Play Maker (23 page)

Seriously. What the fuck happened yesterday?

R
ead
the rest of GET LUCKY here!

M
r. Hottie Pants
isn’t the cover model Miranda assumed he was...

Miranda Rose lives for writing passionate, heart-wrenching romances. Unfortunately...there aren’t many readers that live for her books.

So every night, Miranda distracts herself from bad reviews by drunk-trolling her arch nemesis, writer Charlie Shivers, online. That click-baiting, dinosaur-smut peddler wouldn’t know real literature if it mounted him from behind!

Then, at her favorite romance writing conference, Miranda meets the world’s hottest guy and finds a new--ahem, sexier--way of distracting herself (and plenty of new material for her novels).

Except Mr. Hottie Pants isn’t the cover model she’d presumed—he’s her archenemy in the (naked) flesh, Charlie Shivers! To her surprise, sleeping with the enemy is kind of hot.

And scandalous.

And awesome.

But when she finds herself falling for the upstart hack of a novelist, she’s pretty sure there’s no way in hell that she’ll make it out on top.

            
W
ith a long sip of wine
, I sigh and prepare myself. My fingers are poised over the keys. It’s time to finish the scene I’ve been dreading. The scene that will gut me, just as they all do. Another sip, and I begin.

Stefanie wrapped her hands around his thick dick, rubbing it like a large bratwurst. She loved bratwurst, almost as much as she loved bratwurst-sized cock. Stefanie licked the tip and felt giddy, reminiscent of her days in Germany, full of lagers and lederhosen. He stared into her eyes, captivated by her willing mouth, and whispered the words she’d been dying to hear.

“I love you, too,” she murmurs and licks his thrumming dick.

“No, Stefanie. Look at me.”

Of course he wanted her to look at him. All guys loved being gazed upon while having their cocks sucked. It was the first thing she learned in college, after the location of her dorm and which room had the best parties. She obliges with a sultry smile.

“I can’t be with you.”

Oh God! I knew he was going to say it, but I still can’t help my eyes from filling with tears. Stefanie’s been hurt so many times before. Will this be the bratwurst that finally breaks her? Then—

Ding-ding!

Shit.
 I groan and snatch my phone, grumbling.

I thumb through the numerous notifications that have been ignored for the last two hours and find the text message responsible for killing my groove. It’s my mother, of course. I knew she had a date tonight, but I thought I had made it very clear that she was to save the recaps for her Bunco ladies.

Randy did not live up to his name
.

Oh, gross. Clearly she did not heed my instructions. This is just hideous. I have to be careful how I handle this, though, otherwise my mother will continue divulging entirely too many details about a situation I would rather die than hear about.

Here’s the thing about romance writers: everyone assumes you are overjoyed to gather the details of their most intimate moments. Here’s the other thing: we don’t.

Randy is a mechanic at the local car shop my mother trolls for men—I mean took her car to—at least once a week. He has a haircut that is bordering dangerously on mullet, wears cutoff jean shorts, and rumor has it that he collects taxidermy. He isn’t exactly what I would call a catch, but neither was my father.

My mom doesn’t have good taste in men. And it appears that trait is freaking hereditary. 
Thanks, Mom
. At least my fictional men are all studs.

I rub my watery eyes and mourn the interruption. Stefanie needs me right now, and here I am debating what to say to my mom about her sexcapades with an Al Bundy knock-off. I’ve got to be sympathetic and brush her off at the same time. She was really going to look at Randy nude? The humanity!

I swallow my continued disgust and send back, 
Sorry to hear that. At least it didn’t get very far. On to the next one!

Satisfied, I put down my phone and reach for my wine glass. Horror of horrors! It’s empty. How am I supposed to make it through the emotional turmoil of my climax—I mean, my 
story’s
 climax, because hell knows I haven’t had one in a while—without wine?

There’s so much to put my characters through. Tearful confessions, hate sex that turns into lovemaking, a final dark night of the soul for my poor Stefanie before she gets her happy ending. I live and breathe these characters. Their pain is mine. How am I supposed to do that without wine?

Even Hemingway said to write drunk.

I think. I was slightly tipsy when I Googled that quote.

