by Layne Harper
“Come in, Amber,” I greet her, opening my door wider for her to enter. As we walk into my living room, I offer her a drink.
She’s good. Amber knows to accept a drink from me. It makes the interviewee feel more comfortable to offer hospitality, and it puts me more at ease and open to her questions. I fix her a glass of Zen green tea. I put her drink in a Ralph Lauren glass and grab a Papyrus Stationary napkin. As my momma would say, “Always put your best foot forward.”
Amber has made herself at home on my black and white striped wing back chair. I hand her the glass of tea and settle into my black and white flowered sofa.
“Great place you have here, Sasha,” she compliments. That’s another rule of interviewing someone. Make them like you by paying them a compliment.
“Thank you, Amber. It’s my little sanctuary,” I reply, remembering to be extra solemn. “How’s ‘Talk’ magazine?” I ask to make sure that she knows that this interview is friendly.
“‘Talk’ is great. As you know, print journalism seems to be a fading art, but I love our readers. They are loyal to me and follow the blog religiously,” she replies.
“That’s wonderful,” I say sweetly. Amber is not pretty enough for television. Even if she loses twenty pounds and drops $100,000 on plastic surgery, the television camera will never love her.
Then, Amber shifts in the wing back chair and shows me her recorder. “You know the drill, Sasha. I am going to record this interview and then write the story using a combination of my notes and this recording. I’ll give you the opportunity to fact check the story before it runs.”
I nod my head in confirmation and begin to tell Amber about how Colin and I met. It’s an old fashioned love story. I interviewed him. He swept me off my feet. I went to all of his games. He made me feel like the only girl in the world. Then, I tell her that the whole time he was seeing me, he was screwing Doctor Caroline Collins. I begin to tear up when I tell Amber about the last night at the hotel where she was waiting for him in the other room. I describe in detail how cold Colin was to me. I leave out the part where I begged Colin to have sex with me, but I really play up how I asked him over and over again to tell me that he loved me. Amber shivers as I recount how he ordered me out of the suite.
I pause for a moment to dab my eyes with the tissues that I placed conveniently on the coffee table before Amber arrived. Thinking about the night that Colin was such a bastard does make me cry, but I might be hamming it up just a wee bit for Amber.
When I begin to tell Amber about Jenna and how Colin has been stringing her along since she was eighteen makes Amber’s mouth fall open. I go into detail about how he keeps her as a mistress and pays for her living expenses. I don’t exactly accuse Colin of having sex with her, but I certainly plant doubts in Amber’s mind.
To further ruin Colin, I drop the bombshell that he and Jenna had a child together when they were in high school. Amber is shocked. She asks follow up questions, and I do my best to answer them.
After we move away from Colin, she quizzes me about previous boyfriends. I make sure to keep the answers very short. I want the majority of the article to be about Colin and Caroline.
The article will drop a week from Friday. I’ll be granting my news station an on-air interview to follow it up. Colin is going to hate me, and I don’t care. He will regret ever screwing me over.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for hanging around to the end of the book/beginning of Colin and Charlie’s story. They have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I named Caroline “Charlie” Jane Collins when I was in seventh grade if that gives you an idea. I love sharing them with you.
There are at least two more books planned in the Infinity series. The next book, From Now Until Infinity is scheduled for release in August.
Love or hate a scene or quote from Falling Into Infinity? Please share it with me at [email protected]. I would also appreciate you leaving a review on the retailer’s website. Good or bad, it helps all of us authors do a better job for you, the reader.
Thanks!
Layne Harper
Acknowledgements:
First of all, I would like to thank my college sweetheart and very supportive husband. In the eighteen years that we have been together, he has been my cheerleader through numerous creative endeavors without once questioning my sanity. He has also tirelessly listened to me rattle on about Charlie and Colin. He even told me we could name our son Colin. I’m so thankful that we didn’t because now it would just be creepy. He is my safety net, allowing me to soar, while knowing that there is a soft place to land. I told you, baby, that marrying me would be a good idea. I love you enough!
To my children, I owe you everything. Just know that being your mom has been the greatest pleasure of my life.
Here’s an odd one. I would like to thank Jim Rome, host of the Jim Rome Show on CBS Radio. When I graduated from college and started life in the real world, I was lonely being away from my friends and family. Jim Rome’s sports talk radio show came on at 11:00 daily. I would eat lunch in my car listening to his sports rants and interviews. He made me laugh as he regaled me with stories about the on and off the field lives of the players that I enjoyed watching. I’ve been a proud clone since 1998.
I would like to thank the girls in my life. I am blessed to be surrounded with the best girlfriends in the world. You sharing your hopes, dreams, dating disasters, mistakes, successes, and love stories with me have made this book. I hope that all of you see bits and pieces of our friendship in it. I also thank you for drinking wine with me, never judging, and always finding a babysitter when it’s time for a GNO. It is still my ultimate goal that when our children are adults they will be as close as we are and toast their crazy moms.
Huge thanks to the girls who read Falling Into Infinity before publication. Their probing questions, story suggestions and late night texts have made this book the best that it can be. I owe you all much more than a glass of wine.
I have two wonderful editors who helped me with Falling Into Infinity. Special thanks to Kristi Zeller ([email protected]) and Stephanie Lott ([email protected]). Any errors in the book are mine.
Most of all, I would like to thank my parents (who will hopefully never read this because I would just die if I my dad knew that I write sex scenes for a living) for sacrificing to pay for all four years of college at Texas A&M. The greatest gifts that they gave me were a superb education and being debt free when I graduated. I was able to take a job at a technology start-up making peanuts but gaining the best real world education around.
Oh! I also should thank my mom, who taught elementary school kids to read for 30 years, for developing my love of reading. She didn’t care what I read as long as I was reading. When I was in 5th grade, she did not bat an eyelash at my choice of authors like Stephen King or V.C. Andrews. She happily checked their books out of the library for me when the librarian said I was too young to read them. I remind myself of that story frequently, and I hope that I will encourage and support my children like she did for me.
About Layne:
Layne Harper is a mom, wife, book junkie, and sports fanatic. However, when the kids and husband are safely ensconced at school and work, she slips into her office with her three rescue dogs and writes until it’s time to drive carpool. Her children have no idea about her secret life (and they hopefully never will), and the dogs won’t tell. She’s always writing in her mind though and making notes on whatever is close by; envelopes, napkins, a kid’s homework…
There is nothing that makes an author happier than to hear from their readers. Follow Layne on Twitter or on Facebook. She checks her email frequently. Her address is [email protected].
Table of Contents
Title page
January, Senior Year
January, Sophomore Year
February, Senior Year
Summer after Sophomore Year
February, Senior Year
&nb
sp; September, Junior Year
February, Senior Year
September, Junior Year
February, Senior Year
September, Junior Year
February, Senior Year
October, Junior Year
February, Senior Year
The Present
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
About Layne:
