Resilience

by Tymber Dalton

  Ah, yes. Bonus question four. Usually not asked so tactlessly, or bluntly standalone, especially on an open mic. Most incalculably curious inquirers piggybacked it onto another question to lessen the sting, or privately posed it to him with a tipped head and hushed tone at a cocktail party or other more intimate soiree.

  Tyler let a moment of uncomfortable silence settle over the auditorium, as he always did when this was asked in public. Far more effective than outright calling the person an arsehole. “It was unfortunate and horrifically necessary, and saved the lives of my family.”

  Bill immediately jumped in with another question, a light one planned and held in reserve for this very instance.

  Tyler somehow made it through the rest of the evening. Once the final bows ended and Tyler knew the cameras were off, he maintained his composure and kept his smile anchored in place while he headed toward the wings.

  Everyone had cell phones now. He never let his pleasant author persona slip in public. Not a millimeter. Even when the audience was eagerly racing out of the auditorium to queue again to pick up their pre-ordered copies of the book.

  Crystal Higgins awaited him off-stage and he bloody well wished she wasn’t. In her hand she held her smartphone, the screen glowing and over which her thumbs rapidly flew.

  “Mr. Paulson, that was wonderful!” she gushed. “Twitter and Instagram have been going nuts with the hashtag, and it’s being RTd quite a bit. Several people have posted Facebook live and Instagram videos of your talk.”

  “Excellent.” He didn’t stop walking, accepting a fresh and unopened cold bottle of water from a book fair volunteer before continuing toward the stage entrance, making Crystal hurry to keep up as she followed on his heels. Six months ago, she’d started working for Elliot Paterno, Tyler’s long-time publicist. She had been assigned to Tyler for this book release and promotion trip as her first large solo project, from arranging and booking the dates and travel, to accompanying him to the local events.

  “Frankly, between you and me, sir, I loved the plot twist at the end with the guy getting himself killed by the bailiff during the trial so Augustine couldn’t get to him. Augustine’s reaction was so funny! ‘Now what’ll I do with all that duct tape?’ Priceless!”

  She’d confessed soon after meeting him that she was an avid fan of his books. “Thank you.” He supposed that was better than someone who’d never read the things. She’d better understand the demographics than a non-reader, or someone who wasn’t familiar with his body of work.

  Elliot had asked Tyler if he’d mind letting her deal with him alone for this trip, since Tyler wasn’t an “asshole,” as Elliot had phrased it, and Elliot wanted to see how she’d handle one of his A-list author clients. Not long out of college after having interned for Elliot over the past two summers, and her youthful energy both impressed Tyler as well as exhausted him.

  Except…Tyler wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about her yet personally. That in and of itself was odd. Usually he was a pretty decent judge of people right off the bat, even if he didn’t tell them what he thought of them. The start of this latest publicity tour had been the first time he’d ever met Crystal in person, although he’d exchanged countless e-mails with her, as well as talked with her on the phone.

  She certainly was eager, and supposedly knowledgeable about social media and trends and how to maximize that exposure to net him a new audience of readers, some of whom hadn’t even been born when Augustine first appeared in Tyler’s strange brain. And she was an expert in Tyler’s books and career, a true fan of his work.

  Tyler had, unfortunately, learned that he couldn’t let people in, let them close, no matter who they were or how good at their job. Be courteous and friendly? Absolutely. Always.

  But to give her personal access to the level that Elliot had enjoyed with Tyler over the years?

  Not a bloody chance.

  He was done letting people who needed only occasional contact with his life have a close relationship with him. Not in this era of social media and screenshots, when every person was looking for a chance to springboard to fame via TMZ and other gossip sites.

  He was also beginning to wish he’d let Nevvie handle all of the arrangements for this trip, like she’d offered to. Except when this first came up, Nevvie had been busy with a series of appointments for Chloe, their niece, ahead of the school year starting. Evaluations Chloe needed to get her the best placement and teachers and to get an IEP in place since she had developmental delays. Since Karen and Bill both worked full-time, Nevvie helped Dad pick up the slack in terms of any appointments Chloe had. Chloe had also just started with a new occupational therapist when this trip came up, so Tyler had opted to take care of the logistics with Crystal.

  That was a mistake.

  His car and driver awaited him at the back entrance as arranged. Tyler headed for it, relieved when the door shut behind him, and irritated when Crystal climbed in on the other side.

  She must have caught the look on his face. “Oh, you don’t mind if we ride back to your hotel together, do you? So we can go over tonight’s numbers?”

  Tyler hoped she didn’t hear his disappointed sigh. He didn’t want to blow her off, but he really wasn’t in the mood to converse with anyone. “I suppose.”

  If Nevvie or Thomas weren’t with him, he preferred to be alone after one of these events, to decompress. Just because he was good at working a crowd didn’t mean he enjoyed it.

  Not anymore.

  Especially not after that day.

  Chapter Two

  During the ride to his hotel, Tyler tried to tune out Crystal’s incessant droning about page views and impressions and hashtags and a lot of other things he didn’t fucking care about. He finally had to hold up a hand about ten minutes in because she would not.