A glance at the massive clock on the wall tells me it’s after midnight. This isn’t good; all the liquor stores are closed. How am I supposed to write without wine? Answer: I cannot. It’s simply impossible. I can’t complete the next chapter unless I have liquid courage to get me through it. And thanks to my self-imposed deadline, I absolutely have to finish this chapter tonight.

There’s only one person who can save me now—my next-door neighbor. I text Jane.

SOS Send wine ASAFP

Jane’s husband is a bigshot investment banker with a wine cellar the size of my house. Loaded doesn’t even begin to explain the man, which must be nice. I only have this house because my grandparents left it to us in their will after a Jet Ski accident (yes, a Jet-Ski accident. Whatever you do, do not Google this) and my mother didn’t want to live in her childhood home.

“Darling, how can I bring men home to my mother’s house? I cannot.” After I vomited at the idea, I realized it meant the house was all mine. Works for me, free rent and all, but it doesn’t come with a sweet wine cellar. Maybe when I make it big, I’ll renovate. A dream house for a dream life.

Again?
 comes Jane’s smartass response.

I don’t control the words. The words control me
. 
So what if they have controlled me three times already this week? Judgey Jane can simmer down.

I poke around my kitchen while waiting, just in case, but find it depressingly empty of anything alcoholic. I’m going to have to make a run tomorrow, because writing fuel. And because tax write-offs. And because reasons, dammit.

I’m an author, not a miracle worker. At least I have ice cream.

Nothing gets a girl through a break-up like ice cream, even if it is a fictional break-up. A knock on my door interrupts my shoveling of Phish Food into my open mouth. I dump it back in the freezer and wipe my mouth on my shirtsleeve, clearing off the evidence. Can’t let her know how pathetic I am.

“As requested.” The saint produces a bottle of pinot grigio and a bottle of my favorite cabernet. “You’re lucky he never goes in there.”

“Let’s be real, he only uses it for show.” I take the bottles and head into the kitchen for the bottle opener. “Want a glass?”

“Sure.” She settles onto a barstool and watches me float around my kitchen as I look for the damn bottle opener. “You need a maid.”

“I need to sell another six books. And then maybe.” I find it under a takeout container. Okay, so maybe my kitchen is a little chaotic and maybe a maid would be super awesome, but again, I’m an author, not a miracle worker. I’m not freaking Bethany Bonafont with her copious bestsellers and millions tucked away in a giant ranch in the middle of nowhere.

At least, when I’m not dreaming, I’m not.

I pour us two glasses and settle across the island from her. “How’s the kid?”

“Sick. Again.” Jane sighs. She’s still in her scrubs, so she must have gotten off work recently. I don’t know how she does it, handling a family and a career and a house. I can barely handle myself. Oh, who am I kidding? I cannot handle myself, ever. “Hopefully it’s not strep. If I get sick again, so help me, I’m going to cry. Or kill someone. Daycare is such a bitch.”

“Always opt to kill someone.” I slurpity-slurp down half the glass and top it off. “Just don’t get caught. Actually, you could just give me a name and I can do it fictionally for you.”

“Got a long list for you,” Jane sighs. “So on that note, how’s the book coming?”

“Painful.” I drape myself dramatically across the island counter. “The best kind. Especially now that I have more wine to make it all dramatic and beautiful. I think this book will be The One. I can feel it.”

“You know, I’ve thought about writing a book before.”

“Really?” I top off her glass and smile. It’s a fake smile. Here’s another thing about being a writer: everyone thinks they can do it, like it’s using a Couch to 5k app or learning how to bake a pie. Here’s what you should know, though: writing a book takes guts and booze and talent and an eternity to get right. “What about?”

“Romance, like you. But the ridiculous ones, you know? Where people fuck paperclips or Venus flytraps or dinosaurs or something. Those are hilarious.” Aw hell naw. I’m buzzed and she’s just said my trigger word—dinosaurs. I have a particular rage over their inclusion in the genre.

“Those—” I point at her with my glass and narrow my eyes into slits “—are not books. Those are trashy pieces of shit that shame the shelves.”

Jane laughs. “Oh, shut up, Bobby and I read them out loud to each other and crack up. They’re great!”

“They are not great. I slave away for my craft, Jane. I tear open my veins and bleed on the page.”

