“Oh that doesn’t matter,” said Orelia. “Selling books isn’t the main thing. Connecting with my readers is what’s important.”

William shook his head. If he was stuck here listening to Orelia’s faux humility much longer, he’d be sick all over the science fiction tomes surrounding him. How did these nerd sci-fi authors sell these thousand-page door-stoppers?

“Are you sure Orelia?” said Morris.

“Ye-es, Morris, even if there’s only two fans here, I’d do this. There’s at least ten, fifteen, who’ve come, that I can see. We can’t let them down.”

“That’s wonderful of you,” said Grace. “Quick Bethany, go grab Josh and Helen and tell them to get out the chairs and set up a table. Grab the hot-water urn too, and all the Orelia Mason books we have. I’m sure others in the store will stay for the talk.”

Morris gave an exaggerated sigh.

“Alright then, but I hope you’ve learned a lesson. Next time—check,” added Morris, sounding appeased and calmer.

Seconds later the woman, fan-idiot who’d fawned all over Orelia, squealed like she’d been stabbed. He sure wished he could have stabbed her for being so dumb. And loud. Who screams in a bookstore?

Orelia said, “You’re welcome. How awesome you came tonight. We’ll just be fifteen minutes getting organized. Text your friends and tell them to come down.”

William felt a sudden quiver in his legs. He wasn’t accustomed to squatting and he lost his balance, fell off his haunches, dropped the book in his hand and ended up sprawled in the aisle. Even as he landed, his head swiped from side to side to check for witnesses. Just like his last bookstore appearance, nobody was there. He sat on the floor, head in his hands, contemplating another failure.

Nobody came into the aisle or even noticed him, so he heaved himself back to a squat and waited, contemplating his next move. Best thing would be to wait until her presentation began and sneak out then, unseen. This had been a failure. All he’d managed was to annoy Morris for a few minutes and that was hardly worth all the effort and anticipation.

His initial euphoria faded in that instant and a sudden headache threatened to explode his head. Too much sugar. Too much coffee. Too much of nothing going his way. No doubt they were on to his plan now and would check before her other store visits. Darn, damn and his life was a disappointment, yet again.

The poor turnout tonight wasn’t even a blip on Orelia’s radar. Morris’ fury was minimal and, anyway, he didn’t care how Morris felt about anything. He wanted to devastate Orelia the way she’d devastated him. He wanted to whip the rug out from beneath her feet and laugh as she fell.

But she wielded an impenetrable good luck shield. Even his negative reviews and trolling of her social media accounts didn’t amount to anything. Plus he’d wasted a lot of money that he didn’t have to waste.

He’d paid several Fiverr contractors to visit her social media accounts and stir up trouble. They left posts calling her books what they were: over-fantasized, outlandish stories. One was particular in its wit and cutting tone, citing her books as unworthy of the paper on which they were printed or the bytes used by the eBook versions.