  Shut.

  Her bloody piehole.

  “Please. I understand you have a job to do, but I’m exhausted and fighting a headache. I truly need a few moments of quiet. Can’t this wait until later, or be summarized to me in an e-mail?”

  The headache excuse was a lie, but this woman talked.

  She talked.

  A lot.

  Too much.

  Were Tommy or Nevvie there, he would simply lay over, his head in their lap, while they stroked his hair and let him be.

  Quietly.

  “Oh, of course. I’m sorry, Mr. Paulson.”

  He offered her a smile. “Thank you.”

  Worse, it seemed like every time Tyler set foot out of his hotel room—and even a few times he hadn’t—Crystal had been right there, on top of him.

  He loved book signings where he didn’t have to do a long Q&A. One on one with the fans, limited to mere seconds per person because of the line behind them, it was easy to deal with. He didn’t even mind these that much, per se. He enjoyed them to a certain extent, being able to play the crowd and receive immediate feedback from them.

  What he didn’t enjoy was how they emotionally drained him on the back side. Usually not a problem if Nevvie or Thomas had accompanied him on the trip.

  Except this time they hadn’t.

  And this was a far longer trip than usual, fortunately approaching the tail end of it, and Tyler felt wearier than ever.

  I am not a young man.

  Crystal managed to remain silent for only five minutes, and that was likely due to her scrolling through her smartphone. “We don’t have to allow unscreened questions tomorrow, you know. We can have them submit comment cards and weed through them and the moderator can read them from the stage. I can talk to the book fair’s director tomorrow morning and make the change. You’re one of their headliners. I’m sure they’ll do it.”

  He had another signing at the book fair tomorrow, followed by another reading and another Q&A. That one would be smaller, and with a shorter discussion with the moderator. People had to pay money to get into that one, because it came with a special collector’s edition hardcover copy of the book, whereas tonight’s had b
een a free event. Still, tickets for tomorrow’s event had sold out almost immediately after going on sale.

  Tonight, Tyler had no mental, emotional, or physical energy to make any decisions. “Whatever you feel is best.” All he wanted to do was lock himself in his hotel room, escape Crystal’s incessant talking, and call home.

  He hadn’t been home in nearly two weeks and felt desperately homesick. Usually, these press junkets left him feeling revived, energetic. For some reason…this one had not. Perhaps because of the length of time away and the sheer amount of non-stop appearances, interviews, and readings he’d had to engage in.

  And being alone for it.

  Worse, not being able to escape Crystal for much of it.

  He missed home.

  He missed his family.

  “I’ll take care of it, sir,” she said, flashing him a broad grin. “Leave it to me.”

  “Aces.” He twisted the cap off the water bottle and took a long swallow from it. “For future reference, no more of those silly cocktail parties, please. I don’t enjoy them, and I’m not much of a drinker, so I don’t feel very comfortable at them.”

  He’d had to attend four of them in the past three days, at least eight of them since his arrival in New York.

  Her expression faltered. “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “You have one at five tomorrow evening, before the banquet, and then another Sunday afternoon.”

  Bloody hell.

  Only because she looked practically bereft did he manage to not say that aloud. She had expressive hazel eyes he knew he’d be writing onto a character in the future, and short, curly brown hair that billowed around her chin. She barely looked old enough to legally drink, much less be a college graduate wunderkind with a doctorate in social media voodoo, or whatever it was Elliot said she had specialized in.

  “Also, for future reference, unless I’m flying overseas and condensing several foreign cities into one junket, please do not schedule these to last more than three days, unless it’s absolutely unavoidable. I do not like being away from home this long. It’s also cutting into my work schedule, and it’s additional stress. Elliot’s never scheduled me like this before.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. No one told me that. I was trying to maximize your exposure this close to the release. The pre-order numbers look great compared to past releases. There doesn’t seem to be as much sequel drop-off for this release like some series have.”

  “Fine. In the future, though, are we clear on that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When the car pulled up to his hotel, he opened the door to get out and noticed that she started to follow him across the seat. He stopped and turned. “May I ask what you’re doing?”

  “I thought I’d come up to your room so we can talk some more. You said we’d talk later. About tomorrow. I wanted to go over more numbers with you.”

  “I meant later as in tomorrow. We are still having breakfast with Elliot, are we not?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “My dear, I apologize, but I am completely knackered. It’s”—he looked at his watch—“bloody hell, it’s nearly midnight, and I’ve been awake and on the move since you roused me from a sound sleep at four a.m. And another point—there was no reason to awaken me that early. I could have slept another couple of hours this morning. Did Elliot not go over things with you when giving you this assignment? I’m not exactly an amateur. I’ve done this plenty of times before and have hit my marks, as they say, for over two decades.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Paulson. The publisher wanted to make sure we hammered social media hard and heavy since this is the tenth in the Augustine series, and they wanted to boost your backlist sales.”

  He sighed. “Look, I understand that. I’m not trying to be rude but I feel simply exhausted, and I believe it would have been better to break some of this into multiple trips over a couple of weeks. Extend the coverage, as it were. Obviously, the book fair is a set circumstance beyond our control, but many of these morning show and social events could have been better spaced out. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I am a man, not a machine. Right now, I’m a very tired man who is going to go call his family, if they’re even still awake, and then go to sleep.”

