Jane stepped into sight and Annie jumped as though she was surprised to have her wife turn up.

“Only me,” Jane said.

“You’re early.” Annie reached for Jane’s hand.

“I know. This book is not agreeing with me. At all.”

“It’ll come, babe.” Annie pulled her close. “It always does.”

But what if it doesn’t? Jane thought. What if she had finally used it all up? And what was it anyway? Divine inspiration? Jane believed even less in that than in the apparition of the so-called muse. She sat down and did the work. That had always been her muse and inspiration and everything she needed. So why was that suddenly not enough anymore?

“I was hoping for one of Mia’s glorious cappuccinos,” Jane said. Mia had shown her how to use the machine, and it wasn’t all that complicated, yet it felt kind of strange to go behind the coffee counter, because that was the part of the shop that they rented out, and Jane felt she had no right to go in there.

As if Mia had read her mind, she stood up, looked at Jane, and said, “On it.”

“Thank you.” Jane remembered the time, only a few weeks ago, when Mia had started talking to her about the Jane Quinn books she had read and how much she had enjoyed them once she got past the fact that Jane had written them and how they had quite a few naughty bits in them.

Jane had smiled and tried to look as grateful as possible. She was grateful—having someone enjoy her books was the point of everything she wrote—but she simply didn’t have a clue how to react when someone said it to her face like that.

“You have to learn to take a compliment,” Annie had said to her years ago. It seemed that Jane still hadn’t picked up that particular skill yet.

“Hi, Jane.” Kristin walked up to them. “How’s that new best seller coming along?” She threw in a smile.

This was the kind of question Jane had formulated a standard answer to over the years—even though the word best seller was used so liberally today. Jane didn’t write best-selling books by any means. She wrote books that sold enough to keep her business afloat and absorb some losses incurred by the book shop. But it was nothing compared to an international or even national best seller in a genre that wasn’t as niche as lesbian romance.

Jane shrugged. Because the book wasn’t coming together at all, she couldn’t rely on her standard reply. “This one’s doing my head in.”

Annie brought her hand to Jane’s head and mussed her freshly-finger-combed hair about. “But what a pretty little head it is.”

“What’s it about?” Kristin sounded genuinely interested.

Annie held up her hand. “Wrong question, Kristin.”