in mine and walks with me to the stage where the panels are getting ready to begin. “Seriously, Adeline, I’m so sorry. You aren’t hurt, are you?”

  “Just embarrassed. But that’s nothing unusual for me,” I joke, making her laugh a deep, sexy laugh.

  I’ve always liked Donna. She’s the total package. Like Miss America package. With long, thick blond hair, and perfect features, you might expect to see her on the big screen. Or at least a Pantene commercial. But no. She’s a former attorney who now writes erotic romance full time. And she’s one of the nicest people I know. She charms the pants off readers and publishers alike. That’s actually how we met—when my publisher picked her up. If there was ever a person I would pick to open a door and humiliate me in front of all our fans, it’s my girl crush.

  We step up on the stage that’s overlooking a few dozen chairs. There are only two water bottles sitting on the long table. Drat. That means it’s only the two of us. I was hoping there would be four people answering questions. It’s easier to fade into the background.

  “Are you excited about today?” she asks me kindly, while I accidentally dribble some water down my chin because curtsying, standing, and drinking seem to have eluded me. I better stay away from stairs today. And balconies. The observation deck on the Hancock Building . . .

  Wiping my dress off with my hand, I respond, “You know I don’t care for panels. I always freeze up.”

  She pats my arm. And not from condescension. No, she’s genuine and warm and truly concerned about my well-being. “Adeline, you need to have more confidence in yourself and your abilities. Your stories are amazing. That’s why the readers want to be here. They want to hear what you have to say.”

  I find myself looking into her eyes a few seconds too long, mesmerized by the green color. This would be a really strange moment if she wasn’t used to my quirky behavior.

  Finally, I snap out of it. “I’m not sure I have much to give them these days.” I sigh. “I really should be in my room writing. Maybe you could do the panel by yourself?” I raise my eyebrows as the idea takes on some merit. “Oh! That’s actually a good idea! I’m about twenty thousand words behind and getting further off my deadline every day. I could spend the next hour writing and . . .”

  I look up and see Donna shaking her head.

  “You don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. Come on, Adeline. We all have creative blocks. It’s part of being an author. But you’ll pull through it. You probably just need to meet someone new, find a muse to get you out of your funk. The best place to do that is at an event like this where it’s packed with people.”

  That reminder is not helping me want to stay. But I suppose she’s right. Besides, the doors are open, and people are making their way to their seats. There’s no way I’d be able to gracefully exit with my track record so far. It’s probably best to stay sitting down.

  Donna and I continue to chat for a few more minutes. Actually, Donna chats and I do my best to respond appropriately. She’s always going on mission trips with her church, which I find to be a bit ironic since she writes erotica. Then again, I write about extreme sports and almost fell wearing high heels, so I don’t judge her choices. I just find the juxtaposition so interesting.

  Plus, she’s interesting. On this last trip, she helped dig a well in an Ethiopian village. I love to travel and all, but I can honestly say it has never crossed my mind to go to Ethiopia. Or dig a well.

  Just one more reason Donna should be wearing a crown.

  After the flurry of chaos when the readers began filling the room, everyone is seated, and Sharon greets our guests. The excitement is practically palpable. Everyone is so excited to be here. Well, except one guy who is staring at his phone. I could be frustrated by his lack of interest, but I’m not. I always appreciate the men who show up for these events. A few of them are readers, but by far, most of the men I meet are husbands and boyfriends who come to be an extra set of hands for someone they love. That is way sexier than any book boyfriend I’ve ever read, because it’s genuine sacrifice. Well, except for any book boyfriend modeled after Spencer Garrison because he’s perfect and no one will ever tell me otherwise.

  “Donna and Adeline are here to talk to you today about character development,” Sharon says, and my ears perk up.

  I admit I didn’t look at the topic of discussion because I usually do the least amount of talking I can, so this is surprising, and a little concerning, to say the least.

  “Ladies”—Sharon turns to address us directly even though she’s still holding the microphone—“the floor is yours.”

  As Sharon steps off the stage and disappears into the adjoining room where the signing will be held, everyone claps. Once the noise dies down, I turn to Donna to take the lead. There is no way I can do much with a topic like this. My character development is easy . . .

  Think of Spencer.

  Boom. Done.

  Yes, yes, I know there is more to it, but that’s where it always begins and ends for me. No way am I telling a crowd of people that information.

  Donna, of course, doesn’t skip a beat. “Good morning everyone,” her deep, raspy voice says into the microphone. If this author thing doesn’t work out, she needs to be a narrator. “Character development can make or break a story. You can have the best plot lines, the best twists, the best writing, but if your characters are boring, none of the good stuff will make a difference. One of the things I do with every book is write a sort of résumé for every character. Their name, age, where they’re from. Who their family is and any important experiences they may have had in their life. I even put their favorite kind of coffee because you can tell a lot by how a person takes their coffee.”

  I furrow my brow slightly thinking about that statement. Is it true? Can you tell how a person will respond to a situation by their morning joe? And if so, what does Spencer drink?

