Page 80 of The Fire Captain's Unexpected Baby
“Summer, we can’t keep covering for you.” He’s firm, the back of my neck prickling with a seasick sort of unease.
“I just need a little more time, Connor. End of the week, I swear.”
“You’ve had more than enough time, and I’ve heard so many promises that they don’t mean anything anymore. Sure, you might send in a chapter by the end of the week, but then it’ll be another three years until I see anything else from you,” he says, not unkindly, just plainly, a sigh in his voice.
I shake my head. “I’ll write out a schedule. I’ll stick to it. I’ll?—”
“The readers have moved on, Summer,” he interrupts. “They’ve forgotten all about you, all about the Redwood Sisters. It was the right call not to end your last book on a cliffhanger.”
He's danglingmeover the edge right now, but I sense the epilogue before it comes, delivered with the blunt exhaustion of a man who bet on the wrong horse.
“I’m afraid this is the end of the road for us, Summer,” he continues. “It hasn’t been an easy decision, but your contract with us is hereby cancelled. There’ll be a grace period of six months, but after that you’ll be expected to start paying back your advance for the fourth book. Manageable installments,” he adds, as if he understands all too well the tattered state of my finances.
I stare at a little blond hair that’s fallen onto his tweed lapel, so frozen in shock that even the coffee wouldn’t thaw me out.
I’m being fired. Fired from a job that I once would’ve given my soul to keep. I’ve known for at least two years that I couldn’t perpetually get away with writing nothing, but the days kept passing, and my laptop stayed shut, and I just figured… the pages would keep waiting until my writer’s block unclogged itself.
Reality, as it always does, has just given me a swift kick in the gut. I’m actually being fired and, worse, I have to pay back money that has already been spent. A long time ago.
What else did I expect?
“Summer?” Connor prompts gently.
I can’t speak. I can’t think. I can’t do anything but sit there with my hands in my lap and my eyes glazing over, as if this will all disappear if I just don’t move a muscle.
“I realize this must be a shock,” he tries again, though I don’t believe him.
Anyone with half a brain cell, in my situation, would’ve known this was long overdue. The only thing that’s actually shocking is that it took three years to get to this inevitable conclusion. Still, I’m no less blindsided.
My head snaps up, my shoulders pulling back. “Thank you, Connor, for your patience.” I clear my dry throat. “Thank you for the opportunity and for… our collaboration so far. Thank you for taking a risk on the Redwood Sisters. Of course, I’ll figure out a way to pay you back, and I’m… uh… I’m sorry that it has come to this.”
“I wish things were different,” he says as he stands from the desk, my trial over, though my humiliation is just beginning.
What will everyone say? What will Mom and Dad think?They’ll be so disappointed, heartbroken that their remaining pride and joy has just royally screwed everything up. How will I even begin to explain this to them?
I rise from the chair, hugging my bag to my stomach, and move slowly toward the office door. Beyond the plate glass, everyone seems so still, as if they’re anticipating my walk of shame. I can practically hear the whispers.
“Maybe we’ll meet again someday,” I tell Connor, with more determination than I feel.
Connor smiles that same, pitying smile. “Sure, someday.”
He doesn’t believe it any more than I do.
Holding back tears, knowing there’s no one to blame but myself, I head out onto the quiet floor of Solaris Publishing and,with my head down, I cling to the last scrap of my dignity and walk to the elevators.
I never even took off my coat.
It’s not until I’m two blocks away in the wrong direction that I finally stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk, much to the vocal and colorful irritation of two women who have to split apart to get past me, and suck in a shaky breath. The enormity of what has just happened slams into me like a yellow cab on a red crosswalk.
For the first time in a decade, I have no idea what my next step is going to be.
* * *
Turns out, my next step was to walk about twenty thousand of them in a directionless daze around a bitingly cold Manhattan for the better part of the afternoon.
I think I thought it would inspire me somehow, just wandering aimlessly around the streets of a late-winter New York, like the female lead in some cheesy rom-com. Instead, I’m twice as depressed, twice as lost, and now my feet hurt and my favorite wool coat is soaked through from the icy rain that decided to add insult to injury.
“You smell like wet dog,” someone kindly tells me on the subway to Brooklyn.
