“If you’re willing.”
“That’s fine, I’m not starving.” I end up ordering three appetizers. I intentionally avoid ordering a full meal so we won’t have to sit there too long. I don’t want to be here very long at all, I have things that are way more important than whatever drama’s going on in her life right now. When the waiter takes our order back to the kitchen I ask her again. “So what’s going on? Why now? Why did you ask me here?”
“It has nothing to do with me, if that’s what you were thinking when I texted you. It’s about you.”
I’m confused. “Me? What about me?”
“I’m such an idiot,” she says. “I really worded that text badly. You probably thought I was in trouble or something, didn’t you?” I nod. “It’s not that. I know we don’t speak anymore, but you know I’m still deep in the community, right?”
“I know. Just ‘cause I don’t read your blog or follow your page doesn’t mean that I don’t know you’re out there.”
“Well I’ve also been doing PA work for a few authors—some of them are on their way to a best seller list for sure.”
A PA is a personal assistant. The indie book world is full of them. Most are loyal readers and book lovers who just want to help authors out with some of the grunt work of their jobs, things like promotion, organizing ARC groups, managing their pages, posting things for them if they can’t, or if they’re too busy, helping with release parties online, and so forth. Jenny was flirting with the idea of being a PA back when we were still together, but she always said that she was looking for the right authors to help out. Despite all of her many flaws, Jenny loves the indie book world, and she’s hyper organized. I’m sure whoever she’s helping out is thankful to have her.
“Okay,” I say, not sure where she’s going with this. Maybe she has an opportunity she wants to tell me about, but that seems a little unlikely.
“Do you know KL Steiner?” As soon as I hear that assholes name my blood starts to boil. He’s this hack author who writes really dark erotica. He has a small army of readers who treat him like he’s a cult leader, but he’s not well known outside of his insulated circle. I guess none of us are, though.
“Yeah.”
“I PA for an author who’s very close to him. I don’t know all the details. I didn’t even know what they were referring to when I heard this because we haven’t spoken. I wanted to call you. . .”
“Jenny, with all due respect, get to the fucking punchline please, I’m begging you.”
“Sorry,” she says. “I have it on good authority that KL stole one of your stories and that he’s repackaging it as his next book. That’s the word on the street, anyhow.”
It’s hard to describe my thoughts and emotions right now. I hear her words, but it’s like I’m in a dream, or a nightmare. “I’m gonna need you to elaborate. What are you talking about?”
“Did you lose some computer? Your laptop that you used to write on?”
“I lost it the last day of the signing, but he wasn’t. . .” Fuck! He was there! That little piece of shit. That’s what Everleigh meant when she told me some author was trying to hit on her, but she wouldn’t give me his name. I assumed it was just some guy trying to sleep with her and calling himself an author, but it was that piece of shit. He infiltrated our event just to fuck with me. “For real, Jenny, tell me everything you know.” I’m looking at her intensely, only this time it’s not directed at her. She’s only the messenger, but I want to hear more right away.
“Look, Michael, this is all conjecture. Like, I couldn’t prove it in court.”
“You’re not under oath, just tell me everything you’ve heard, whether it’s true or not.”
The waiter brings the appetizers over but I’m not hungry anymore. I’m the opposite of hungry, to the point that the smells of my favorite foods are actually bothering me. I push the plates aside and motion for Jenny to eat, but she also pushes them away. “Alright,” she continues. “But my reputation is on the line, also. I know everything I’m going to say is gonna piss you off, but I’m breaking a few different confidences to tell you because, despite everything that happened between us, I still care about your career and want you to be successful. So I need your assurance that my name stays out of whatever happens after this.”
I pause for a second, thinking about what she’s saying. She really does seem upset for me. It softens my anger a little bit. It’s nice to see that somewhere inside she still cares about what happens to me, but that’s a back of my mind thought. Right now I need the story. I prompt her one more time and she lets everything out like a faucet—like someone who’s been harboring a secret that she needs to confess. This isn’t the first type of conversation we’ve had like this, but I do my best to not let it remind me of the past and just listen to what she has to say. I know that she’s deeply embedded in the indie writing community, so I trust her word.
“From what I hear he found your laptop, took it with him when he left the event, and found a part of a story you were working on. Something like that. Did you have an unfinished story on there?” I nod. “Yeah, it seems like this is all true, then. Um. . .so, the rest of it is a little fuzzy because if this was a known thing it would look bad for him, but I heard that he took your story and is repackaging it to fit the genre he writes.”
“My story was nothing like what he writes, how’s he gonna pull that one off?”
“I have no idea, Mike, I can’t ask him that. Maybe he’s taking the setting, or the characters. I really don’t know, but regardless he has your laptop and he stole your story.”
“Who told you this?” I bark. I can hear the anger in my voice rising. It isn’t directed towards Jenny for once, but I can see it’s taking her aback.
“I can’t, Mike, I’m sorry. I can give you what I’m giving you, but please don’t ask me for more. Like I said, it’s someone close to KL.”
