Page 21 of The Shot You Missed
The decision to nod isn’t a conscious one, and before I can process it, Sebastian Navarro, the boy I secretly loved through most of my teenage years and beyond, is pulling me against his warm chest and wrapping his strong arms around me.
It feels familiar and foreign at the same time. He doesn’t hesitate, and he rests his chin on the crown of my head the wayhe always did. But he’s bigger now. Broader and harder andmoresomehow. He holds me until my muscles relax. Then he keeps holding me.
“Don’t disappear again,” he whispers. The words are so soft, I’m not sure I’d hear them if I wasn’t completely attuned to him. “Please.”
“I won’t,” I promise. Even though I’m sure I’ll regret it.
Because Sebastian Navarro has always had a power over my heart that no one else did. I thought the last decade had eroded that. That I’d taught myself to be indifferent toward him.
It’s taken one hug to prove me wrong.
eight
INDIGO
Romance is normally my escape.When the world is heavy, when I feel alone, when the weight of my parents’ fame presses down on me and makes it hard to breathe, I open my laptop and create a new world. One where the heroine experiences the same crushing realities as I do—as most women do—but fate inevitably intervenes, and she finds a love that overshadows everything else. She finds her happy ending.
Ever since my run-in with Sebastian, words are a struggle.
The story is at its midpoint, which is typically where I hit a wall, but that’s not all it is this time. This time, my head is full of hockey players, unrequited love, and broken dreams. In my current work in progress, my heroine is fake dating the town’s most eligible doctor, and despite her best efforts, she’s falling for him. In my actual life, I’m just trying not to fall into a million jagged pieces and overanalyze every text Sebastian sends.
Not that he’s sent many. I don’t know what I was hoping for. That he’d text me twenty times a day and bare his soul in each of them?
Instead, he sends megood morningtexts and asks my plans for the day. The heroine in my book would seize the opportunity and reconnect with Bash. Me? I’m paralyzed by confusion, and I send him short, three-word answers that don’t open things up to further conversation.
“If you keep making that face, it’s going to freeze that way.”
I startle when Lola plops into the seat across from me at the coffee shop, which she finds hilarious. “What the hell?”
“Girl, I said your name three times. It’s not my fault you’re off in your own little world.” She arches one dark eyebrow and smirks. She loves giving me shit, so she’s enjoying the fact that I’m still clutching my chest in surprise.
“I was thinking.”
“About your book or about a certain dark-haired goalie who has been texting you for the last two days?” Lola thinks the whole running-into-Sebastian thing is amazing. She’d been pestering me to call him since the moment she came home with groceries and his number, and even though she understood why I couldn’t—Lola is much bolder than I am—in her eyes, I was making a huge mistake.
I roll my eyes. “My book.”
“Liar.”
Sagging in my slightly uncomfortable cafe chair, I sigh. “Fine. Yes, I’m a liar and I was thinking about Sebastian.”
“You’re not considering backing out of your date, are you?”
“It’s not a date.”
She tilts her head. “Oh, no?”
“Of course not. It’s simply two old friends catching up.”
“Right. Two old friends. You’re either completely aware that you’re full of shit, or you’re hilariously unaware for someone who writes romance novels for a living.” She tries to hide her smirk by taking a sip of her coffee, but it doesn’t work. Hell, I’dknow she’s smirking, even if I couldn’t see her expression. We’ve been best friends long enough that I always know.
“Speaking of novels, how’s it going? Still on track? I know you’ve been distracted because of all the parental shit.”
I have been. My parents are the bulk of the problem, but now there’s a hockey player-sized one in the mix too. “It’s fine. I’m on track. And luckily, my publisher is understanding. They know things have been…out of the norm lately.”
I’m lucky, and I know it. My publisher is well aware of who my parents are. They weren’t when they first expressed interest in my work, thanks to my pen name and my agent’s discretion, but when someone is paying you, they need your legal name to cut the checks. One condition I had for publishing with them was anonymity. I’d work under my pen name only, and there would be no author photos, no meet and greets, no book tours.
And that had been fine by them when I was an unknown writer with a solid manuscript but no real following. I’ve written and released four books with them now, and each new release has grown my fan base into something I’m really proud of. It’s not New York Times bestseller status, but I’ve made the USA Today list twice, and my publisher gets quite a few requests for me to take part in conventions and events.
