Things didn’t quite go that way, but we’re still doing the thing, trying our best to be successful. They stop by about once a week now, since I’ve been depressed. They call me up and find some pretense to come over, knowing that I’m probably hung over and sitting on my couch doing jack shit. That’s when they come by and offer to take me to dinner, or cheer me up by talking about how huge my next book is going to be even though I’ve barely written a word. These days I only have author friends. My other friends. . .actually, our other friends, were the one thing Jenny took in the divorce. Fuck ‘em. They all deserve each other. I have my guys.
I run up to the bathroom to get my shit together. Five o’clock shadow doesn’t begin to describe what’s happening on my face right now. Stubble can be sexy, and a well groomed beard can work if you have the right look, but when you’re in between those stages you just look like a straight dirtbag. That’s me right now—I’m in the dirtbag stage of facial hair growth, which means that it’s time to introduce my face to a razor and start from scratch.
When I’m done taking a shower and clear the steam off of the mirror I take a good, long look at myself. What the hell happened to me? I used to be full of piss and vinegar, ready to take on the world, but now I just look and feel tired all the time. I have to get over this shit. Lord knows my ex wife did. She’s onto a whole new life with her girlfriend in a new place, and I’m here feeling sorry for myself. This has to stop. I have to get back to the old Knight.
As I’m finishing getting dressed I hear them downstairs. They both have keys and just let themselves in like the savages they are. “I’ll be right down!” I shout, the towel around my waist barely holding on my hips. “I need to dry off.”
“Don’t bother,” Colton yells up. “I like you wet.”
“Yeah I know you do,” I yell back down. “Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge.”
“What do you think we’re doing?” Grayson yells back. “Dry off and get down here, we have shit to talk about.”
When I get downstairs I see them both sprawled out on the same couch I had just been sleeping on not an hour earlier. Colton’s been working out a lot recently, and like all people who add some mass to their bodies, he’s been wearing these tight-ass tee shirts. “You put all your shit in the dryer for too long again?” I joke. “Cause it looks like you raided your little brother’s closet before you got here. Seriously, you buying XS shirts now?”
All I see is his middle finger. He doesn’t even look at me while he gives it, he just keeps staring ahead at my flatscreen, an episode of Narcos season 1 on Netflix on in the background. “Asshole,” he says. “You wish you could pull these shirts off.”
“See that’s where we differ,” I answer back. “My shirts are tight because I fill them out. Yours are tight because you shop at Baby Gap.”
“Burn!” Grayson jokes. “I like that line. I might steal that one.”
“Thanks. I am a writer after all.”
Grayson and Colton are both smiling. Colt’s middle finger finally comes down and he gets up to give me one of his overly aggressive bro hugs. He loves hugging me these days. “Thanks, man. I don’t know what I’d do without you pounding me on the back at least once a month. It’s my own type of therapy.”
“You love it.”
“I do,” I say, separating from him. “But for sure, relax.”
“I’ll do no such thing. Not until you snap out of this shit.”
“I was just thinking about that while I was upstairs, actually,” I tell them.
“You’re a master of transition,” Grayson says, and we look at each other. My eyebrows shoot up and I give him my skeptical eyes because I know these two have some plan to cheer me up. They always do. Two weeks ago it was the strip club, but I’ve never been a strip club guy. I think Grayson just wanted to go, and somehow he convinced himself that the trip was for me. Colton wanted to go cart racing the week before that which, for me, was definitely more fun than the strip club, but not really a cure for the kind of depression that comes from your marriage ending because your wife is a closeted lesbian. They try, and that’s why we’re brothers, because we help each other out when one of us is down. So I brace myself for whatever crazy shenanigans they’re about to present me with.
“Okay, so what are we doing today? Sky-diving? Matching tattoos?”
“I didn’t even think of that stuff,” Colton says, looking over at Grayson. “Let’s do that instead. I could definitely jump out of a plane right now or get some ink drilled into my skin.”
“You’ll be doing that shit alone if you do,” Gray says to Colt. “And you know why we’re here, so stop being ridiculous.”
“Alright, fine.” Colton throws his hands in the air while l look at both of them, confused as hell. “We’ll talk about your thing instead.”
“What’s going on?” I ask them.
“We have an idea that we wanted to run by you. I know we’ve been going on some adventures recently, but this is business related.”
“Business?” I ask Grayson. “What do you mean? Book business?”
“Yeah. Colt and I have an idea that we’ve been discussing among ourselves that we wanted to run by you. Pick your brain a little. You up for it?”
“Absolutely. Let me sit down.”
The book world.
It’s a little bit of a sore subject for me at the moment, and it has been for a few months now. I’ve never been one of those artists who thrives on drama. I’m the opposite. When I’m stressed out or preoccupied I can’t write anything. Or, worse yet, I write stories that are total crap and delete the entire file the next day. I need peace of mind to write stories. And even though the literary snobs out there look down on what I write as some kind of glorified porn, I’m a storyteller, and that takes way more time and effort than anyone realizes.
