“Pretty bad? The bike in the story isn’t even blue!”

I take a few calming breaths to stop myself from cracking up again. “I guess I should feel vindicated about fighting for the bike to stay in if they thought it important enough to put on the cover.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the only thing they thought to put on the cover,” Ryan grumbles, which draws a snort out of me. My shoulders shake with restrained humor.

“Okay. I’ll leave you to take care of it.” I close out of the image on my computer so I don’t have to look at it anymore as I try to get ahold of myself again. “You said you’re almost done with edits?”

“Yes.” His voice softens. “Scarlett, I don’t have words for how wonderful this book is. You have captured something so important—so universal. I know Meri’s publicity is targeted to a mostly female demographic because of the subject matter, but…damn.” He sounds almost reverent.

“So I won’t have much to do?” I tease.

He chuckles. “I didn’t say that. There are definitely a few passages that could use some work. A few things I’d like to see added, too, just to flesh out some of your themes a bit. Now that we’ve kept that godforsaken bicycle, we should do even more with it.”

I pause for a moment as his excitement becomes mine. I know a lot of authors get nervous about the editing process, but that has never been me. Even before Ryan was my editor, I always thought there was something magical about taking raw words that I had written just for me and polishing them, refining them, into something beautiful for the world to see. But now that Ryan is working on it, it’s even more special. It’s something beautiful we’ve made together.

“We?” I ask through a new emotion rising inside me. I can’t name it, but it feels close to fear. Trepidation. Everything unsaid between us is staring me in the face, telling me it could ruin this tenuous happiness we’ve started building again.

He goes quiet again, as if realizing what he’s said. “Sorry,” he says finally. “I got carried away.”

I clear my throat. Now is not the time. But soon. It has to be soon.

“No, not at all,” I reassure him. “It’s ours. I like that.”

He goes quiet for a minute again before cursing quietly. “Listen, I have to get going. I’ve been putting out fires all day, and another one just landed in my inbox. Dinner tonight?”

“I’d like that.”

We say our goodbyes. I sit cross-legged at my kitchen table with my laptop in front of me, staring at a blank screen for a long time. I should be writing. I want to write. But I can’t concentrate.