Scarlett is likely only vaguely aware of the way I’m watching her right now. She’s sitting cross-legged on a chair we dragged in from the kitchen at a table turned desk in the corner of my bedroom. There’s a perfectly good home office in the next room, but she insisted on this setup. I like to think she wants to be close to me as she works, especially as more and more of her time has been taken up by working. The requests from book clubs and podcasts and other interviewers have continued to roll in, especially now that her second book is getting closer to release. I picked up editing some of it in order to speed up everything and save her some time. Writing, editing, and doing press has proven difficult for her. On more than a few nights. I drift off to sleep and wake up before the sun rises to her clacking keyboard, sure she hasn’t slept at all.

But right now, she seems relaxed. Calm. Happy. She’s wearing black joggers and an oversized T-shirt that hangs off her bare shoulder. Her dark hair cascades down her back, and every once in a while, she pauses to twirl a strand of it around a finger before leaning forward and typing again. She’s never been one for makeup, but she wears absolutely none when she’s working. Once, she told me that she touches her face and bites her lip too much while she writes to bother, and either way, it doesn’t matter because who is watching her anyway?

Me. I watch her. She’s so fucking beautiful like this—at home in my space and hyper-focused on creating her beautiful art. I can’t look away.

It’s a moment before I realize the sound of the keyboard has stopped. She doesn’t move, but she drags her bottom lip between her teeth, and I hurry out to the kitchen to busy myself with making some tea before she realizes I had been ogling her like a creep.

“What’s a better word, then, Mr. Editor?” she calls from the bedroom. She leans back to look at me through the open doorway. The chair creaks as it accommodates her new position.

I drop two tea bags into their respective mugs and smile to myself at how perfect they look together on my counter. “Personally, I prefer Ryan Whitlock, the Wise and Witty Syntax Sorcerer, Wielder of the Red Pen, and Master of Manuscripts.”