Night Owl(11)

"Mm."

Mm seemed to be Matt's all-purpose noise, which could mean yes, no, let me think about it, I'm bored, I'm amused, I'm annoyed, I'm aroused—basically anything.

"That's cool. You must love Colorado then. Are you super outdoorsy or something?"

"Mm."

"Cool..." I snapped up the new facts: Twenty-eight, Norman Maclean, outdoorsy.

Just what I needed to fuel my fantasies: the idea of a well-read young man with a leanly muscled climber's body. Yes please.

"I better get to sleep," I said reluctantly. I glanced at my watch. 3:40 a.m. "Geez, where does the time go."

"Optima dies," Matt mumbled, trailing off.

"What?"

"Latin. Nevermind."

I frowned.

"Okay. Well. Yeah. Sleep. I think if we get going early and push it, we'll be in Colorado by evening. I'll reply to your post ASAP."

"No rush on that. You'll be busy when you get home."

"I know. I want to write it. I miss our story... a lot."

"Then I look forward to it," he said.

I heard a little electronic click and glanced at my phone. Matt was gone.

Note to self: teach this man how to say goodbye.

CHAPTER 5

Matt

You're projecting your *ry onto me.

"The last pages you sent me," Pam said, leaning across the table, "are very nice. I do have some questions about the pacing. I see your main plot arc, and I want to say it must be a third of the way along. Am I right? Not to pressure you, but I want to mentally deadline this."

Pam's words pinged on the edge of my attention.

Nice. Pacing. Deadline.

Projecting your *ry onto me. How right Hannah was. Because I was cheating, I assumed she was cheating. I made a total ass of myself. I even had the nerve to get pissed about Hannah's imaginary cheating, meanwhile ignoring my own very real deceit.

This situation was getting f*cked up.

"Matthew?"

I felt a tug on my sleeve. I glanced down at Pam's perfectly manicured hand.

"Sorry. Ah, I—" I ran a hand through my hair and flashed a smile at Pam, who returned a tight-lipped, all-business smile. "I'm not sleeping well. Going nocturnal or something."

We were seated at a booth in Flight of Ideas, my favorite bookshop-cum-coffeehouse in Denver. Pam looked prim as usual, her frosted blond hair styled in stiff waves around her face. Pam was thirty-six, but she always looked closer to forty with her chalky makeup, dark lipstick, and austere skirt suits.

Pam had been my agent for seven years. I could almost say I trusted her implicitly, but I don't trust anyone implicitly.

"Sorry to hear that. Let's get back to this." She spread her fingers on her laptop. Most of the time, I appreciated Pam's work-centric drive. Today, though, I wanted nothing more than to daydream about Hannah in my air-conditioned apartment.

"I can't help you with the deadline," I said. "I don't know. It'll be done when it's done." I chewed on the end of my stirrer. "Also, Pam, help me to understand why we keep meeting out like this when I have specifically indicated my preference for phone calls, video chats, I don't know, the occasional meeting at my place?"

"It's a matter of convenience, Matthew. Unlike some present, I live on a tight schedule. You know I try very hard to comply with your requests. However, I believe they are still requests, yes? Or have they now become demands?"

I smirked and slouched in the booth, glancing around. That was another thing I liked about Pam; she wasn't a fawner. She gave as good as she got.

"Mm, they're still requests. I do sometimes like to emerge from my garret and see how the other half lives."

I smiled cheekily and lowered my voice.

"But Pam, don't think I don't know your game. In your desperately wicked little heart, it is your sincerest hope that one day we are spotted, eavesdropped on, whatever, and my identity comes out, and you are then free to turn me into the golden-haired high-profile author of your dreams. I can practically see you trotting me around the globe like a dancing bear. Think of the publicity. Oh, and that would make you—" I pointed my stirrer at Pam, who was watching me with a tolerant smile. "—Pamela Wing, agent to said high-profile author. Not too shabby."


"Are you done?"

"Sure," I laughed. "For now."

"Good. You should really restrict these flights of fancy to your fiction, where I can redline them on grounds of verbosity and excessive allusion."

"You know you're not my editor, right Pam? Or are your delusions of grandeur expanding?"

Pam and I bantered like that for another half hour, after which I escaped home.

A run through the city or a ride out to the mountains might have done me good, but lately I couldn't break away from my phone and computer and a safe space in which to handle my daily hard-on for Hannah.

I took a stab at writing. The result was me slouched in my office chair and staring into space. Around dinnertime I sent Hannah an email.

Subject: Assholery

Sender: Matthew S.

Date: Sunday, June 30, 2013

Time: 7:37 PM

Hi Hannah,

I enjoyed our conversation last night. In future, you probably shouldn't be so lax with personal information. We internet predators feed on such facts. For example, now that I know your superpower wish is to fly, I am ten times closer to discovering the location of your secret bunker.