  Shaking my head like I’m clearing out my brain, I try to focus back on Donna, who is now talking about how she organizes all those character résumés.

  Seriously, is there anything she can’t do? I bet she’s an interior decorator or feng shui expert on the side.

  I should get her to look at my apartment. Maybe rearranging my furniture will let my energy flow better so I can figure out this next storyline. I could get a plant, maybe one of those weird sparkly balls people put in their garden. Would that work in my living room? I should check on that . . .

  A change in energy of the room has me looking up only to realize it wasn’t a change in energy. It was silence. Donna is done talking and now everyone is staring at me, waiting for me to say something.

  I feel my face heat up and I try not to flash my wide-eyed hysterical look, so I do the only thing I can think of. I grab the microphone in front of me and say, “I agree with everything Donna said.”

  The crowd laughs, so I assume that was a good enough answer. Truly, if they’ve been to any event I’ve been to before or have heard any of my interviews, they should already know I’m woefully ill-prepared to be the center of attention.

  Fortunately, the years of debate training has my colleague fully prepared to ad lib. “Why don’t we open the floor to questions. Yes,” she says, pointing to someone in the crowd. “You in the blue shirt.”

  A woman stands up a little too quickly and her chairs makes a screeching sound as it slides across the floor. She’s wearing jeans and a “Team Extreme” T-shirt. I smile because she must be from my
reader group, which means I might know her name. It’s always fun to meet someone I’ve interacted with. “I’m so excited to be here and meet you two.” She’s practically bouncing on her toes. I like her already. “First I want to make sure Adeline is okay from her fall in the hallway.”

  I don’t like her as much anymore.

  Everyone laughs, myself included, even though it feels forced. “I fall down all the time,” I say truthfully. “I barely noticed.”

  It’s not really a funny answer, but apparently it satisfies her because she laughs before asking something else.

  “Oh good. Okay.” She sounds out of breath and part of me wonders if she’s going to pass out from not breathing enough. “Um, my real question is, who is your muse, Adeline?”

  My thoughts come to another screeching halt. Why do people always ask this question? Can’t a writer just have great characters in their head that aren’t inspired by real people?

  I mean, obviously I can’t, but can’t other authors?

  The gerbils in my brain decide to take a break at this exact moment instead of running on their wheel because I can’t for the life of me figure out a workaround to this answer.

  Come on, gerbils! Don’t let me down! Run for your lives! I don’t like lying to my readers.

  The pause for me to answer turns awkwardly long so I finally give up and leave the truth behind when I say “I don’t really have one. I just write the voices in my head.”

  Okay, not a total lie.

  Okay, yes. A total lie. But what else am I supposed to say? The alternative is too private. I don’t need people to know I’ve had a secret fantasy life with Spencer Garrison for years. I know my agent. She would take that information and use it for some giant marketing campaign. And the last thing I need is for Spencer himself to find out that information.

  The thought of even accidentally meeting my muse makes me shudder. I don’t need that kind of stress in my life. Not in the future and certainly not when I’m on a major deadline.

  Chapter 4

  Spencer

  Five fifteen in the morning. That’s what time Kate’s phone started blaring some awful top forty pop song. I have no idea what the words were but there was a lot of “ohhh yeah” and “baby baby” filling our hotel room. I’ve never claimed to be a morning person, but today I’m taking that to an all new level.

  After dinner and a few beers, we wandered the streets of Chicago, playing catch up. And by catching up, I mean we stopped at a few pubs and bars along our walk back to the hotel and by the time I crawled under the covers of my bed, it was well past midnight.

  While I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and tried to figure out if the alarm was a mistake, Kate jumped from the bed like it was Christmas morning and she was an excited toddler. After an hour in the bathroom, she emerged ready to start her day. I, on the other hand, was pissy from being woken up early a second time in one hour’s time and was planning my revenge for the loss of sleep. But, regardless, I sucked it up, got my ass in the shower, and here we stand in line with hundreds of women waiting for this book thing to start. The waiting alone is hell on my bum knee, which doesn’t help my mood.

  Taking a sip of my coffee, I try focusing on the conversations around us, talk about the event and who they’re most excited to meet instead of the throb running down my leg. One name is said more than others and it has me intrigued to say the least.

  “So, do you read this Adeline Snow woman too?”

  At the mention of the author’s name, Kate flips around to face me, the stacks of books nestled in her rolling cart seemingly forgotten. Eyes wide, her mouth opens and closes like a smallmouth bass, and I chuckle in response.

  “Spencer, she’s the entire reason we’re here. Well,” she says, rolling her eyes, “not the entire reason but the primary. She’s my favorite sports romance author.”

  “Sports romance? What the hell is that?”

  Gasps all around us fill the dead air and I swallow slowly. I think I just committed a major faux pas or there’s a male model standing behind me. Who knew that was even a thing? Male models. At romance book events.

  “Ladies, I apologize for my brother.” Kate’s apology is sincere, which I find humorous in itself, but the look on everyone’s face around me has me shaking as I hold back the laughter begging to be let out. “Spencer, sports romance is a category within romance. Sports romance, paranormal romance, romantic suspense, and so on. They’re all sub-genres within the larger romance genre itself. But Adeline Snow doesn’t just write sports romance, she writes extreme sports romance.”

