Page 22 of Not a Strong Enough Word

“Ryan—”

“I know.” I replace my glasses and drop my hands helplessly to my knees. “I know, okay? I had to see her again. I wanted to know she was okay.”

“And was she?”

It’s not the response I expected. Casey has every right to chew me out, and he probably should. Showing up at her apartment unannounced when she hadn’t given me her address herself was a violation of her privacy, and Anastasios Press could easily terminate me based on that alone. But when I risk a glance at him, his eyebrows are drawn together, and his head is tilted in genuine concern.

Before I respond, I think back to that day, as if it hasn’t been playing on repeat since I left her. But Casey’s question adds a new lens to it. Was she okay? Her toenails were painted, which is something she only ever did when she had surfaced from her work long enough to give herself a little extra attention. The baking show has always been a comfort thing for her, but she had just had a meeting with us where she had seen me again unexpectedly. I suppose it’s not out of the question for her to curl up with her emotional-support baking competition. Her apartment was clean. Her hair has clearly been cut recently. She wasn’t wearing makeup, but she was never one for that kind of thing anyway. Makeup or no, her skin was glowing. She looked healthy. And she filled out her pajamas—also clean—in a way that has lived rent-free in my head since I saw her. But what it tells me now is that, as I had suspected at that first meeting, she’s probably been eating.

I nod slowly. “Yes. I think she was.”

“And was she pissed you stopped by?” He makes a show of looking me up and down. “You have all your limbs, and I don’t see any obvious bruises. Since you walked in here just fine, I’ll assume she didn’t cut off your balls.”

“Okay, asshole.” I narrow my eyes at him. “She was surprised, obviously, but she seemed okay with it.”

If you need to hand-deliver notes, I wouldn’t mind.

She definitely wouldn’t have said that if she didn’t want me to stop by again. She must have been okay with it.

“Then no harm, no foul.” He levels me with a glare. “But I wouldn’t do it again. Boundaries are your friend in this situation. I know you still want to protect her, but the best way to do that is by staying away. She left you—I get that—but my guess is she was just as broken up about it as you were.” He pauses again as if he’s holding back, but this time it doesn’t take any prodding for him to continue. “No one walks away from a million-dollar deal and someone they’re in love with all in the same day without some serious shit going on under the surface. Don’t stir the pot, Ryan. Leave well enough alone.”

Casey’s words roll around in my head for another full week. A week in which I’m so engrossed in Scarlett’s manuscript that I almost feel like she’s with me. Her voice is so clear, so brilliant, so haunting. And reading this time knowing it was her who wrote the words makes it all the more exciting. The changes she’s made to the story based on our emails are even better than what I had originally suggested. The grittiness of the bike elevates everything else in the story and adds realism to her otherwise fragile and airy prose. It incongruously fills the book with even more hope than was there before.

It fills me with hope that Scarlett has found a way to ground herself like she’s grounded the story. That she won’t somehow float away. That she’s filled with optimism, too.

I had planned to do several passes through the manuscript this time, but after I finish my first read-through, I’m itching to discuss it with her about it like we used to—papers strewn about, a light in her eyes as she talked through a particular scene. The way those eyes would go a little wider and she’d gasp just before scrambling off the bed to grab a notebook or her laptop or her phone, whatever was closest to frantically tap out whatever idea had occurred to her.

The way our bodies would tangle with the pages and the sheets, our tongues rolling around words, then around each other. Exploring both until we were spent. Waking up to do it all over again.

I shake my head rapidly. Casey was right. The best way to protect her is to stay away. No matter how much I want to pick up right where we left off, it might bring up too many old wounds. It could stop Scarlett from writing again. And the world needs her words. That, I know for sure.

But when Trina’s name lights up my phone somewhere in the middle of my second pass of page fifteen, I scramble to answer it faster than I probably should.

“Hello?” I press the phone hard into my ear, suddenly and inexplicably breathless.

“Ryan? Are you on a run or something? I can call back—”

“No, no.” I take a deep breath, praying I can get my shit together. “I was focused. You surprised me is all.” The little lie slips easily off my tongue as I remind myself for the hundredth time in the past hour that boundaries are my friend.

“Sure. Anyway, I’m calling about Scarlett.”

“Is she okay?” I ask a little too quickly.

“Yes,” Trina says slowly. Suspiciously. “She mentioned you’ve had her revisions for a week or so now, and she hasn’t heard from you. She didn’t say so directly, but I think she’s a little nervous. She’s not used to not having…immediate feedback.” There’s definitely laughter in her voice there, and I imagine her bright red lips twisting into an indecent grin.

“Does she want immediate feedback?” The words tumble out of me before I can think better of it. And to make matters worse, I match Trina’s innuendo. I cringe and toss my glasses onto my desk so I can rub at my temples as if that would take all the double meaning out of the conversation.

She snorts. “No. Like I said, she’s nervous. I told her I’d check in.”

“Right. Of course.” I blink my eyes open, the words on my screen blurry without my glasses. “Tell her she has nothing to worry about. I finished my first pass, and her revisions are spot on. My second has been slower because of some other projects I needed to finish up”—another lie—“but I should have it finished soon. Maybe another couple of weeks.”

“Great.” There’s a scraping sound as if Trina is shifting her phone to her other ear, then a car door opening and closing in the background. “She’s started drafting her next book, so this will give her time to make some headway on that.”

At that, another image overtakes the one I had of Scarlett and me tangled in sheets and pages and each other. This one is of her at her desk, sitting cross-legged on her computer chair, her face too close to her monitor and dark circles under her eyes.

“I needed seven thousand words today to stay on track, and I only got thirty-five hundred.” Her voice was weak and small. She didn’t bother looking up from her monitor as she clacked away at her keyboard, then cursed silently and deleted whatever she had just written.

I wiped the bleariness out of my eyes with the back of my hand. “Beautiful, it’s four in the morning. Have you slept at all?”