Page 81 of Without a Clue

I laugh.

It’s nice to be reminded of small victories.

“You remember that?” Nash continues.

“I do,” I say, nodding. It was a good moment in a bad day.

“Hugh dropped his napkin so fast. He spent the rest of the meal over his laptop like a toddler tapping at an iPad, and bought—”

“A dirty martini for the whole restaurant to celebrate,” I finish. It was a victory indeed.

“You saved his book.”

I shake my head, but the kindness was a bright spot in an otherwise miserable day. “He was stuck. It was my job to help him with his research.”

“Your research, sure. But the creative punch? To give him the thing that made that book outshine the market? You were far more than an assistant. You were a writer.”

I open my mouth to interject, but he beats me to it. “And then not thirty minutes later, you fixed me.”

“What?” I say incredulously. “No. How?”

“I saw what you did, and I did something I’d never done before. Not even with my editor. I told somebody about my book. I told you.”

I remember that. I remember him breaking it down for me, first meeting.

It was the distraction I needed at the time, actually. The thing that mellowed me from my skyrocketed blood pressure of a day with Michael. Something to listen to. Something to weigh in on.

Nash continues, “I told you all about it, which was no big deal to you, but to me, it was everything. And it was . . . well, it was such a different feeling. Sharing about something I habitually keep close to my chest until the very end, and how you responded. You seemed interested. You looked genuinely interested.”

“I was interested.”

“But enough to listen to me talk like that, sharing the entire plot’s breakdown—”

“Again. My job,” I say.

“Maybe. But still. Listening, I’ve learned in my lifetime, is not a skill regularly practiced. To be a good listener is to be . . . amazing.”

I take in a breath.

A pinched breath, true, as the darkness of the room around me raises my anxiety to a level hard to keep in line.

But still a nearly happy, honored-by-his-attention breath.

“Anyway,” Nash continues, “I went right up to where I envisioned the book ending, then backed up over the hole where I was stuck, and I hadn’t even had time to ask you what you’d recommend when you swirled your salmon in lemon aioli sauce extremely casually and said, ‘Have you considered adding sky-liners to the plot? It’d be a bear to change in those early chapters, but if a few sky-liners crossed paths with the brothers as they guide their herds through the Rockies, they could face a showdown in the hole you’re stuck at and give the readers a climax they’re hoping for. I think it would be something worth thinking about.’

“And then the cake came. Hugh had ordered, and everyone was singing happy birthday to you, and I didn’t even get a chance to say thank you. And your face, as they brought out that cake and everyone was singing all around us, was something else.”

“What did I look like?”

“Like a person surrounded by a family who loved them.”

I nod. Rub my nose.

“And that’s when I decided to join the ragtag group. It was solely because of you.”

The idea is mind-blowing. I backtrack as I raise a finger. “I’m sorry. We’re going to need to back up here. You’re saying I helped you in your book—”

“And every book ever since. You know I don’t send it to my editor without your vote.”