  “Wait!” one of the women shouts as she pushes Kate to the side and steps in front of me. “Are you Spencer Garrison? X Games gold medalist and more importantly, underwear model?”

  Dammit to hell. I am going to kill Kate.

  “Nope. I get that all the time. We all have that one celebrity look alike, right? I mean, for a few minutes I thought you were Jennifer Lawrence.” The woman who is about fifty years old and looks less like Jennifer Lawrence than her mother smiles broadly and turns to her friends giggling. Crisis averted.

  “On that note, I’m going to find a place to sit. I can’t believe you’re going to stand in this line for another hour before this thing starts.”

  Waving me off as if my discomfort standing here isn’t worth her time, Kate turns her attention back to her cart and the women in line. With my coffee in one hand and my phone in another, I walk toward a door I saw a line of women enter. It’s closed now but maybe I can sneak in quietly and find a chair to rest. I’m only a few months post-op knee surgery and standing for long periods of time isn’t as easy as it used to be.

  As I approach the door, a short woman with shoulder length brown hair organizing a pile of fabric shopping style bags spots me and stares at me questioningly. I pause briefly before reaching for the handle to open the door. The move is hers, if she calls me out on entering the room without a ticket I’ll give up my quest for a chair. For the first time today, luck is on my side as she smiles and nods her head once.

  “Are you one of the models on the panel?”

  I probably shouldn’t but my knee is killing me, so I decide to roll with it. “Uhh . . . yes. Yes I am.”

  Waving her hand, she smiles sweetly. “Go on in. They’re just about to start,” she says before turning her attention back to the bags.

  I suppose the modeling I’ve done for my sponsors has more perks than I realized. Pulling the door open, I quietly enter the room. Approximately two dozen rows of chairs fill the space facing a single table with two women sitting at it. This must be one of the panels Kate told me about. When I purchased the VIP tickets, I assumed it would get her to the front of any line or some sort of special swag bag. From what she explained last night, the swag is a given, but the VIP package includes admission to some panels the authors will be speaking at. I have no idea why she didn’t pick this one, but I don’t really care as long as I have a place to sit.

  The two women, authors I assume, talk among themselves with a third woman holding a microphone. I scan the room for an available seat or a stack of chairs I can pull one from to sit in the back. Unfortunately for me, the only available seat is in the middle of one of the rows between two older women, probably closer to my mom’s age than Kate’s. When the woman holding the microphone begins to speak, I quickly rush to the empty seat and settle in. The relief on my knee is immediate, and I hope the break will help get me through the day without having to strap on the annoying knee brace I’m supposed to wear.

  Setting my coffee on the floor next to my foot, I pull up my phone and tap out a text message to my friend Landon. We exchanged a few texts last night following the debacle with the Lexington PD and the kids who broke into my property. Landon was beyond apologetic and offered to refund the money I paid him for the custom furniture. We’re currently negotiating a compromise to his offer. I’ve raised his demand to refund at least fifty percent to him buying me a bottle of whiskey. My fingers move a
t rapid pace when I agree to him refunding me ten percent of the cost of the dining room table but only if he’ll add on a new entertainment center to my order. His reply is full of colorful language and I chuckle quietly, trying not to draw attention to myself.

  What Landon forgets is I used to be that gangly, awkward teenage boy who would have done anything to make friends whenever I moved. If I’d known my favorite skateboarder lived in the same town as me, you damn well better believe I would have figured out a way to break into his personal training site, so of course I’m not as mad as everyone thinks I should be. In fact, I’m almost surprised it took as long as it did for anyone to catch wind of my new setup. Lexington is a small town. Gossip usually happens faster than it did in this case.

  I’m pulled from my thoughts as I hear the woman with the microphone introduce the authors who will be speaking. Adeline Snow, my sister’s favorite author. And because I’m a loving little brother, I lift my phone, snap a picture of Ms. Snow and shoot it off to Kate.

  Kate: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

  Me: Guess those VIP tickets were worth it after all.

  I laugh loudly, which I cover with a cough when I see her response is about ten middle finger emojis. Settling into my seat, I look at the woman speaking. I think her name is Diane or Donna, something like that. She’s talking about characters and something else I don’t hear. I don’t hear her because I’m distracted by the pretty woman to her left. With a throwback hairstyle and bright red lips, she’s obviously uncomfortable but is doing her best to pretend otherwise. She’s not classically beautiful but there’s something about her that intrigues me. When it’s her turn to speak, I sit up a little straighter and offer my attention.

  •••

  “I cannot believe you sat only a few feet away from Adeline Snow! I swear you’re the luckiest bastard ever.”

  While I was resting my knee and listening to women ask about muses and character development, my sister was making friends in line. Each of her new friends stand before me, arms crossed over their chest, disapproving looks on their face, as they wait for me to respond. But I know my sister, and I know she isn’t done with her mini rant over my luck and her misfortune.