“That’s not very sanitary. Or healthy. You should probably get that looked at.”

“And then some perverted group of college boys, or soccer moms, or maybe even just one very depraved mental patient, writes books about fucking dinosaurs while they are really high and make enough money to pay off their student loans. While I live in squalor.”

“This is hardly squalor.” Jane gestured around.

“This is absolutely squalor. No maid, no wine, trash everywhere. Call me Oscar the Grouch and this is my trash can.”

She smiles. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“I really feel like those books should be rounded up and shot.” I finish my glass and pour another. The bottle is already feeling light. Damn it. “And you know I don’t condone damaging literature.”

“So, those books aren’t literature?”

“They aren’t literature!” I slosh a little accidentally as I move my glass around to emphasize the point, feeling warm and tingly inside. I wipe up the spilled drops with my finger and lick it. Have I mentioned how much I love wine? It’s the best. The besty-best.

“Please don’t write that shit, Jane,” I beg. “Real artists bleed from their soul.”

“I already bleed from my vagina once a month. Isn’t that enough?”

I wave her and her potty-mouth off. “Nope. No guts, no glory.”

“Unless I write about banging a triceratops,” she clarifies.

“That has to 
hurt
.” I make a face and pour the rest of the wine in her glass. She tries to stop me, but I ignore her. No one refuses wine in my house. “Think about it! All those spines or horns or whatever. Sex isn’t pain. I mean, it can be pain. There can be a lot of bondage and submission and it can all be delicious, but boinking a creature whose mythological dick could literally rip you in two? Awful.”

“Dinosaurs were real. There isn’t anything mythological about their dicks.”

“False. We’ve never seen a dinosaur dick.”

I think.

“So you’re an anthropologist as well as a writer? Quite impressive, Miranda.”

“I’m an author,” I correct her. Bitch, please. “Which means I know everything about everything. That’s how I write so many books.”

“You 
are
 quite prolific.”

“I’m not Bethany Bonafont,” I sigh listlessly. If only I could be. She writes the same stupid book over and over again and everyone rushes to buy them. Am I the only one who notices every single dirty-talking hero and sassy heroine is completely interchangeable? “I’m just a sad mid-lister with a small but mighty following.”

“And I just get felt up by old men in paper gowns.” Jane shakes her head. “You win.”

“I do win.” We clink glasses.

“Okay, lady.” Jane slides her half-full glass of wine across the counter. “I have to get back. Bobby is waiting for me, poor man.”

“Tell the hubs I said hello and thanks for the wine.” I pause. “Actually, don’t. He doesn’t know you’ve been bringing the bottles over, right? Fuck him.”

“I plan on it.” Jane winks and waves goodbye, letting herself out.

I finish up the glasses on the counter and take a bottle of cabernet upstairs to my writing cave. In my head, it rivals the
Beauty and the Beast
library, full of books and ladders and stories that are 
not
 about fucking dinosaurs. In reality, it’s a wall of cramped bookcases, a desk full of sticky notes, and an overstuffed recliner in the corner. Small, but it’s my domain.

I pour another glass and review the last things I wrote. Ah, yes. My poor heroine learns her broody, muscular lover is promised to another. A business arrangement to save his ranch. Already, my tears are flowing. It’s not like this is personal or anything.

You should know I’m also a pathological liar, because I’m an author. It’s absolutely personal, and I jab my finger against the return key, pretending it’s Matt’s stupid handsome face I’m poking. Screw that guy and his high school girlfriend who came back to town and wooed him away, leaving me alone in a big, empty, trashed house to sob over wine and stories at night.

I could 
totally
 be getting laid right now.

Then again. Sex with Matt wasn’t exactly the stuff of romance novels.

“But—why not?” Stefanie pulls back, tears pricking her eyes. “Don’t you know I only want to be with you?”

“I can’t tell you why. It’s complicated, and also a secret. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

Yeah, asshole. You should have told her in the beginning, because that’s what respectable broke ranch owners do. Then again, if everyone did what they were supposed to do, I’d have nothing to write about. I finish out the chapter, weeping into my wineglass like the sad person I’ve become, and decide another break is in order. Too much and I’ll become an even bigger mental headcase.