“So that motherfucker isn’t just a hack writer, he’s also a criminal. Jesus, I didn’t think even he would go that far with any of this online drama we had.” The drama. There’s something everyone in our community who follows our work knows about—the day KL went off on his Facebook page about what assholes and bad writers me and the guys were, and how our whole Wordsmith group was bound to fail. That much is well documented.
What isn’t known by the readers are the private conversations I had with the guy. No matter what he said in ‘public’, behind the scenes he was practically begging me to join. He saw that Colton’s star was on the rise and he tried as hard as he could to hitch a ride. He knew that Colt would never co-write anything with him, so he figured the only way was to jump in the group with all of us. It was so obvious that he didn’t think very much of any of us, and that he just wanted to boost his own career by using us.
That’s not what kept him out, though. What kept him out was his secrecy. Colt, Gray, and I go back. We’re actual friends outside of our writing careers, and we spend time together that has nothing to do with romance novels. That’s not a requirement, obviously. We can’t just have our friends in the group, but the guy refused to tell us anything about himself because it was part of his whole shtick. It’s one thing to play a mysterious character with your readers—that’s just marketing—but it’s just bizarre to do it with another grown man in a private conversation, especially when you’re trying to get something. He wouldn’t tell us his real name, or any personal information whatsoever. That was the game changer for us, not his writing. Ironically I was willing to give the guy a chance, but the Wordsmiths was Colt and Gray’s idea originally, so I deferred to them, and both gave a resounding ‘Hell No’ when it came to the vote. I didn’t care that much, but I offered to deliver the news. Needless to say, he didn’t take it well, and the rest is history. Actually, the rest is my present.
“That piece of fucking shit.”
“I agree,” Jenny says. I can tell she genuinely feels bad for me. She had to know I was probably going to be less than pleasant to
wards her—we didn’t end on good terms last we saw each other—but she was still willing to reach out just to give me the heads up. I guess that counts for something. I take a deep breath and exhale loudly so as not to freak out right here at the table and get myself barred for life.
I stand up, food still on the table, and drop some cash next to it. “I need to go handle this.”
“What are you gonna do?” she asks.
“I honestly don’t know. But I promise I won’t explicitly mention your name.” I start to walk off then stop myself. “And Jenny,” I pause as she turns around. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. It’s the least I could do.”
“You’re right about that. But still, thank you.”
I walk out into the night ready to fucking hit someone. I’m fuming inside, with images of that fuck going through my head. It’s not a healthy mindset to be in, but I can’t help it. I walk to my car, take a deep breath, and promise myself that I can scream once I get home. When I pull into my driveway I don’t even know what to do, but before I have time to think about it my phone vibrates.
“Hey,” Everleigh’s text says. “Am I ever going to get to see you, or are you too big for your britches writing that bestseller I know you’re working on?”
Shit. There are no excuses good enough for why I haven’t seen her since our hot weekend together at the signing. I’ve thought about her almost non-stop since we left, and we’ve texted back and forth a million times. I have been busy, really busy, both with writing and promoting, but that’s not a reason to have not seen her yet, especially when we live in the same area.
Me: I’m so sorry. I’m going to dinner with the guys tomorrow night, but how about the night after that?
Everleigh: Sounds good. Where are you taking me?
Me: Fuck going out,” I write her back. “I’ll be your personal chef on Saturday. We’re staying in.
21
Knight
“I’m gonna beat the living shit out of him.”
Colton reacts exactly like I thought he might when I tell him the news about my computer and KL. Like we’d discussed the other day, we’re having a boys night out at a steakhouse a few miles out of town. It’s an expensive place, fancy as hell, and we don’t really fit in. We look very different from the crowd in here. A bunch of big dudes, tatted up, untucked dress shirts over our jeans, chest tattoos peeking out just underneath our necks. We get a few looks when we walk in together, but our money is as good as anyone’s.
“For real, if I see him ever again he’s getting taken down, choked out, and beaten the fuck down.”
“You’re too deep into your next book,” Grayson says, being the voice of reason that he usually is in these situations. “You’re not actually Aidan. In real life that kind of thing will get you arrested for assault. Not the publicity we need.”
The person Gray is referring to, Aidan, is the male badass lead character in Colt’s MMA romance series. The first book in that series, Fist, is the one that flew to the top of the Amazon sales charts, helping to boost his sales and his overall career. He’s deep into the second book, The Gentle Art, right now, and he’s started to train seriously again to help get into the character’s head.
“I can kick your ass pretty handily, Gray, and there isn’t shit you could do about it. But we’re practically brothers, so I’ll save my training for that scumbag.”
Fist was based on a lot of shit in Colton’s real life. In some ways we all infuse parts of ourselves into our characters and our books. In Colt’s case, he really is a martial artist. He’s from a family of martial artists, and it was his dad who introduced him to combat sports. Where most fathers and sons would sit on a couch watching football or basketball, Colt and his dad would watch mixed martial arts tournaments, or UFC pay-per-views and then train afterwards. They barely speak anymore—his dad is about the most fucked up person I know, but it’s him who instilled a love of martial arts. Colton used to train like crazy five days a week, but since he’s been focusing on his writing he’s backed off some. It only made sense that the book he’d write the best would be about a world he knows well. If anyone could actually beat the fuck out of KL it’s him, but I hope he controls himself.
