Page 62 of Cabin Fever
What if you’re right?
She fires back instantly:Ofc I am. Remember, you should dress in the plaid skirt for the reading. Show him what he’s missing girlfriend!
I giggle, sliding off the bed and hunting through my closet for anything that doesn’t scream “moony woman wearing her heart on her sleeve.” Simone’s pep talk has had a dangerous effect—suddenly, Iwantto see Talon. Not to forgive, maybe not even to confront, but to look into those blue eyes and see if there’s anything left of the man who made me believe I could be worth obsessing over.
Halfway through brushing my teeth, I remember how odd it is that Talon’s book tour would stop at Century College of all places. We’re not exactly Palo Alto or Cambridge, and the local bookstore is known more for hosting burgeoning poets and writers who have yet to get their careers off the ground, and not blockbuster authors with bestsellers on their resumes. Surely, with his sales, Talon could fill a real auditorium in New York, or San Francisco, or anywhere there’s a thriving literary scene.
So why this small campus? Why now?
Maybe the answer is in the dedication, or maybe it’s in the way his main character never quite gives up on “Angel,” even after she leaves. Maybe it’s just another trick, another plot device to put me off guard. I can’t tell. But the more I think about it, the more I want to believe this is the alpha male’s way of reaching for something better than an ending where I disappear and he just keeps writing murder mysteries.
My stomach knots at the thought. I run my finger over the raised gold of his name on the dust jacket and feel my thighs clench, heat sparking from the memory of his hands, his teeth, the hungry way he used to say “Kitten” as if it meant more than any real name could.
I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready. But I’m going.
I text Simone: Next Tuesday. I’ll be there.
She sends back a GIF of Buffy arming herself for battle, then a string of heart emojis.
By the time I leave for class, I have the book in my bag and a plan in my head: go to the reading, sit in the back, and watch Talon try to charm a room full of strangers. I’ll keep my coat on, keep my hands in my lap, and if he even thinks about acting like the Talon from the cabin, I’ll walk out and never look back.
Unless, of course, he looks at me and says something real.
I laugh at myself, but it’s the kind of laugh that tastes like hope.
It’s stupid. It’s dangerous. But for the first time in months, it feels like my story isn’t over.
The week passesin a haze of assignments, coffee, and obsessive re-reading. I highlight passages. I scribble in the margins. I write my own lines—rebuttals, retorts, the things I wish I’d said when we were together. I even dream about Talon, some nights: sometimes he’s chasing me, sometimes he’s waiting for me, but always, always, he calls me “Kitten.”
The night of the reading, I dress in black tights and a clingy top, hair up in a messy bun. I wear the skirt. Fuck it. I look like the version of me he wrote, except stronger, sharper, as if I’m the one who gets to author the ending this time.
I pause at the entrance to the bookstore, heart hammering. I’m a little late, but it’s okay. I walk into the store, book clutched tight,heart banging around my ribs like a caged thing, and scan the crowd for Talon’s face.
I don’t see him yet.
But I know he’ll see me.
And when he does, maybe—just maybe—he’ll finally know how the real story is supposed to end.
16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN – THE BOOK READING
Talon
You’d think after a decade of being an author, I’d be immune to nerves at a book reading. But right now my hands are shaking so bad I can barely hold my drink, and every time I shift in this designer blazer my ribs creak like floorboards in a haunted house. My entire body is on high alert, every sense raw, every muscle wired. I’m at the front of Century Pages, a small indie bookstore, about to do a public reading of my first romance novel—a sentence that would have made past-me puke.
It’s a little past seven, and the place is fucking packed. I count six rows of folding chairs, filled with mostly women. Some are attractive co-eds, all of them clutching copies ofAngel’s Sharelike it’s the newFifty Shades. The crowd is loud, caffeinated, and chattering with eagerness. I see maybe two men in the audience: a balding dad in a Star Wars tee and a grad student who looks like he’s been dragged here under protest. The rest are youngwomen—some giggly, some serious, all with that same look of expectation.
It’s a full house, standing room only. There’s a line snaking between the poetry section and the check-out, people holding hardbacks and phones, some recording, some posing for selfies with the cardboard cutout of my “author photo.” Where did they even get that? Nonetheless, I look handsome in cardboard and in person, judging from the appreciative glances of the ladies in the audience. They’re here for man meat tonight, definitely.
I spot Jeremy, the owner of Century Pages, darting through the aisles, wielding a tablet and talking fast to a college kid in a “Team Edward” tee. Isn’t it a little late forTwilightfandom? I suppose it never dies. There’s a barista at the back steaming oat milk like it’s the apocalypse. A woman in a peasant dress is putting out a tray of “virgin” Shirley Temples and a single bottle of whiskey for me. I swallow a laugh, then swallow the urge to run.
I scan the crowd for her. For Kat.
I don’t see her. Not yet.
I keep scanning. Every blonde girl with her hair down, every round bottom in a skirt, every nervous flicker of a hand. Not her. Not her. Not—wait.
