First Draft Romance

CHAPTER TWELVE

I think my mouth might be hanging slightly open.

Rosalind Lindbergh's beta reader. Me.

To some people, maybe beta reading doesn't mean much of anything. Maybe you don't even know what it is—if so, I'm happy to break it down for you.

Beta readers are kind of the first line of defense for authors. Usually, they help polish an author's first few drafts—the ones that are more so "unofficial," I guess, before they get passed off to agents and editors and big, important people with salaries that would make me cry. So maybe I'm more of an alpha reader here? Or ... I don't know what I am, since Catalina has already given Roz her feedback.

What I am is "happy to be here."

"Thank you," I say again. Redundantly. Stupidly.

Roz grins. "Of course. Now, what was it I even came out here for...." She peers around the living room, and then looks back at me, her eyes wide. "Oh, dur. Groceries. Groceries."

"Oh, right. Of course." Dur.

She heads in the direction of the laundry room, presumably to the only room I haven't seen inside yet: her bedroom. I wait on the couch with my hands in my lap like a child—after, of course, minimizing my offline Google Docs tab and inconspicuously setting my closed laptop on the coffee table, next to my abandoned second cup of coffee.

My mind is abuzz. It's like there's a whole new flavor added to my palate, one that I hadn't considered before now. Roz.

They pop up in my brain all at once, in short little colorful bursts all around the inside of my skull, sending shivers down my straightened spine. Maybe ... maybe I can write something better than Short-Haired Girl and Curvy Girl. Maybe there's a world out there where Short-Haired Girl meets a slightly older girl—maybe a grad student? Who knows—and moves on from Curvy Girl after the handsy closet incident. There's never makeup sex, or a falsified happily ever after, or anything like that.

It's almost too much power.

I shouldn't. I couldn't.

Like, at what point would that basically be fanfic anyways? Who writes fanfic about their bosses? I'm sorry, but my life is not a Wattpad book. I refuse.

But then I go back to thinking about those more R-rated scenes that came fully-developed in my head, and of all the insane thoughts that have been popping into my head the past couple days, and adding that new romantic interest almost makes sense.

I'm still arguing with myself when Roz comes back out into the living room, her little black purse from yesterday slung over her shoulder, her thick black card in hand. Her hair is even more disheveled than before, which says a lot.

"Here," she says, slightly out of breath.

"Dang, Roz." I tentatively take the card from her. Our fingers brush, and I hate that my stomach flips. "You—sorry—look like hell. How many ninjas did you have to fight for this?"

"They weren't ninjas," she says immediately. "They were samurai. Big difference."

I let my mouth open in shock. "Samurai? Sorry, that's on me. Usually, when listing the typical parties one might encounter when attempting to re-obtain stolen or lost property, they're number four on my list."

"Well, so long as you would have gotten there eventually." And then she whips out her phone—it looks surprisingly worn-down, not unlike my ancient model that is still, somehow, managing to hang in there—and hands it to me.

"Give me your number," she commands.

I don't know how to respond. For, like, five seconds. Then I ask: "Don't you already have my number?"