The Catching Kind (24 page)

Some authors could get away with stuff like that, but not me. Jenna probably could. She could probably, very sweetly, tell someone that their writing was dry and unimaginative and they’d thank her. With my luck I’d be like, this is definitely worth reading and the author would get ticked off at my heavy criticism.

“Um, Hails?”

I glanced over the top of the paper, expecting him to hand me my yummy chocolate goodness, but instead he set everything down. Reaching for the paper, he turned down the front page of the section I was holding.

“So…” He dragged the word out as he pulled the paper from my hands. “I just need to look at this for a second.”

He stood, opening to the page that had caught his attention, and scanned it.

“Right.” Connor cleared his throat and came around to sit in the comfy chair next to mine. “Remember how I said the picture from last night was probably an amateur and it might just hit a small website?”

I did not like where this was going. “Yes.” 

“Well, it might have hit the local paper.” He folded the paper up and set it on his lap, his hands creased over it where I couldn’t see anything.

 Since our local paper was one of the biggest print papers on the east coast, this was not such a bargain. It wasn’t like it was the Tab or something.

“How bad is it?” I pictured me with my dress all crinkled and askew, my hair falling down, makeup running, and a deer in headlight blind stare and…well, whatever else could go wrong in a photo, it was in this one.

“It depends on how you define
bad
.” Connor gave me what I could only assume was a reassuring smile. Since I’d never seen one from him before, this was strictly an at-best guess. “Honestly, we knew this was going to happen. I’m surprised they didn’t try to go through our reps first is all.”

“Our reps?” I had a rep?

“Well, your agent. My business manager.”

Right. 

“Okay, let me see it.” I reached for the paper and he held it away, just out of reach. “Connor. Seriously.”

“Just, be open-minded. Now that the first piece of national gossip is out there, our people will spin it the way they want.”

“Stop saying that.” I could feel the panic rising up and choking me from the inside out. “I don’t have
people.
I have an agent who deals with editors who try to give us horribly, cheap contracts.”

“Really? They don’t have a PR person or anything?” He looked confused, and for the first time, concerned.

“I don’t think so. None of us is celebrity status. They don’t even have in-house film rights agents.”

“Well, that’s not going to work.” He stuck the paper under his thigh, a place we were both pretty sure I wasn’t going to reach for it, and picked up his phone. “Amy, hey. Sorry to call on a Sunday morning. How’s it going? Uh-huh. Right. And Mike?...Really?...He did? Well, that’s great…Yeah. We saw it. That’s why I’m calling…No, of course I’m up. Bright and early, that’s how we do it at Hailey’s house…Ha. Right. So, anyway, Hailey just told me she doesn’t have, and I quote,
people
…I know, right? Just her agent and basically the woman’s sole job is to be a contract pit bull…I’m not sure. But, I’m going out of town and I hate to leave her with no back up. Could you have one of the guys make a call…Yeah, play it so it looks like we’re both in your house, roll it together for Dex. He’ll take care of it…Great. Thanks…Oh.” Connor glanced my way for the first time since picking up the phone. “Yeah, I think so too. Thanks.”

Connor shoved his phone back in his pocket and turned back. “Amy is creating people for you. We’ll put out a joint statement and they’ll just state it as if our teams wrote it together.”

This was all very nice and thoughtful and kind, but in the Hailandia, really completely unnecessary. I needed to slow this roll before it got completely out of hand. “I don’t think I really need people.”

“Well, you might.” Connor sipped at his coffee, his focus going wide for a moment. “I’m going to talk to Dex about this. I don’t want you to be tsunami’d when we break up and have no one to handle the media for you.” 

Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. I just figured I’d be old news and they’d leave me alone to chase him and his next model.

He glanced at the paper again. “Plus, I’m going out of town for that first interview, and the timing is pretty bad. I don’t want you to be stuck here with no resources. Especially since this guy knows where you live.”

A strange man knew where I lived and Connor was going away. 

I could feel my heart picking up speed and wondered just how fast it had to go before heart attack land.

