When I woke up, it was getting dark again. I was beginning to become afraid that I would turn my days and nights around if I spent the night with Seth again. I heard typing in the bed next to me and noticed the glow from a computer.
Anna was clacking away on the keys. I rolled over and stretched. "New book?" My voice was thick from sleep.
"Something Nicholas said gave me the idea." She nodded, a pen sticking straight out of her mouth as she continued.
"Any calls?" I rubbed my eyes. They were quite angry with me for sleeping with contacts in again.
"You hear the phone ring?" She spoke almost bitterly.
No I hadn't. I had hoped that maybe I had slept through it. I sat up, sore again. Maybe another shower would relieve the tension. The clock read 5:13. "You want some dinner?"
Anna looked over at me. She looked much more revived from a day of sleep. Even though the room was dark I could see that her skin looked much less pale, and the darkness from under her eyes was gone. "Yeah. I'm starved. My lunch was cold when I woke up."
I smiled and forced my body out of bed. "Cool. Let's do it."
We only went down to the sports bar in the lobby for dinner. My fears crept back up before we had even shut the door to our room.
But, like every other night since coming to Portland, no one attacked and no one was around to stalk. I took it as an extra bad sign when I felt the fear climbing my spine and lodging a tiny bomb in my brain. With the fear, I not only felt that someone was watching me, but I also knew that Seth was nowhere near.
The night was silent as Anna and I both subconsciously checked our cell phones for missed calls. Even though neither of us wanted to be reminded of the missing phone calls, we couldn't help but talk about the night before.
No matter how hard I tried to forget about Seth over a club sandwich or over an episode of
House
, his sexy smile and soft lips were always at the forefront of my mind. I was frustrated when I received no call, but when Anna hadn't either; we both agreed that maybe the filming ran very late. After all, when we went to bed it was nearly two in the morning. I tossed and turned that night. The eyes were boring into me even while I slept. When I opened my eyes, many times that night, no one was in the room, nor was anyone standing on the outside ledge peering into the windows.
When I closed my eyes I saw Seth, but with those indescribable green eyes. He was always flashing me smiles underneath his thick eyelashes and eyebrows.
The next morning came agonizingly slowly. Before I had the chance to open my eyes I heard the shower running. I had rescheduled the signing for one o'clock and the clock told me it was eleven. I had slept in. I reached over to the nightstand and grabbed my phone; I had missed all three of my alarms. I anxiously hit cancel; hopping that on the other end of those three would be a missed call. There were none.
I grumbled to myself about worthless Irish people, "It's no wonder my family moved away from Ireland. Women were sick of waiting for the damn Irish men all the time."
I put my contacts in, grumbling the whole time when Anna swung the shower down open, apparently grumbling to herself, as well.
"No calls?" I bit back a laugh when she scowled at me.
"No." She flipped her head upside down and began wringing her hair out.
"Well, let me jump in the shower and see if we can get some lunch before your thing." I mumbled, but a little more optimistic since she still had not heard from Nicholas.
The shower felt much better than it had the day before. I was not as sore, something that made me feel even more eager to have another visit from Seth. The shower did not sting my private spots, and I was not riddled with anxieties that Seth would be in the next room readying himself to take off.
Around noon we were both ready to hit the road. With the best intentions, we discussed going back to the same bar after the signing that we met Seth and Nicholas in.
We grabbed some McDonald's and headed straight for the little bookstore. It was cute and a tad bigger than an average
Starbucks
. Cars had already filled the parking lot, and we were surprised to see a line of women winding outside of the store.
"They can't be for us." Anna gawked.
"You weren't on the top twenty bestsellers list for twelve weeks just because it has a pretty cover." I reminded her, trying to keep the awe from my face as well.
Anna and I had both dressed cutely just in case we ran into the boys back at the bar that night. Even though the wind whipped at a chilling 45 degrees, I had slipped into my most professional looking black skirt and an orange ribbed turtleneck. My boots had a slight heel on them and were laced up my ankles.
Anna wore a brown skirt with a long-sleeved light blue shirt and black leather "fuck me" boots, as we had titled them, even though they didn't go as high as most that type.
As we got out of the car a soft murmur came over the line of women. It was always a true stereotype: women went gaga over romance stories. Sadly, that was what Anna's first book had been labeled by
Rolling Stone
and
Entertainment Weekly
. She hadn't been happy when the reviews came out, until she noticed that they were given thumbs up and people, mostly women of course, had begun buying it, and loving it.
I reached into the backseat and pulled out my briefcase full of paperwork, and the pens Anna preferred. She leaned over and grabbed our sodas from McDonald's.
When we passed the line of women, no one said anything to us. It wasn't much of a surprise since the picture Anna had included in the back of the jacket was a photograph she had taken of a flower.
"Good morning, Miss Tillman." An older woman with graying hair hurried over to us. She shook Anna's hand and then mine. "My name is Gale Florence. I'm the owner of
Book Nook
