Night Owl(68)

"Okay Hannah, what do you think?"

"I think he's a dick! And I hate literary fiction!" I jabbed the manuscript at her. "God, it's like... he spends every novel getting you by the balls, only to tear them off!"

Pam raised a blow. I blinked.

"Why Hannah, I didn't know your opinions could be so... explicit."

"Sorry, I—"

"Quite alright. Matthew's view of the world is dark. But you know that, don't you? I took you for a fan."

I folded my arms and tried to think objectively. Pam was right. I loved Matt's fiction... when I didn't love Matt.

Now?

Now I saw him every day—Matt in slippers, Matt after sex, Matt sniffing around the kitchen—and I couldn't bear to think he housed such strange sorrow.

Sad things seem truest to me.

His words. More of his words.

"Pam, I—"

"Go on," Pam said. She nodded at her door.

"I was... going to ask for an early lunch."

"Take a day, Hannah."

I wanted to hug Pam. Except never.

I gunned it home.

Matt was sequestered in the office, of course. I flung the door open. By the look on his face, my intrusion shaved a year off his life, but a smile quickly replaced his surprise.

"Hannah, hey." He rose from the desk. "What did you think? I gave Pam—"

"I know," I said. I buried my face his shoulder. "Matt, it's too sad."

He chuckled and hugged me.

"But Hannah, you know I think—"

"I know! I know. You think life is sad." I drew back enough to search Matt's expression. "But are you happy?"

His brows lifted.

"Of course I am. How can you ask me that?"

"I don't know. Your writing, that story..." I blushed. Had I read too far into Matt's fiction?

"Hannah." He lifted my chin. He stroked my cheek and feathered a hand through my hair. "I have you. I'm happier than any man has a right to be."

"That's all I need to hear," I whispered. "Every day."

"Oh, suddenly she has demands."

Matt defused my maudlin mood with a swift smack to my ass. I yelped and laughed.

As we held one another, my head on his chest and his chin in my hair, my gaze wandered to the desk. His notebook lay open.

"Are you starting something new?"

"Mm."

"What is it?"

"Our story," Matt said. He tilted his head and regarded me carefully.

"Our story?" I frowned. I could hardly handle The Surrogate. I knew I couldn't handle Matt turning us into a tragedy.

"It's a love story, Hannah."

"How does it end?"

Matt's gaze was suddenly inscrutable.

He hiked up my skirt and lifted me. I wrapped my legs around his waist.

"It never ends," he said, and he carried me out of the office.

EPILOGUE

M. Pierce Writes from the Grave

February 3, 2014

AARON SNOW, staff writer

Critics are grudgingly offering praise for Night Owl, the internet phenom turned ebook, which reached the top of Amazon's fiction bestseller list last weekend.

The alleged author W. Pierce has openly styled himself (or herself) after the late Matthew Sky, a reclusive writer who published under the pen name M. Pierce and kept his identity a secret throughout most of his literary career.

Just months after Sky's death rocked the literary world, W. Pierce's Night Owl began circulating on the internet.

"It's a publicity stunt," said Pamela Wing, Sky's former agent, "and one of the lowest order. His or her unoriginality aside, W. Pierce is making a platform on Matthew Sky's death. No reader should support that, and no critic should take it seriously."

Fans of the Sky novels have slammed W. Pierce's imitation of Sky's style and crass representation of his person.

Given the grisly and unusual circumstances of Sky's death, other fans have taken a different tack. Days after Night Owl was released, one fan Tweeted, "This isn't LIKE Sky, this IS Sky. 'Nothing lasts forever, and nothing ever ends.'"