“Hey.” Connor took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t look like that. It’s going to be fine. This is what Amy does. She’ll make sure you’re protected and everything goes smoothly.”

“Thanks. I’m glad you called her.” I wasn’t in a place to be prideful about making my own way.

“No problem. I can’t believe Dex and Catherine didn’t think of this already. Or they just figured they’d handle it as it came.” He pulled the newspaper out and started to unfold it. “Ready?”

“Sure. How bad could it be?”

He held the paper up so I could see the photo. They’d been incredibly kind, picking what was probably one of the first shots. I looked a bit dazed, probably from the flash. Connor had all but picked me up and looked like if you got in his way he’d cut you down. The caption read, Nighthawk Gets Protective. 

Connor cleared his throat and read the headline with announcer guy voice, before running through the few short paragraphs. “The Nighthawk and the Raven. I don’t get it…Wait, that’s your heroine, right? Raven?” He glanced my way for confirmation before diving back in. “Connor Ryan has been seen out and about with a petite writer for the last few weeks doing the most ordinary things. No cat fights or gossip mags for this girl. Hailey Tate is what we in the industry call a class act. A good girl persona of writing for children and donating her time, Ms. Tate is taking a walk on the wild side with Ryan. But will she tame the bad boy or will he sully this angel’s halo?”

Connor folded the paper back up and frowned at me as if it were my fault we’d been written up.

“What?” 

He was glaring at the far wall and I wasn’t sure he was going to answer me at first.

“They make you sound too good for me.”

I tried not to laugh, but it was kind of sweet to have him notice.

“No. They just said I wasn’t a cat-fighting floozy.” 

And
that I’m too good for him.

“Yeah.” He reached for his coffee, obviously still put out. “Whatever.” 

Nothing like a grown man pouting.

TWENTY-FIVE

"Hello?" I glanced at the clock. Who in their right mind would be calling at 2:53 in the morning?

"Hey. Did I wake you up?"

"Connor?"

"Yeah." 

Well, that answered that question. Someone not in his right mind.

"Is something wrong?" I shifted, trying to wake up, worried something had happened, that he was stuck somewhere. 

He was traveling and anything could have happened. Would his new, mysterious
people
be able to take care of things in other towns?

"No. You know I'm just..."

"You're just what?"

"I'm just..."

Seriously, he did not wake me up to say the same half-sentence over and over?

"Connor, it's the middle of the night."

"Oh. Yeah. Well." I heard a gush of breath as if he was pushing all the air out of his lungs at once. His words were soft and had the slight slur of sleep like he was exhausted but couldn't rest. "Sorry. I couldn't sleep."

I squished my pillow up behind me and sat up, pulling the blankets with me. 

"How was the interview?"

Connor laughed, a light, breathy sound like he was trying to swallow it instead of letting it out. "Different."

"That's all? Different?"

"Well, I'm used to guys asking me about the models I go out with, but it's usually more of a guy thing. Like, once I got asked if Genevieve Alexander’s boobs were real."

"
Oh.
” Well, that would make for an interesting conversation. And… “Are they?"

"Seriously, Hails?" He was laughing now, his voice less worn. "How would I know?"

"Well, you went out with her."

"We went to a charity event as a set up. I told you. I don't sleep with all those girls.” He made a sharp pfft’ing sound on the other end of the line. “What am I, some eighteen year old rookie?"

He sounded insulted that people assumed he was sleeping with a different model every week. That was just a different level of guydom.

"So what did they ask you this time? Oh, and, by the way. Just to clear it up in case it’s ever an interview questions. My boobs? Totally real. Not worth a multi-million dollar insurance policy impressive, but still, real."

"I kind of figured no one invested thousands in A-cups."

"Hey, mister. These are Bs. Definitely Bs.” I rolled to my side, staring at the dim light coming through my curtains. “Someone just measured me during that great Hailey Needs a New Look shopping spree.”

