Colton: Wordsmith Chronicles Book 2 (The Wordsmith Chronicles)

by Christopher Harlan

  “Nah, I never keep alcohol in the house. Plus she’s not a drunk. She’s the opposite, actually, which is why it gets ugly when she has too much. Her body doesn’t know what to do with itself. She’s gonna sleep it off, I think. So where are we headed?”

  “Don’t ruin the surprise.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  <><><>

  Central Park is a special place. I don’t come here often. Believe it or not I’m not much of a city guy, even though I’m a New Yorker through and through. Queens is more my speed, but I love taking detours into the city if there’s a reason—and right now there’s one hell of a reason. I arranged the whole thing with G once the idea for the perfect date came to me, and he texted me right before our cover reveal to tell me he was on his way to set up.

  I got us a car service so that we could avoid the hassle of public transportation, and so that I wouldn’t get pissed off by dealing with morons on the road if I’d taken my own car. The limo pulls up and I take Harley’s hand and start walking. She’s asked me about a hundred times where exactly we’re going, but I’m going to keep her in suspense as long as I can.

  She looks so damn good!

  There’s a gentle breeze in the air and it blows her hair around just enough to make her look like she’s in a movie scene, and I see her in slow motion, shifting her weight from hip to hip as her hair flows through the open summer air. She has a huge smile on her face, which only accentuates her beauty.

  After five minutes of walking past the families having picnics, couples taking walks, and all the tourists walking around with their giant cameras and cell phones extended at all times, I see Greg faintly in the distance. I keep making small talk so Harley won’t be tipped off as to what’s going on. As we get closer to G I make eye contact and see that he sees me, and a few steps later we’re right by a giant tree, surrounded by open grass and a beautiful summer day in the city.

  When I stop us from walking we’re right in front of G, and I stop whatever it is that I’m saying and motion to him, standing there with all of his photography equipment all set up. “Harley, this is G. Olden, I don’t know if you know him, he’s. . .”

  “The author of the Flexed Series. Holy shit, of course I know him. I read all five of them! When is book six coming out?”

  “Okay, I guess you do know him,” I joke

  “I’m working on it,” he says. “And thanks for reading by the way. It means a lot.”

  “You don’t have to thank me, I loved them. Book three was my favorite. But I really want to read the next few.”

  I’m working on it. There’s a line all authors have said at one point or another. It’s one of those questions you learn to develop an automatic response to because you get it so often from readers. Just like newly married couples get asked when they’re going to start having kids, authors always get asked when their next book is coming out. Famous writers backed by publishing houses can literally take years between books sometimes, depending on how successful they are, but indie authors who are trying to climb their way up the bestseller ladders have to get several books out a year, usually between three and six, depending on the author. It’s hard to produce good content that fast, but people always want the next one. Someone should get me a shirt for Christmas that reads I’M WORKING ON IT—I’d wear it proudly.

  “I assume it isn’t a coincidence that we just happened to run into another author right here in the Park during our date?”

  “You’re right,” I confirm. “Actually, G is our date. Well, sort of.”

  “What Romeo here is trying to get out—and poorly, I might add—is that he arranged for me to do a photography session with the two of you, right here in Central Park. It’s my favorite place to shoot, and the light is perfect today.”

  “Right,” I add. “What he said. You asked for different, and I thought this was pretty different.”

  “Wow,” Harley says, looking at me with a huge smile. “Colton, I love this idea. Like, I LOVE it.” She jumps into me and kisses me like no one’s around. I kiss her back, hard, pretending like G isn’t standing right there staring at us making out. But I don’t care. When our lips separate I feel empty for a second, cold, like that wasn’t nearly enough of her. But there’s later—there’s always later. Right now it’s time for phase one of our date.

  “Okay, you guys ready?”

  “Ready,” I tell him.

  For thirty minutes we have a full fledged photography session. He takes pictures of us separately, then together. As he snaps Harley’s shots I stare at her, as do all the people walking by who probably think we’re famous or something. She’s so photogenic that she could be a model herself, and she’s hamming it up for the camera like a pro. G is getting a kick out of it. He’s not a smiley guy but his cheeks are bent upwards the entire time he’s shooting her because she’s making crazy faces and hitting exaggerated model poses. It’s really funny to watch.

  “Your turn, stud. Get in here!” G tells me.

  “Yeah, Colt, it’s time to strike those bad boy poses.”

  I jump in there as G points his camera at me and starts clicking. “Wait, I’m not ready yet,” I tell him.

  “Well get ready, fast, time is money.”

  I smile and start making these dumb-ass faces. I try to look serious like I’m taking headshots or something, but I hear Harley making fun of me and all I can do is start laughing. That’s when I hear the rapid fire clicks from G’s camera. She makes sure that I’m not taking myself too serious, which I’ve been known to do from time to time. I let G shoot me for about five more minutes, and I don’t think a single picture has a serious face in it. We’re all laughing and having a great time.

  “Okay,” G says as he puts the camera down for a second. “Now let’s get the two of you together for some real shots.”