I’ve been in a creative slump since Jenny left. I had a decent launch for Into Your Eyes, but sales have been total crap since release week because I haven’t written anything new. Writing consistently is one of the keys to being successful in the self-publishing world. Websites like Amazon reward you for publishing more often because you get picked up in their algorithm if you’re on there more. It makes sense—the more books people publish, the higher the percentage of royalties that Amazon gets, even if the book isn’t a bestseller. There are so many people self publishing that Amazon makes money on the volume of books alone. But when you don’t publish for a long time sales can slump because your book gets lost in the shuffle.
That’s where I am right now. Of course the end of my marriage is the main reason that I’m depressed, but I was really hoping that Into Your Eyes would do much better than it did. When sales aren’t what you want them to be—and so far they haven’t been—I start to question everything about my career. Am I as good as I think? Are my books terrible? Why aren’t sales better? A lot of questions that just lead to self doubt. Thank God I have these two, because every time I get down on myself they’re here to cheer me up.
“So, here’s the idea,” Grayson begins. “Come, sit first.” I plop my butt down on the couch next to Colton and listen as Grayson continues. “We were thinking of pooling our talents. The three of us, I mean.”
“How’s that?” I ask.
Colton jumps in. “Kind of like a writing group. Something that we can promote and capture all of our different fans in one place. We’re all romance authors, and we all do okay, but we write very different types of books from one another.”
“Yeah,” Grayson jumps in smiling. “I write good ones.”
“That’s not what your last few reviews said,” Colton jokes.
“What do you mean a writing group? Like we’d write stories together or something?”
“Well, maybe,” Grayson continues. “But it’s more about pooling all of our talent into a social media group, so that we can expose fans to all of our different genres of books and they get to see and hear from all of us in one place. We can have a multiplier e
ffect on each other’s careers, potentially.”
I think about it for a second, and only a second. Some ideas require a lot of contemplation—weighing the pros and cons—and others, like this one, just make sense the second you hear them spoken. “I like it,” I tell them. “I like it a lot.”
“Nice,” Gray says. “We thought we were going to have to twist your arm a little more.”
“You thought wrong,” I tell him. “This is a great idea.”
“We need a name. We can call ourselves. . .well, we’re kind of stuck on that part, but we can figure those details out later. We were just thinking that it might be a cool way to tie our writing together. We could do social media posts, and maybe even co-write some books or something.”
“And,” Colton jumps in, picking up where Grayson left off. “We thought that we could start this off by creating a Facebook group this weekend, then hosting an event for readers once we get a following, which shouldn’t take long. What do you think?”
“What kind of event?” I ask.
“We were thinking a signing and meet and greet kind of thing. Maybe a weekend event that’s just for the three of us, where readers can take pictures, get their books signed, and maybe we can organize a dinner afterwards. Something cool that all of our readers and fans can get involved in.”
I listen closely and even before Colton finishes with that last part about the event, I’m already excited, even if it isn’t showing on my face. I’m honestly not sure what face I’m making, but I know that for the first time in a few months the idea of my writing career is inspiring something in me other than stress. “I love the idea, man. You guys are brilliant.”
“Oh,” Grayson says, looking over at Colton. “We both thought you were gonna take much more convincing than that. We had all these speeches prepared to get you on board.”
“No need, dude. I’m on board, it’s a killer idea. You can save the speeches, I’m in.”
“Well, holy shit,” Colton says, smiling at me. “I’m psyched about this. It’s gonna be awesome.”
“I think it’ll be more than awesome,” I say. “It’s going to help all of our careers.”
“Speak for yourself,” Colton jumps in, joking around. “My career is doing just fine.”
“Save that bullshit,” Grayson says. “I read your last book, it was shit. What the hell were you thinking killing off three of the main characters in a shoot out? You think women want to read that shit? What are you, the George R. R. Martin of romance? You basically wrote the Red Wedding into a romance novel.”
Gray’s not kidding. I haven’t written a lot but I have been reading plenty of books. I personally really enjoyed Colt’s last one, but he made the classic mistake of writing for guys and not for women. It started off like a romance novel and then it became a Tarantino film where people were getting shot left and right. It was a good book, but it strayed a little far from what readers usually want in these books.
“I know, I know. I got bored and I started just entertaining myself. I’m almost done with my new one. It’s not like that at all. It’s about an mixed martial arts fighter trying to make it on the amateur circuit. Then he meets this amazingly hot woman and. . .well, I’ll save the whole blurb for the book. But I have a good feeling about this one.”
“That sounds cool.” I tell him. “Hey, is that why you’ve been training again?”
“Yup. I’m going full Daniel Day Lewis on this one. I want to get into the head of my character.”
“Just don’t get too far into it and get injured,” Gray says. “We need you for the group.”
“Speaking of which, there’s only one issue,” I say.
“What’s that?” Gray asks.
“The name? I know you said we can figure it out later, but did you guys have any ideas?”
Colton and Grayson look at each other like they’ve already had this conversation a few times over and come up with nothing. “We don’t have any ideas,” Colton says. “We did, but they all sucked.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“The Writers. . .the Bad Boys of Romance. . .yeah, they’re all shit, unfortunately.”