I let him laugh at my expense, wondering what was wrong that had him calling me in the middle of the night. Wondering who this girl was in my skin flirting with him in the dark.

"They asked me a lot of questions about us. Like how we met and how long had we secretly been dating and how serious we were and what it was like to date someone like you."

"Someone like me?" I wasn't sure I was going to like this one.

"Yeah, you know." 

"Um, no?"

"
You know
.” He drew it out like I was being dense. “Someone who's famous for her brain."

I was famous for my brain. Huh. 

Of course, I wasn't really famous. Most writers weren't. It took a ridiculous number of books and movies or television shows sold to become famous. But still, it added to the warm fuzzy night-talk feeling I had.

"What did you say?"

"I told them we'd been dating a while, that we kept it quiet because you weren't comfortable being called one of my flavors of the week on every tabloid out there. And, that I didn't mind because I knew you weren't a flavor of the week and I could just wait you out. And that you were the funniest, smartest, nicest girl I knew. And that brainy girls were a different level of sexy."

Oh.

Wow.

Even if he was just saying those things, it was still really sweet. Exactly what I'd want him to say if he'd meant it.

"Then the rest was just sports talk.” He cleared his throat, a move I was realizing he did when he was uncomfortable. “Nothing you want to hear about."

"Maybe I do." I was thinking I could listen to his voice lull me back to sleep, let it wrap around me in the dark until even RBIs sounded sweet and sexy.

He chuckled again. Maybe he really did think I was funny.

"Do you want to do something tomorrow when I get back?"

"The tomorrow in a few hours or the real tomorrow after I sleep-recover from this?"

"The real tomorrow. It looks like they booked me an extra day here for some reason. I’m not flying back till tomorrow morning. Why, you have a hot date tonight?"

"Yup."

"What?" The sleepiness left his voice, quick, like he'd just come to. "You do?"

"Yup. Fifteen teenage girls. My pre-launch party is tonight. They get the book before it comes out on Tuesday. There'll be a few local bookstore owners and some bloggers there too. It's the final book in my series that hit the USA Today so we're doing it up big."

"Wow.” He actually sounded impressed. “Look at you Ms. Big Time Author."

"I know, right?" It never got old getting to hang out with teen readers.

"So, you should be getting your beauty sleep right now.” He stopped and with the long pause it felt like he was going to say something else. But, instead he just said, “Sorry I woke you up."

"It's okay."

“Sleep well. I’m sure you’ll knock it out of the park tomorrow.”

There was nothing like a good baseball analogy for a book signing. 

TWENTY-SIX

I stood on the threshold, afraid of what I’d find. A death-dark flower dripping a dim glowing nectar called to me from across the room. No matter how I fought, I couldn't break free of its spell. The Professor had warned me not to come here. But after two years of fighting all those things that crept past good people’s houses each night, the things that killed and stole and haunted, how could I know the evil behind this door was more than anything I’d ever faced—anything I’d ever even heard of.

'Raven!'

As soon as I heard his voice, I knew. I knew who it was and I knew the right man had come for me.

I closed the book with a snap to a chorus of
no
coming from the girls sitting on the floor around me. I rested the book on my lap and smiled.

"I know. You've been waiting for a lot of books to find out who she picks. Michael or Priam. The bad news is, I'm not going to tell you. The good news is that Mary from the bookstore has a book for each of you before you leave."

As soon as I'd said the words
good news
they guessed what was coming.

"You all just have to promise not to give the ending away since people are still waiting for it."

After everyone had raised her right hand and taken a solemn oath to never tell the ending of the book, the bookstore brought out cupcakes for everyone while I did a question and answer period.

"But, if Priam has lived twelve lives, he's at the end of the zodiac, what happens to his next life?"

"That's a great question...and maybe you'll find out when you read One Last Tomorrow."

"Excuse me." A deep voice came from the back of the reading area. Connor. Leaning against the doorframe, his carry-on sitting at his feet. "But, what kind of girl is this Raven chick? Michael and Priam both sound like good guys. Is she just leading them on?"