Brand New Sky

by Heidi Hutchinson

  Ryan both hated and loved Writers' Group. She had liked it a whole lot more when it was smaller and quieter, and everyone was afraid to talk to each other. What better way for introverts to bond except silently?

  “So what is everyone working on this week?” Cathy asked, her voice ringing shrilly in Ryan's ear.

  Ryan probably wasn't being fair; in fact, she knew she wasn't being fair. Cathy was a perfectly nice person. But she gave off a vibe that Ryan disliked. A vibe that said, “I plan on eating your soul while you sleep and no one will see it coming.”

  “I tried to call you today,” Cathy's perky voice cut through Ryan's skull. “But your phone was off.”

  Ryan slowly inhaled through her nose before answering. “Well, that's because my deadline was today, so I had it off. Like usual during deadline week.”

  Cathy giggled. “That's right. I always forget when it's your deadline week.”

  Ryan forced a smile as her eyes slid from Cathy to Blythe, who was grinning. Of course Cathy forgot it was deadline week. She usually did. Occasionally she proved it by showing up at Ryan's door, announced, with banana bread.

  Ryan was allergic to bananas.

  “So did you get it finished?” Cathy asked.

  Ryan nodded, dropping her gaze to the table.

  “I wish I could turn out stories that fast,” Cathy said with a sigh. “My writing requires so much research.”

  Ryan bit down on her tongue to keep from speaking. This was a topic they had gone over before and it was never fun to re-live.

  Sure, Ryan wrote romance novels. But that didn't make her writing sub-par or illegitimate. She put just as much effort into one of her books as any of those people at the table.

  Well, maybe not Sad Ian.

  “I'd sure like to write simple little stories,” Cathy continued, huge smile on her face as she plodded right along on her normal one track mindedness. “It would make my life so much easier.”

  “Yep, my life is oodles of boring,” Ryan replied, really wishing she'd had the flu this week or something. Yes, she would rather have the flu than sit across from Cathy and be made to feel like her work was less than it was, simply because she hadn't written any literary classics.

  Book snobs, among fellow authors.

  “I wouldn't describe Ryan's stories as simple...”

  Ryan's head snapped up and she narrowed her eyes at Blythe, who had let her voice trail off. This was a first. Tristen was the only one with the balls to even attempt correcting Cathy.

  Blythe straightened her shoulders and lifted chin ever so slightly as she slowly rotated her head to face Cathy. “Have you read them?” she asked in all sincerity.

  Ryan widened her eyes as she reached for her coffee cup. She needed more caffeine.

  Cathy's head tilted to the side and she looked perplexed. “Read what?”

  “Ryan's books,” Blythe pressed, her perfectly shaped lips curling on the ends. “Have you read them?”

  “Oh,” Cathy's smile almost flinched as she reached for her coffee and brought it to her mouth. “I'm so busy, there's no way I'd have time to read them all.”

  “One,” Blythe demanded sweetly. “Surely you've read one.”

  Cathy took a long sip of her coffee and Ryan was wishing there was a way she could order bagels with extra cream cheese and go home to her laptop. Where things made sense and the people who talked only said what she wanted them to say and no one smiled so vacantly as what was across from her.

  “I read the first one,” Cathy finally said, now avoiding eye contact with everyone except for her phone. Her fingers moved over it like she had received a notification.

  “So you know the complicated relationships that Ryan explores. You're familiar with her style.” Blythe was leaning toward Cathy now, eagerly trying to draw her into some sort of discussion.

  Things like this always made Ryan uncomfortable. Mostly because it was about her and her writing and she really didn't want to hear what people thought about it. She just wanted to write her “silly little stories” and be left alone.

  Although, her writing had continued to improve and expand every year with every manuscript. A large part in thanks to her friendship with most of these people at the table. They challenged her and pushed her to do better.

  Not Cathy. Cathy didn't read romance.

  Cathy was a highly educated woman who cared about important social issues like the war in Uganda and the dying rainforests. She couldn't be bothered to read Ryan's simple mindedness. Which was fine with Ryan, she didn't want Nelly Olsen reading her stuff anyway.