“The Wordsmiths,” I say, jumping right in, as if I was meant to give us all a name. “Let’s call ourselves the Wordsmiths.”
My words linger in the air and the guys look at each other, and then me. Grayson raises an eyebrow and I detect a faint grin on his face. Colton does the same. “Where‘d you get that one from?” he asks. “I think I like it.”
“It’s a long story,” I say, not wanting to discuss Jenny right now. “But it’s fitting, isn’t it? I think it describes what we do pretty well. And it’s original. If you guys are down I think we should make that our brand.”
“Amen to that, brother.” Colton pats me on the back. “I love it. Gray?”
“Me, too,” he agrees. “See, that’s why three heads are better than two.”
“I think you have that expression wrong,” I joke. “Well, whatever. Who cares? “It’s decided then. Let’s celebrate! You guys already have two of my beers, I see.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Colt says. “We kind of helped ourselves.”
“Hey, what’s mine is yours. And I don’t need any more alcohol right now, trust me. I’m trying to keep that under control. It’s time to turn shit around. Hold up.” I run to the fridge and grab a cold bottle of water and hold it up. “Raise your glasses, gentleman.”
“We don’t have glasses.”
“Raise your bottles then,” I say. “To the Wordsmiths!”
“To the Wordsmiths!”
“Now,” I ask after we’ve toasted. “The only real question is where are you savages taking me out to celebrate?”
“Oh, is that how it works now?” Colt asks.
“Well it’s only fair. I came up with the name.”
“The man’s got a point, Colt.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “I guess so.”
We all laugh. It’s the best I’ve felt in a long time.
3
Everleigh
Three Months Ago
“Check out his WIP!” I’m being my usual over enthusiastic self, and Rowan just gives me that ‘calm down’ look she’s used to throwing my way.
“His what?” she asks.
Rowan’s new to the indie book world, so she doesn’t know the terminology just yet. I use phrases around her like ‘release blitz’ and ‘WIP’ and she looks at me like I’m speaking Greek. I’m kind of like her personal romance tutor. “His WIP,” I repeat. “His work in progress. It’s the book he’s working on now but isn’t finished with yet.”
“He’s posting things from an unpublished book. Who does that?”
She really is a newbie. “Everybody does that, Ro. You’re old school. And you’re a year younger than me, too! Don’t worry, I’ll teach you the crazy ways of the indie romance world.”
“I can’t wait,” she says, looking at me like I’m more than a little bit nuts. “So?”
“What?”
“Tell me about his WIP. Did I say it right?”
“Perfect,” I tell her. “You’re learning. Come check it out, it’s really juicy.”
We’re sitting in the corner booth at the Starbucks where Ro and I sometimes meet to catch up. I work a lot. I’m the owner of a bakery my grandparents opened generations ago in Queens, New York. They passed it to my parents, and recently they passed it to me. It’s a crazy amount of work, even with a full staff, so I don’t get to see my girls as much as I used to. But I still make an effort to have some girl time. I turn my laptop so that she can see my screen.
The place is alive with the sounds of the under-caffeinated masses. The back of my computer is facing the line of people jammed inside waiting to order their macchiatos and lattes. They have no idea what I’m looking at. I wonder, what the hell did romance readers do before tablets and laptops? It’s not like women used to walk around carrying paperbacks with half naked, glistening dudes on the cover. I�
�m happy that my love of smut correlated with some pretty major technological changes. It helps keep my little hobby private, something I only share with other people in the community and those who know me best. People like Ro and my other best friend, Harley.
She squeezes in next to me so that we’re shoulder to shoulder in the booth. She pretends not to be interested in this stuff, but I can see the look in her eyes when she catches a glance at my screen. Her face lights up when she reads a few lines. “Oh, my.”
“Right? It’s fucking hot. I’m going to one-click this as soon as it’s available.”
“One click?”
“Jesus, Ro, what decade are you living in? You sound like an old lady. I can’t believe that you still only buy actual books.”
“I like the feel and smell of real books. I’m sorry, but a Kindle just can’t replace that.”
“They’re not mutually exclusive,” I tell her. “I do both and so can you.”
“That’s true. So how did you find his WIP?” She says the last part like she’s really proud of herself, like a kid who just learned a new word.
“Look,” I say, turning the screen so she can see it clearly. “I’m a member of his reader’s group, The Knight Riders. That’s where he posted it. Only a few paragraphs.”
“Please tell me that’s not really the name of his group?”
“It is,” I say, grinning. “He’s Michael Knight. Get it?”
“You’re so corny, Everleigh. You might be the only one who loves that name.” We both laugh. “I’m not in any reader groups, how do they work? What happens in them?”
I’ve never really thought about it in those terms. “Nothing happens, exactly. But I keep my notifications on so that I get to see all of his posts. Like this one. Authors post excerpts from their works in progress sometimes, it’s pretty common. It keeps readers engaged until their next book comes out.”
“Is it long?”
“His WIP?” I ask coyly. “I bet it’s super long. Thick, too.”
“Everleigh!”
“What? It is. Look, it’s a long post. God, what did you think I meant, Ro?”
Knight: The Wordsmiths Book One Page 3