Page 237 of Darling Venom
“If Tate ever reads Darling Venom, I want him to read the words exactly as they were written by Kellan.”
Especially this paragraph.
The first mention of Tate in the novel.
Terry nodded. “Okay.”
And that was that.
Only, it didn’t scream of a man regressing in his journey away from douchedom.
I finished the manuscript first and continued gnawing on the pen, stopping just before ink painted my teeth crimson. “Can I ask you something?”
Terry didn’t look up from the pages. “Would saying no stop you?”
I flushed. “No.”
“Go on.”
“What happened with The Imperfections?”
He milked his workload, finishing the final page before he closed the manuscript, piercing blue-grays meeting my mint greens. “I’m surprised it took you this long to ask.”
“Is that a deflection?”
“That’s question number two, darlin’.” He capped his fountain pen and tossed it beside his notepad. “You’re racking up a bill, and last I checked, you’re more broke than I am.”
“I was scared to ask. I’m afraid of what your answer may be.”
I’m afraid it will cross a line. I’m afraid if it does, that will mean I can’t work on Darling Venom with you, and I need this book to be perfect.
Now that we’d finished, my concerns evaporated.
I still felt on edge.
All it took was one tiny change for everything we’d built to collapse.
“I was high when I stumbled on the first draft of The Imperfections. So high, I thought it was mine. Thought I’d get to flip the finger at every judgmental dick who told me not to write drunk, edit sober, ’cause something I wrote turned out to be a fucking masterpiece. Point is, I was convinced I hit the fucking jackpot, it was that goddamn good. Rough around the edges and in need of some major edits, but innovative as hell with bones better than 99.999% of polished final drafts out there.”
“So, you sent it to your agent?”
“Not at that point.”
He patted his pockets for his smokes before remembering I confiscated them each time we met. There were few things I loathed more than cigarettes.
By now, he knew it, too.
Terry collected his fountain pen and tapped it against the table instead, continuing, “I realized as soon as I sobered up that the manuscript wasn’t mine.” Tap. Tap. “Actually, once the drugs and booze flushed out, it was pretty fucking obvious it didn’t come from my brain.”
Tap, tap.
Tap.
“Do you still have the original?” I doubted he did, but I needed to try.
The Imperfections sat at the top of my list of all-time faves, right after Darling Venom. The unedited version? It would unearth the writer’s mind.
I itched to get my hands on it.