“Seriously, Mike, I can’t believe it, if it’s true. That’s some bullshit. It’s not just shitty behavior, it’s a crime. The fucker stole an expensive piece of electronics from you.” Grayson’s getting worked up talking about it.
“Not that expensive, don’t worry.”
“You know what I mean, Mike. And at our own event, just to add insult to injury. What the hell was he even doing there?”
“This,” Gray interrupts. “Trolling us. Getting his bitch-ass revenge for us not making him a Wordsmith.”
“Let’s be clear,” I say, looking both of them in the eyes intensely, my anger and my voice rising. “If anyone beats this fuck down it’s me. Got it?” They nod without saying anything. They can tell I’m serious and this revenge is mine. “But,” I continue. “I’m moving on. We’re moving on.”
“That’s. . .” Grayson stops himself, looking for the right words. “That’s a really healthy attitude, man. I’m proud of you.”
“Mike, all due respect, but if you don’t fuck him up, I’m going to.”
“Colt!” Gray yells, turning towards our angry friend. “Cool it. The man’s trying to be an adult in this fucked up situation, think maybe we should help him and not get him worked up? We’re not on the schoolyard. And the last thing you need is to get into another fight.”
I clench up a little when Gray calls Colton out like that. Colt has a history of getting into fights, mostly in school before we both met him. His dad used to make him fight anyone he had a problem with. It got Colt kicked out of a few high schools. The only way he got into NYU was to hide those parts of his past on his application.
“Sorry,” he says. “You’re right. Sometimes I get back into my old state of mind when I’m heated. Your way is better, Mike.”
“Look, I appreciate both perspectives. I’m worked up already, and I meant what I said—jail, getting arrested, bad PR—I don’t give a fuck. This man has a reckoning coming next time we’re in a room together. But in the meantime, we have success waiting for us around the corner, so let’s order some fucking steaks and get after it!”
“I like this version of Mike,” Colt says. “I like him a lot.”
The waitress comes over to take our orders. We order steaks like men—Colton gets the porterhouse with creamed corn and steamed vegetables; Grayson, being a little more refined than both of us gets the filet, medium, with asparagus and mashed potatoes. Me? I go all out and fuck with the bone-in Ribeye, 30 oz., rare. I don’t fuck around when it comes to steak, and I’m feeling like celebrating the success that I know is coming!
We sit around and talk business. Our WIP’s first—Grayson’s working on a new series, Colton has book two of his MMA series, and I have a stand-alone that I’m working on. I hear True North’s words in my head as we speak. I took his advice and started a new story. It isn’t much, but it’s something. I don’t have a title yet and I’m keeping the plot hushed for now. I’m a little weird with that stuff. I’m like those superstitious expecting parents that won’t tell anyone their baby’s name until it’s born.
All I know so far is that my title-less book is going to be a standalone—meaning it’s not part of a series of books—and it’s a little risky to do a standalone in this genre. Readers love a good series. They love to fall in love with their ‘book boyfriends’, and to follow characters throughout a group of stories. Writing a series is your best chance for success, and it’s the most lucrative way to write. I’ll start a new series next, but right now I have to stick with what’s inspired me, and that’s Everleigh. “Mine’s a standalone about a guy who’s having trouble writing until he meets the girl of his dreams.”
“I see,” Colt says, taking a bite out of his porterhouse like a caveman. “You’re writing your autobiogr
aphy with a little fantasy thrown in. Good luck selling that.”
“You’re one to talk over there, how many times you hit the gym this week so you could get inside Aidan’s head as a character? Breaking news, asshole, Aidan isn’t real. He’s you.”
“Touché,” Gray says, laughing at Colt who’s now angrily chewing on his piece of steak because I got the better of that exchange.
“It’s not my autobiography, but it is obviously based on my life. I’m leaving the Jenny drama out, and you guys aren’t in it—sorry. But I think readers will like to attach to something in our real lives. I think it’ll help them connect to the story.”
“For sure,” Gray agrees. “I think we all put ourselves into our books, at least a little. Readers are interested in us. . .not just in the same romance story being told again and again. They want to know about us as much as they want to know about what we write. Combining those things can only yield good results.”
“Thanks, man.”
“So,” Colt says after taking a huge drink from his beer, a blonde ale in the tallest Pilsner I think I’ve ever seen in my life. “When do we get to read this masterpiece?”
I usually tease readers with an excerpt from my WIP, but it’s only a page or two, sometimes less than that. I’m always worried that it’s too raw—too unedited, and that it’ll turn off as many people as it entices. This one I’m keeping close to the vest. I haven’t told anyone much about it, but I’ve been working on it, word by word, sentence by sentence, every single night since getting back from the signing. I can’t wait until it’s done and I can make it into a real book.
Colton gives me the eye. We’d discussed pitching Gray on the idea of an anthology with us and some of the other male authors that we’re all cool with. I catch his look from across the table, and as soon as we’re all done talking about our own books I transition. “Gray, I had this idea.”
Knight: The Wordsmiths Book One Page 15