  We’re still smiling, but when she comes over to me I get serious again. I want these pictures to be different. I want them to be as special as she is to me. She leans against me and buries her head in my neck, looking at the camera as I wrap my arm around her. “Nice, guys,” G says as the clicks from his very expensive camera ring out in rapid succession. “Now on the ground.”

  We sit and get into a bunch of different poses, and I think that this must be what it’s like to take engagement or wedding photos. On one hand it feels a little staged, but when it’s over I know we’re going to have some great shots. As she leans against me I struggle not to get hard. Think of a dead horse rotting in the sun. Think of Grandma. Think of anything that’s not her body pressing into you. I smile for a second thinking of one of these pictures hanging on the wall with my giant erection front and center in the foreground.

  After a few minutes the clicking stops, and G calls us over as he looks through them quickly on the screen of his camera. “Check these out—this is my favorite one.” Harley and I go and look over G’s shoulders. The one he stopped on is simple but perfect. In it we’re facing each other, our foreheads touching, and we’re looking intensely into each other’s eyes.

  “Damn,” she says. “We look good.”

  “We sure do.”

  I lean over behind G’s back and kiss her. G must feel awkward as hell. “Hey,” he says in a joking, sarcastic tone. “I’m here you know.”

  “I know,” I answer. “I was hoping you’d get turned on and jump in, but maybe that’s me watching too much porn.”

  We all start cackling and G packs up his stuff. There’s more to this date still to come. “Thanks for this, Greg. I can’t wait to see what you do with those.”

  “Yeah, I have another shoot with a few new models later on, but sometime tomorrow I’ll work on these and get you some proofs.”

  “Sounds good, thanks, man.”

  “Yes, thank you so much, Greg.” Harley says. “And after that get working on the next book, I want to read it so bad.”

  “You and me both,” G says, smiling. “And you’re welcome. You guys look great together.”

  Once
he’s gone I take Harley’s hand and start walking. The feeling of touching her is something special, like our bodies were meant to be in contact all the time. Even though it’s just a simple hand hold, I feel complete when we touch, and what I really want to do I can’t do with this many people around.

  “Congratulations,” she says as we’re strolling.

  “Congratulations for what?”

  “For doing what I asked you to do. I asked for an original date, and you definitely did it. I’ve never been taken on a photo shoot with a famous author before.”

  “I hope you’re talking about me and not G,” I joke.

  “Yeah. . .you, that’s what I meant.” She smiles at me. “But, seriously, that was amazing, and I can’t wait to see the pictures.”

  “Me, too, but you know that’s not the whole date, right? You think that’s the reach of my imagination? I’m a writer, after all.”

  “Oh, there’s more?”

  “There sure is.”

  “So, what’s next then?”

  16

  Harley

  I have no idea what he’s doing at first.

  After that amazing photo shoot he takes me over to a secluded spot and we sit down underneath this huge tree. It’s a sunny afternoon, and the tree is providing just enough shade for me to put my sunglasses away and get out of the heat for a few minutes. We sit down, him to my right, and he pulls out his phone.

  “You miss a call?” I ask.

  “Nope. I’d never use this thing for real when I was out with you. There’s no one else I want to talk to more than you, trust me.”

  “Awww. That’s sweet.”

  “It’s true. I use my phone as much as the next indie romance author, but I can also put it away and not feel totally naked. And I’d never use it on a date.”

  “Then why’d you take it out? More pictures?”

  “Not for that, either,” he says. “I could never hold a candle to those pics G took—I wouldn’t even try. It’s not for calling, texting, or pictures.”

  “And no social media,” I say, I finishing his thought. “What else do you use a phone for?”

  “Writing,” he says. “I like to write on my phone.”

  “You write books on your phone?”

  “Yeah,” he answers. “Well, not whole books. At least not in a while. I wrote most of my first two on my phone, believe it or not. I guess that explains where my carpal tunnel comes from. My hands could never take that kind of abuse now, but I still use it for certain passages, or words that just come to me when I least expect them to. Those are some of the gems—the unexpected words.”

  “That’s cool,” I say. “Are you inspired to write at the moment?”

  “I was actually planning on reading to you, not writing. If you’d like me to.”

  This might be the sweetest date I’ve ever been on, and Colton is easily the sweetest guy. When I asked him for an original date I was thinking we’d go play laser tag or something. But he really took what I asked to heart and went out of his way to make it not just special, but memorable.

  “Oh, wow, what’s up for story time?”

  “A little selection from my WIP.”

  A WIP stands for a work in progress, and authors sometimes release parts of them online to keep readers excited and engaged for whatever it is they’re working on. Colton hasn’t put any of his new book out there for readers to look at, so I’m really honored that he wants to read some of it to me right now. There’s something exciting about being the only one out there who’s gotten to hear the latest Colton Chase excerpt.

  “That would be incredible, Colt. What’s it called again?”

  “The Gentle Art. It’s about this fighter who’s trying to make it to the UFC by working his way up the amateur mixed martial arts circuit, but he faces all sorts of obstacles along the way.”

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Like family drama, a bad trainer, and most of all, a crazy ex.”

  “That’ll do it. Is this story. . .umm. . .autobiographical at all?”

  “Are you trying to ask me if I have any crazy exes out there?”