  She'd probably try to pull out its yarn hair and leave it in the mud.

  “Oh, Liam is going to make it after all!” Cathy declared in delight. The deliberate subject change was normal, Ryan was perfectly fine with it. Not that she wanted to see Liam.

  Liam was Cathy's fiancé. He had personal space boundaries.

  And he lived a block away from Ryan.

  “Gah!” Shayla burst out from behind her laptop screen. “Why is this thing such a piece of shit?” Her fingers pounded indelicately on the keyboard and then she slammed the top closed and covered her face with both hands. The tattoos across her knuckles reading upside down “Over Stay.” It was the name of her first book. Dark, heavy, complicated. Just like her.

  “Let me see it,” Sad Ian said quietly, reaching for the laptop and placing it in front of him.

  Shayla stood up abruptly. “I need a cookie or something. Don't ask me to get you anything, I won't.” Then she walked away. Ryan's lips twitched. She loved how Shayla never apologized for her actions. And she shouldn't need to. They were at Writers' Coffee, eccentricities were expected.

  That's when Ryan's mind began to wander. She should write a heroine based on Shayla. Cold and aloof on the outside, soft squishy goodness at the center. Well, she'd be soft and squishy in Ryan's book. Real life Shayla? Not so much.

  She'd need a strong counterpart. Probably someone on a motorcycle with a dark history. And tattoos.

  They'd rescue pit bulls together.

  “Earth to Ryan.”

  Ryan looked up and saw that the rest of the group was standing and packing away their belongings. Oh, she'd done it again. Lost track of time in the mental story boarding of a new project. She hadn't even noticed Liam arrive and her creeper-radar usually pinged loudly when he was around.

  “Sorry, I must have spaced off,” she apologized as she scooted out from her chair and tried to figure out if her bladder would wait until she reached her house, or if she should just go here. She tabulated the amount of coffee trying to make its way through her system. Nope, the bladder wasn't going to wait. Bossy wench.

  Slinging her purse over a shoulder, she backed away from the group and gave a low wave. “See you guys later, I'm gonna...” She motioned towards the bathrooms with her thumb over her shoulder. Did this really have to be declared? People were smart, they should know she had to relieve herself. “Yeah,” she finished flatly, turning around.

  She wasn't the best at saying goodbye. It seemed tedious and inefficient. People should be allowed to get up and leave the room when events had concluded. They shouldn't have to stand around and come up with eight different ways to say it, before finally retreating to their own space. Where they belonged.

  Ryan had a lot of big opinions in regards to people. She had learned a long time ago that relationships quickly faded with the more time you spent with a person.

  That wasn't completely true. Relationships with her faded quickly with the more time someone spent with her. It worked to her greatest advantage to keep people at arm's length—or even further in some cases.

  Annie the Editor for example, while Ryan adored her and longed to have her closer so they could strengthen their friendship, Ryan knew without a doubt that it would actually do more harm to their relationship than benefit.

  She wasn't bitter about it. She had accepted that she was a lone wolf long ago. She wasn't “user friendly.” At least
, not when she was herself. She was a brand of weird that people always thought needed to be fixed. And when they couldn't fix her—or worse, couldn't manipulate her—the relationship dwindled and died. Or occasionally exploded into spectacular little pieces. Though she avoided that scenario as often as possible.

  Ryan had found a good balance with which she was quite comfortable. But there was always the odd person trying to worm their way into her carefully laid barriers and seeing what was inside. She didn't understand this desire. She had firsthand experience and knew there was nothing there. Just her. And it wasn't anything remarkable at all.

  Still, the balance needed to be maintained. And spacing off at Writers' Coffee was off-putting to those around her. She didn't understand why, but she had accepted it as truth. People (and by “people,” she meant Cathy) would look for any reason to be offended.

  But it was becoming more and more difficult for Ryan to be polite to Nelly Olsen. It wasn't in her nature to get walked on. She was proud of the fact that she'd conquered that issue years ago. Which is what really made her dislike Cathy—having her hands tied.

  Oh well, so she'd spaced off. It was probably for the betterment of the group that she'd stayed inside her head tonight.

  Besides, new story idea. And, as her bladder was attesting to at that moment, she'd had more than enough caffeine to go home and get a few thousand words started on it before she crashed.

  While she was washing her hands, she noticed the dark circles under her eyes. Maybe sleep should be a priority one of these days.

  She snorted. Like it mattered. Who was she trying to impress? Clive?

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket as she was walking out the door. She glanced down at the screen at the same time as she bumped into someone in the short hallway.

  “Excuse me,” she said, trying to back out of their space and focus on the notification at the same time. Her status update about finishing the rough had received over a hundred comments already. It always amazed her that so many people cared what was happening for Sullivan Summers. Since her and the pen name were one and the same, she often reminded herself that they actually weren't. Not really.

  The person she had bummed into advanced on her. She stepped to the side to go around and so did they. Looking up with a frown, she came face to face with Liam—personal space invader.

  “Ryan,” he said, smiling. “I was looking for you.”

  “Why?” she asked, immediately suspicious. She had hoped that she'd gotten away without having to deal with his smarminess. He was the kind of guy that could make you feel icky just being in the same room with him. And a conversation usually left her feeling like she needed to shower with an industrial solvent.

  He smiled again, thinking he was more charming than he actually was. “We never get these moments together, you and I.”

  She took another step back and he grinned. “Seriously, what do you want?” she asked as she calculated the distance between them, her and the mouth of the hallway, and from there to the exit. Liam always thought he was ever so adorable. He wasn't. Maybe he was to Cathy. Not to Ryan. Which was why she never cared to be polite. She was hoping her obvious frigidity would freeze him out and he'd stop trying to be her friend. Or whatever it was he thought he was doing.

  Probably sensing Ryan's clear discomfort, he took a breath and stepped back. “My car won't start and Cathy already left. Do you think I could get a ride since we live so close?”

  Ryan's stomach gurgled like she'd just ingested spoiled milk. This could only go badly for her. If she said no, Cathy would make the hugest deal about how rude she had been and what bad manners she had, probably due to her upbringing. And she'd say it in a way that made Ryan sound pitiful and ignorant, like she had no idea what she was doing was disrespectful. And she'd say it in a place where the audience was the biggest. Like Twitter or Facebook.

  One time Ryan had declined a loaf of Cathy's banana bread because she was allergic to bananas. She had paid for that for nearly three months with Cathy tagging her in comments online, making it seem like Ryan made up the allergy just to make Cathy feel bad for trying to be generous.

  On the other hand, saying yes meant spending at least 15 minutes in the car with Liam who made her uncomfortable, though she could never put her finger on why.

  “Fine,” she relented. “But I think I have strep throat, so don't touch me.”

  Liam grimaced and then nodded.

  Ryan didn't even know Liam's last name. All she knew was that he was probably only 5'10” and he had a beard. It was a decent beard. But it made his brown eyes look beady. And she also knew that he washed cars for a living. And had been engaged to marry Cathy for two years. They had yet to set a date. Something about her many social obligations and his work making it difficult to get time off.

  Her car, an olderish model Camry, was parked in the lot, and she unlocked the doors with the key fob when they were close enough.

  “I finished it,” Liam said bizarrely after she had started the engine. “Can't wait for the next one.”

  Oh, that's right. One other thing about Liam. He had read all of her books. The same books that Cathy wouldn't read.

  “Well, it's with the editor now so...” she said, hoping they didn't have to make small talk all the way home.

  “Can you give me any spoilers?” he asked.

  Ryan touched her throat and shook her head.

  “Right, your throat. Sorry.” He looked out the window and drummed his fingers on the top of his thighs. This was the longest drive of Ryan's life.

  She let her mind go again and mentally began preparing her office for a huge writing binge. She probably shouldn't make another pot of coffee... maybe she'd switch to tea this time. She'd light a couple of candles (for ambiance), give her dog a great big bone, change into yoga pants and a tank top.

