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My tirade had sent Will slowly sinking back into his chair, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly ajar.

“Sure,” he said. “Of course. I know that. More than you can imagine. That—that isn’t at all what I meant—”

Boy, he had not been kidding last night when he’d said that he wasn’t good with words. “Well, then whatdidyou mean?”

Instead of answering me, Will shaded his eyes with one hand so he could see out into the crowd. “I think now might be a good time to take some questions from the audience, don’t you? Does anyone out there have anything they’d like to ask Ms. Wright or myself? I think we’ve got some members of the high school dance team moving along the aisles with microphones, so if there’s something you’d like to ask, feel free to raise your hand, and one of them will be along to hand you a mic.”

Ha! Way to save your fur from the fire, Mr. Price.

“Yes, please go ahead,” I said into my microphone as, with my other hand, I slid my sunglasses back over my eyes, hoping they’d help me to see the Snappettes and their busy microphone maneuvers—and hide the anger I was still feeling toward Mr. Price. “I promise we’ll be a lot nicer to you than we’ve been to each other so far.”

This got another chuckle from the audience. I caught Will’s eye, and was surprised to see him smile at me. This was his most genuine smile yet—no fake fan-friendliness, just unease. He seemed—well, he seemed almostnice.

“Uh, yeah, hi, my name is Lauren.”

Whoops, yep, there she was. Lauren, right there in the middle of the audience, clutching the handheld mic that Chloe—it certainly looked like Chloe, her short blond bob gleaming in the houselights, which they’d turned up so that we could see who was talking—had handed to her. Today Lauren’s hair was as flat-ironed as ever, and she was wearing an off-the-shoulder boho-chic top. Her friends Jasmine and Cassidy sat on either side of her, giggling and egging her on.

“So I just wanted to thank you both,” Lauren said, in a high-pitched voice that trembled with nervousness. “It’s been really great sitting here and listening to you. I’m an aspiring writer, and, uh, I feel totally inspired and, uh, empowered.”

“Thank you, Lauren,” I said warmly into my mic. I needed to make sure she knew all my antipathy was for Will, not her. “That is so sweet of you.”

“Yes, uh, thank you, Lauren.” Will didn’t appear to have the slightest memory of having met Lauren yesterday. In fact, he kept looking at me and not her, which I found odd.

He glanced away as soon as my gaze met his, however.

“Thanks,” Lauren said. “Well, what I wanted to ask both of you was how do you create such, um, realistic characters? Because both of you are so good at that. Your characters seem like real people. Or cats, in your case, Miss Wright.”

I laughed along with the rest of the audience. Then I looked at Will, who was—again—looking at me. What was his deal?

“Would you like to answer first?” I asked him politely.

“Oh, no,” he said. “Ladies first, please.”

“Fine.” I looked back at Lauren. “I think one reason readers find Kitty Katz realistic even though she’s a cat is that she makes mistakes. She isn’t perfect—or purr-fect, as she likes to say—but in the end, she always tries to do the right thing. I think if you write about characters who are perfect, they have no room to grow or improve during the course of the story, and then what do they learn about themselves? Characters learning new things about themselves is part of what makes the story entertaining. But if the character is already perfect, they have no room to grow. So then you have no story. Do you understand what I mean?”

Lauren nodded eagerly. “I do. That totally makes sense.”

I looked questioningly at Will, and found himstillstaring at me. Now, this was just getting weird. “Will, do you have anything you’d like to add?”

“Uh, no,” he said. “Just that what Miss Wright said is correct, Lauren. No one is perfect. We all make mistakes, sometimes terrible mistakes. My books are excellent examples of that. Jo mentioned earlier that my female characters find empowerment by being rescued by men, but I’ve never actually seen it that way. I’ve always considered that the male characters in my books, who are very far from perfect, find redemption through the love of smart, beautiful, complicated females... women like Ms. Wright, actually.”

What?Had he just called me...?

“So, in answer to your question, Lauren, yes, to create realistic characters, make them imperfect—but if you want your readers to like them, also make them sorry for their actions,” he went on. “And perhaps also have your other charactersfind some way in their hearts to forgive them. Really, if you write stories that are anything like Ms. Wright’s excellent books, you’ll be fine.”

Wait. Will Price had just called my books excellent? And me smart? Complicated? And beautiful?

Was this for the benefit of the audience and cameras, or for real? Maybe it was simply to make up for having stuck his foot in his mouth so badly before. I honestly couldn’t tell.

Still, something in his dark eyes looked sincere.

Could he possibly really mean what he was saying? What—

“Sorry!”

One of the side doors to the auditorium burst open. I tore my gaze away from Will’s face and saw Bernadette come running up the steps along the side of the stage.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m late, everyone!” She waved apologetically at the audience. “Family emergency, but it’s all good now.”