Page 1 of Seashells and Daiquiris

FREDDIE

Here's the thing about rock bottom: it has Wi-Fi.

I know this because I'm currently sitting in my cousin Dove's beach house in a town called The Cove, refreshing my inbox and hoping my publisher has forgotten I exist. Unfortunately, she has not. There are four emails from Rebecca this week alone, each one progressively more cheerful in that unhinged way people get when they're trying not to scream at you. Just checking in! and Thinking of you! and then followed up with the dreaded Would love to chat about the timeline when you get a chance!

My agent, Sam, has taken a subtler approach with radio silence, except about every ten days or so I’ll get a text saying How's the writing going? with a smiley face emoji to soften the worry that she has.

Or, you know, maybe I’m just reading too heavily into things because I'm on edge. What I want to say is The writing is not going, Rebecca. The writing packed a bag in the middle of the night and moved to Cabo without leaving a forwarding address.

To be fair to them, I haven't published in two years. And it’s making me regret being known as an author whose entire brand is two books a year, every year, like clockwork. Marlowe Indigo doesn't miss deadlines. Marlowe Indigo is a machine who once wrote an entire enemies-to-lovers novella in eleven days while running a fever because the preorder was already live on Amazon.

Have you ever tried to adjust a pre-order on there? It's a nightmare.

But Marlowe Indigo isn't real. Marlowe Indigo is a pen name I invented at twenty-three because my actual name, Winifred Brown, sounds like a woman who knits sweaters for adorable chihuahuas.

I sip on some tea that’s already a little too lukewarm, lifting my gaze to watch the rays of the morning sun hit the smallest flecks of dust particles.

The beach house is nice. I'll give Dove that.

It's small and white with blue shutters, a porch that faces the ocean, and it smells like salt and old wood. There’s also a faint herbal scent that's probably witchy, but could also just be the lavender sachets she keeps in every drawer. Dove is a witch—like, an actual witch—and this is her place. Has been for years. She flies back and forth for work, which means it sits empty more often than not, and she's been telling me for almost ten years that it's mine whenever I need it.

I always thought that was a nice but unnecessary offer. Like keeping an umbrella in your car when you live in Arizona. It’s a lovely thought, but rarely used.

Then my career stalled when my relationship ended.

I realized I was sitting in my sublet apartment at two in the morning Googling "cursed seashell dreams meaning" and thought, okay. Maybe it's just raining in Arizona.

There are shells on the walls here. Conchs and scallops and things I don't have names for, arranged in little shadow boxes and clustered on windowsills. Some of them are iridescent. Some of them are definitely magical because they glow.

I stare at the one above the kitchen sink for too long.

It's shaped like the one in my dreams.

Yes, I’ve considered that I’m possibly going crazy. I've been dreaming about a conch shell, one with iridescent coloring, slightly curved at the bottom like a hook was trying to form and then it got frozen in time. And whenever it’s in my hands, a warmth radiates like it's alive.

Maybe this is a sign from whatever exists in the universe that I’ll get my breakthrough here. I’ll be able to crank out the rest of my book and move on from Tommy.

At least, I better. Because I’m here for two months, much to Dove’s generosity. If I somehow mess this up, I’ll never forgive myself.

The kitchen has a gas stove, French press, and an eclectic selection of mugs. The living room has a couch that sags in the middle and a bookshelf full of someone else's paperbacks, with quite a few in the range of mythology and poetry, but there's a scattering of thrillers in there too, a few literary novels with cracked spines. Lots of magical books, of course. I also had to smile when I spotted Midnight in Marseilles by Marlowe Indigo, dog-eared and sun-faded, shoved between a collection of Celtic folklore and a tide chart.

I sigh as I stand in the living room, having only really unpacked my makeup and dug around for my sandals that are better for walking.

I should be writing. That's technically why I'm here. To find my voice, fall back in love with life while being in a setting that’s so romantic it’s almost fictional.

“Maybe we can grow a mustache and run away,” I say to my reflection when I pass by an oddly shaped mirror. “Start over with a new identity.”

I only take my image in for a moment, perking the smallest smile at the way my chestnut hair is framed just past my chin. I love it this length, but my ex preferred it longer.

I cut my hair when I cut him out, too.

Then I roll my eyes and groan, because I bet that’s what’s getting to me.

He texted this morning. Hope you're taking care of yourself. You know what hurts me the most? Is that I don’t have a good answer. I don’t have anything together. It’s not like I can say, I’m fine, thanks, I moved to a magical coastal town to chase a dream about a seashell because my career is dying and I haven't felt a real emotion since you decided your work wife was more interesting than me?

Because that's what happened, in case you're wondering. He didn't cheat. Not technically. He just got... close. Really close. To a woman at his office who touched his arm and got the version of him I used to know, the warm one, the attentive one, the one who remembered what I liked on my pizza and asked about my day like the answer actually mattered. I got the leftovers. The distracted nods. The I'm tired, can we just not tonight? You're being dramatic. You're too sensitive. It's just work, Freddie.

And then one night I saw them at a restaurant, which was supposed to be something for business, but his hand was on her back. Her head tipped toward him, laughing.