  “Kinda,” I say, smiling to cover up the fact that I’m really interested in knowing the answer. “I wouldn’t ask you outright, but this seems like kind of the perfect transition.”

  “You could ask me outright, you know. You can ask me anything. But no, nothing like the character I’m writing in the book. She’s a real psycho who’s trying to make the main character’s life a living hell. I never had a situation like that.”

  “That’s good. A crazy woman can destroy a man’s life if she’s really hell bent on doing it.”

  “Gray had that,” he confesses. “I mean, I don’t want to make Melody sound cartoonish, like she was a villain or something. She was a nice enough girl, but she had some issues, and Gray didn’t sign up for all that.”

  “Now that we’re gossiping, what kind of issues did she have?”

  “It’s hard to say exactly, we never got too close. Gray was weird in college. When he was in anything resembling a relationship he’d make the girl his whole universe. Mike and I would barely see him, except for when things started going south and then our phones would be blowing up.”

  “Oh, so he’s that guy.”

  “No, not that guy. He’s my best friend, so I don’t want to paint the wrong picture. You’ve seen him, he’s a really good looking guy, so he’s not desperate for female attention.”

  “Yeah, Gray’s hot,” I say, just to see his reaction, even though it’s true. “But not as hot as you, don’t worry.”

  “Gee, thanks,” he jokes. “But seriously, it’s not that he’s desperate or inexperienced. Gray’s a true romantic, even if he doesn’t look it. He wants to fall in love and find the perfect woman just like in his HEA stories, but sometimes reality has gotten in the way of his fantasy, then he gets really depressed about it. Melody came around while we were in college and he almost failed for the semester. It took the two of us to pull him off the ledge and remind him that he had a future outside of some random girl he met at a party in college.”

  “Interesting.”

  “And how about you?”

  “Me?”

  “Don’t try to avoid the question,” he says. “Any real winners?”

  I know what he’s asking me, but that’s not the thing that I really want to tell him. What I want to tell him is what I didn’t really get into when we first started. . .whatever it is that we have. After this amazing date I think maybe it’s time.

  “Remember at the diner, when we had pancakes?”

  “Remember?” he jokes. “You mean when you bailed me out of that squalid, hell-hole of a jail? Yeah, it sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “And you remember what I told you about my past.”

  “I didn’t tell anyone, not even the guys. I’d always respect your privacy.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  The thing about my past that he’s referring to is my last two years of college. It’s not that scandalous compared to some of the things a person can tell you that are prefaced with the phrase, in my past. But for someone like me—a normal person from a good family—it was a pretty big deal. I dropped out of college early in my Junior year. I finished my degree online. At the time I told Colton about this I was trying to let him know that I was okay being vulnerable around him like he was vulnerable by calling me to bail him out of jail. When I told him at the diner I probably made it sound way more somber than he thinks it is. What I never told him was why I left, which is the part that still stays with me today.

  “Did I ever tell you that I was in a sorority in college?”

  “No!” he says, really surprised. “How am I just hearing about this?”

  “Kappa Theta Omega. Everleigh and Rowan were sisters, too, but Everleigh’s a year younger than us. Ro and I pledged our freshman year, and Everleigh the year after us.”

  “Wow,” he says, smiling in a devious kind of way. “I ne
ver would have taken you as a sorority chick.”

  “I’m not a ‘sorority chick’,” I respond. “Haven’t you realized I defy simple classifications by now?”

  “You’re right, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Besides,” I tell him. “There’s no ‘sorority chick’, any more than there’s a type of male romance author.”

  “Touché.”

  “All of those are stereotypes, even though there are plenty of those girls to go around.”

  “Okay, I apologize,” he says, taking my hand. “Go on with your story.”

  “I feel like I need to tell you more about me first so that the story has some context. Is that okay?”

  “Okay?” He asks, raising his eyebrow. “Harley, I want to get to know you. Of course I want to hear about your past. Tell me.”

  He puts me at ease, at least for the background stuff I’m about to tell him. I’m not sure how comfortable I’ll feel after that point, but we’ll see. I have to tell him the whole story, because if I ever want what we have to go past the casual dating and attraction stage, he needs to know.

  “I was kind of. . .insecure when I was a teenager.”

  “Okay.”

  “Shit, why am I pulling punches here. I was fat, okay. Like, morbidly obese.”

  “Really? I never would have guessed.”

  “I basically spent the summers of my junior and senior years in high school on a crazy diet and doing more exercise than a marathon runner, all to make my body what I wanted it to be.”

  “That’s amazing, Harley, you should be really proud of yourself, you look great.”

  “Thank you,” I say, squeezing his hand. “But I’m not bragging. I’m trying to let you know that before all that, when I was still learning who I was as a person and a woman, I hated myself. I hated the way I looked. I hated the whispers about me in the hallways of my school. I hated all of it.”

  “Kids can be such cruel assholes.”

  “It wasn’t just kids, Colt. It was everyone—even adults sometimes. But I’m not trying to complain about high school. What I’m trying to tell you is that by the time I was hitting adolescence, I had a really, really low self esteem. And, when you’re a girl and you don’t have much of a self worth, you’ll let people. . .”