  He hated that he knew he’d hurt her feelings, from the tight set of her smile, but she nodded. “Sure, no problem. I’ll see you in the morning, Mr. Paulson.”

  “Yes.” He started to get out, then turned back to her. “Not before seven thirty. We don’t have to be at the restaurant until eight, and it’s a mere two blocks away. We can walk. You dragged me out of bed hours before I needed to be. In fact, I shall meet you and Elliot there at eight sharp. All right?”

  She nodded, smiling. “We can talk then. I’ll e-mail you the summaries about the data from tonight.”

  “Thank you.”

  Weary to his very core, Tyler climbed out of the car and headed inside, sending Nevvie a text as he did. He didn’t want to call them if they were asleep, and he felt guilty he’d been so rushed between dinner and the reading that he hadn’t had time to call and at least talk to Mikey and the girls.

  In fact, Tyler hadn’t talked to the kids in a couple of days, although he had been texting with them.

  On the elevator ride up to his room, he remembered the first time Nevvie had accompanied him to New York. How excited she’d been.

  Their sexy dance in the hotel bar, where they’d wowed the other patrons with moves hot enough to melt the Chernobyl reactor’s protective shell.

  Their kiss after, and another in the elevator while on their way up to the room.

  Sharing a bed, because she’d sneakily finagled their reservation for only one room instead of two.

  His heart ached for Nevvie, for Thomas.

  For home.

  Maybe it’s time to look at other options.

  With this book, he’d renegotiated his contract with the publisher, which was why he truly suspected the publisher wanted to do things differently this time around. He was no longer locked into multi-book requirements. He could self-publish books outside the Augustine series, if he wanted. Which was increasingly looking like a viable option. He could hire out the cover art, editing, and formatting, and keep one-hundred-percent of the proceeds.

  But he wouldn’t have publisher support like this. Promotion handled for him, unless he paid for it out of his own pocket. While he paid Elliot for his public relations and promotions expertise, Elliot’s firm worked hand-in-hand with the publisher on the book release campaigns and coordinated the things the average self-published author couldn’t negotiate on their own.

  End-cap placements, pre-order support.

  Although he would have his name and reputation to parlay into instant sales.

  They technically didn’t need the money.

  Correction—they did not need the money. There was no technically about it. Thomas and Nevvie had gone through all their accounts last month to give him a quarterly summary. If he never wrote another book, and they lived within their means as they currently were, he could retire, write sheerly for the joy of it, and enjoy sleeping late with the loves of his life every morning with never a single worry about income. That was including paying for their children’s college educations. It wasn’t just due to his writing income, but also from what Thomas still earned from his share of the architecture firm back in Tampa, even though he was technically retired, and their investment portfolio.

  He’d just walked into—and locked himself in—his hotel room when his cell phone rang.

  Reaching up to loosen his tie with his free hand, he answered, thickening his British accent as he did.

  “Naughty New York Nighttime Hotline, how might I direct your call?”

  Nevvie giggled. “You’re lucky it was me and not one of the kids. How you doing, stranger?”

  He flopped back on the bed. “Totally knackered, love.”

  “Are you just now getting back to your room?”

 
“Yes. And yes, the door’s locked.”

  “Wow. The event ran late, huh?”

  “Right up to release time. Not to mention the new girl Elliot assigned to handle this trip for me has absolutely run me ragged.”

  Her suddenly dark tone amused him. “We are talking the schedule, right?”

  “Of course, angel. Never fear, she couldn’t begin to compare to you and Thomas. I had to get a little firm with her just now downstairs. She was determined she was going to follow me up here and chat about social media statistics. I told her in no uncertain terms that was not happening, and proceeded to lay down the law about tomorrow.”

  “What’s tomorrow?”

  “Breakfast with Elliot. This morning she was knocking on my bloody door at four a.m. to rouse me ahead of the network appearances.”

  “What? What kind of noob does she think you are?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll call Elliot tomorrow and talk to him.”

  “Well, for starters, I shall see him in the morning at breakfast at eight. I’ll be telling him then myself.”

  “Uh, isn’t she going to be there?”

  “I won’t be saying anything to him that I haven’t already said to her. If she’s a professional, she should be open to criticism. And best it comes from a polite bloke such as myself instead of someone else.”

  “You mean a bitch like me?” He heard the smile in her voice.

  “You are my angel, sweet. You know that.”

  “I’m also your pet pit bull. Come on, Ty. Let me call Elliot and wake his ass up.”

  “No, love. So, did we win?”

  “Yeah, I taped the game. Mikey scored a touchdown.”

  He sighed. “And here I am, missing it.”

  “Hey, you’re working. It’s okay. It’s like the first game you’ve ever missed. He understands.”

  “How’s Thomas?” Tyler finished removing his tie and blindly lobbed it in the direction of the dresser at the end of the bed.

  “Uh, hey, sooo…how was the crowd tonight? Did they ask the top three and bonus question number four?”