  “Thanks for the ride,” Liam said opening the car door and stepping out onto her driveway before she even had the car in park.

  She didn't feel the need to respond verbally since she was still going with the strep-throat charade. Expecting him to head straight home and not linger, she was surprised when she went to unlock her door and he was standing next to her on her front porch.

  “Just making sure you get inside okay,” he said when she frowned at him.

  “Mmhm,” she replied, unlocking the door. Turning around before he could follow her in, she gave him a curt nod. “Goodnight.” Then she shut the door. She didn't wait for a response, she didn't wait for him to walk down the steps to the sidewalk before she locked the door loudly either.

  Creep.

  “Ugghhh,” she said loudly as she did a full body shudder on her way to Clive's crate. “You know, Clive, if you would give up that pesky habit of eating couches while I'm gone, you could be the one greeting me at the door. Then maybe Beady Beardy wouldn't feel so inclined to hover.”

  Clive whined.

  Ryan let him out to do his business, and then she got to work.

  ***

  It was awfully sunny for seven in the morning, Sway thought as he pulled his Lexus into Tawny's driveway. He eyed the large walnut tree that overhung the pavement. Maybe he should ask to use the garage while he stayed here. Not that the neighborhood looked shady, but it was spring and the Lexus had never slept outside before.

  He closed his eyes and focused on relaxing the clench in his stomach. It shouldn't matter. He could always wash it. Everything can always be fixed.

  Or replaced.

  Taking a deep breath and letting it out, he reached for the door handle. Tawny was waiting for him on her front porch, hands on her hips, dark hair in a tight ponytail.

  “Thank you for being prompt,” Tawny said after he'd cleared the car and was almost to the short steps leading up to her front door.

  “Of course,” he answered with a lopsided smile. “Are you ready?”

  “As I'll ever be,” she said and turned to go inside.

  They walked through the house and she pointed out
where everything was kept, what times things needed to happen—like lawn watering, plant feeding, and sea monkey care-taking. The sheets, the towels, the wi-fi password.

  She pointed out the garage remote on the kitchen counter. “That's the only one I have, don't lose it.”

  “Cool,” Sway said, while internally he finally relaxed all the way.

  Tawny must've noticed. She pursed her lips and studied him for a minute. “You know I asked you to house-sit because I trust you, right?”

  Sway shrugged. “Yeah, that kind of goes without saying.”

  Tawny narrowed her eyes at him, but didn't push it.

  Tawny and Sway had been friends forever. The kind of friends where they could be themselves and it wasn't a big deal. They had met in high school and took turns being each other's cover for when they skipped class. She was always there for him when he needed an impartial ear, and he was there for her in return.

  Like when they had returned from overseas and Lenny had left, going home to the Tetons and Luke disappointed them all by not asking her stay. Sway had called Tawny to crash at her place for a couple of days. He had needed to decompress around a woman who wasn't looking for a hookup. Tawny was safe in that regard.

  She was like the younger sister who pretended to be his older sister that he never actually wanted, but ended having anyway.

  The cab honked as it arrived outside and she moved swiftly to her suitcase and then to the front door. “I feel like I'm forgetting to tell you something, but I can't figure out what it is.”

  Sway followed her out onto the porch and let the screen door close behind him. This was exactly what he needed. A change of scenery, a change of pace, a place to figure out how to slow down, be a regular adult.

  He'd been on tour for so long, he wondered if he knew how to live a regular life. What if touring was all he was good at?

  To his left, a large dog loped down the steps next door and wandered out into the yard. A young woman came down behind him and sat on the third step, staring out into the yard sightlessly.

  She was blonde. A gorgeous honey blonde. Long and thick, she had it tied in a sloppy knot at the very top of her head. Gray yoga pants, a white tank top, a darker gray sweater wrapped tightly around her petite frame, the sleeves covering most of her hands as she cradled a large mug in both of them like it held the most precious liquid in the world. She lifted the mug to overly full and perfectly pouty lips, took a sip and licked her bottom lip as she let it back down.