“Me? Nah. I’m too cautious for that.” He shrugs. “But I’ve seen it happen time and time again. You got a good agent?”

“The best,” I say quickly.

Charles nods. “Good, good. And that guy who came to get you this morning? He’s your editor?”

“Ryan. Yeah.”

“He’s being good to you?”

I snicker to myself. If this guy only knew. “He’s been great. Really goes above and beyond.”

“Don’t expect that to continue. They’ve got plans for you right now, but once your book releases and they see what you’re really worth, that’s when their true colors will come out, mark my words. You excited about your release?”

Well, if I hadn’t been through all of this before—and sold more copies than him, I have to keep telling myself—I would be terrified now. It’s not that these things are untrue, per se. I’ve worked with my share of money-hungry people who had dollar signs in their eyes every time they looked at me, but what a thing to say to someone he thinks is a debut author. Is he trying to scare me away from publishing altogether?

“Yeah,” I reply instead of telling him what I’m really thinking. He probably wouldn’t hear me anyway.

“What’s it about?” He takes another swig of beer.

“It’s a coming-of-age story about a young girl.” I could talk about my book all day, but he’s not interested. Not really. All I had to do was mention “coming-of-age” and “girl” in the same sentence, and his eyes started glazing over. Suddenly, I’m wishing I were curled up with Ryan, talking about themes and words and structure. The ache for him is almost palpable, and it catches me off guard. I take sip of my soda, then decide to change the subject. “So, tell me. How does a writer have the time to work out as much as you clearly do?”

I had been banking on a hunch that Charles’s favorite subject is himself, and boy, was I right. He launches straight into a lengthy overview of his workout plan. Our food comes somewhere between an estimate of how much he thinks he’ll be able to squat tomorrow and his warning to me that sitting all day will surely cause cancer, so I’d better start working out, too.

Charles serves himself some of the food, so I do the same, though I avoid the grilled octopus because they actually look like little baby octopuses, and my stomach flips. As with everything I’ve done so far, he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s also oblivious to the fact that I’m just pushing food around my plate and not really eating.