Thank You for Listening
Julia Whelan
Part 1
All of literature is one of two stories: a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.
–Leo Tolstoy
Prologues are like flirting: there’s a time and place. But sometimes you just need to push the reader up against the wall and stick your tongue down their throat.
–June French, USA Today bestselling author of the Love Comes Hard series, as told to Cosmopolitan
Chapter One
“A Woman Goes on a Journey”
THINGS WERE HEATING UP WITH NO POSSIBILITY OF COOLING DOWN. Not this time. She could see it in his eyes. His pupils were throbbing. The gentleman of the last three weeks was gone. He was now anything but gentle. He was all man.
Their eyes were locked and loaded. He raised his hand and flattened it against her white silk blouse. Her heartbeat grabbed at it. He kissed her, hotly, wetly, then took hold of her straddled hips and lifted her off him. She gave a startled cry as he flipped her– “Something to drink?”
–onto her back on his expensive crepe de Chine couch.
“Ma’am?”
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he growled. “You’re my intern. And Grandfather insists I marry Caroline.”
“Something to drink?”
The long-suffering tone broke through and Sewanee Chester, startled window seat occupant, whipped off her noise-canceling headphones as if they were on fire. “What? Sorry! What?”
“Something to drink?”
“Uh. Just water. Please.”
“Ice?”
“Uh, just–please.”
She dropped her tray and the flight attendant passed her the water. Before Sewanee could thank her, the woman on the aisle turned to her daughter in the middle seat and asked, in the squeaky, love-dripping voice used interchangeably for pets and children, “Anything to driiiiink?”
“Juice!”
“What kiiiiind of juice?”
Sewanee slipped her headphones back on and realized she hadn’t stopped the audiobook. The blouse was off now. She sighed, paused it, connected to the in-flight Wi-Fi, and texted Mark: Good morning. I hate you.
She hit send and sipped her water.
Twenty seconds later, he replied:
I gave you one of the well-reviewed ones!
SEWANEE:
His pupils are throbbing, Mark. His PUPILS.
While Mark typed (bubbles, bubbles, bubbles . . . he was pushing seventy, she cut him some slack), Sewanee drank.
MARK:
Don’t be a snob. Not all of us have English prof fathers honey.
SEWANEE:
this has nothing to do with snobbery. OR my father. This has to do with ANATOMY.
Mark ignored this: Really appreciate you filling in.
SEWANEE:
Anything for you. How’s the foot?
MARK:
Still broken. How’s you?
SEWANEE:
I want to change the name of the panel.
MARK:
What’s wrong with Faking it: Narrating Love and Sex in Romance Novels?
SEWANEE:
I was thinking . . . Narrating Romance Novels: How to Give Good Aural.
She finished the water, tipping her head all the way back. The ice cubes mounted their escape, ramming her teeth so forcefully water shot down her neck and onto her shirt.
“You spilled!”
Sewanee smiled tightly at the child while setting her cup down in the circular playpen at the corner of the tray. Had that little lip ever prevented cups from overturning during turbulence? She wanted the numbers on that.
MARK:
I know how you feel about Romance but you’ll get threw this. Just please take it seriously.
SEWANEE:
*Through.
Over the PA, a male flight attendant announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, I know we just finished service, but in a few minutes, we’ll be starting our descent into Las Vegas. At this time, we’ll need you to put away all electronic devices–”
Sewanee looked down at her phone. Mark had finished typing.
MARK:
The fans are insane. You should see the facebook groups. You don’t no.
SEWANEE:
*know. We talked about this. I get it.
MARK:
ducking autocorrect! This is BiblioCon! 50K attendees and the Romance pavilion is at least a third of them.
“Ma’am, I need you to put up your tray.”
Sewanee did.
“I also need you to put your seat up.”
“It won’t go up.” Sewanee kept typing into her phone.
The flight attendant reached across the mother and child to yank Sewanee’s seat forward. The little girl turned to help her for a moment, then threw her sticky hands up in defeat. “It won’t go up!”
“Thank you,” Sewanee muttered.
“Welcome,” she replied.
SEWANEE:
Mark, I said I get it. Big! Yuge! You get a book and you get a book and you get a book!
MARK:
And don’t forget to enjoy yourself, Oprah. Vegas, Baby! LOL.
Sewanee pulled up her e-mail and rechecked the overwhelming number of BiblioCon events. She narrowed it down to Romance programming and shuffled through author talks, signings, cocktail hours, and a silent auction for charity. She laughed out loud at one highlighted item: dinner with a male cover model. She then perused the plethora of panels on offer: Crossed Swords: Writing M/M Romance When You Don’t Have a Sword of Your Own; How to Write Period Clothing and How to Take It Off; and, of course, her own panel on audiobook production that Mark–her mentor, boss, and landlord–would have been moderating himself if he hadn’t run over his foot with his own car two days ago. That red Karmann Ghia, Sal, was the closest thing Mark had had to a long-term relationship since he’d fled San Francisco in it fifteen years ago. After his partner, Julio, died.