He shook his head and abruptly craved a cigarette. “Nobody damns with faint praise better than you, Dana.”
“I didnt mean it that way.” She was, she realized, digging a hole for herself. But she could hardly confess to being a fan of his work when she was sitting in his bed naked and eating corn chips. It was a sure way to make both of them feel ridiculous.
And would make any honest praise seem like pandering.
“Youre doing what you always wanted to do, Jordan, and successfully. You should be proud of yourself.”
“No argument there.” He polished off the Coke, set the can aside. Wrapped his fingers around her ankle. “Still hungry?”
Relieved that the topic had been tabled, she rolled up the bag of chips, tossed it on the floor beside the bed. “As a matter of fact,” she began, then jumped him.
* * *
IT shouldnt bother him so much, and it irritated the hell out of him that it did. He didnt expect everyone to like his work. Hed long ago stopped being bruised or deflated by a poor review or a disgruntled comment from a reader.
He wasnt some high-strung, temperamental artist who fell into funks at the slightest criticism.
But damn it, Danas dismissal of his work dug holes in him.
It was worse now, Jordan thought as he gazed out the bedroom window and brooded. Worse that shed been kind about it. It had been easier to take her scathing and unsolicited opinions of his talent, her snotty, elitist dismissal of his field than her gentle and kindly meant pat on the head.
He wrote thrillers, often with a whiff of something other , and she dismissed them as hackneyed commercialism that appealed to the lowest common denominator.
He could handle that, if she was an elitist book snob, but she was far from it. She simply loved books. Her apartment was crammed with them and there was plenty of genre fiction on her shelves.
Though hed noted there was nothing on them by Jordan Hawke.
And, yeah, he thought, it stung more than a little.
Hed been ridiculously pleased to come back into the bedroom and see her bent over his laptop, to see what hed believed had been avid interest in the story he was building.
Curiosity, as shed said. Nothing more.
Best to put that one away, he told himself. Lock it away?i a box before it dug in too deep and started to fester.
They were lovers again, and thank God for it. They were, he hoped, halfway to being friends again as well. He didnt want to lose her, lover and friend, because he couldnt get past her disinterest or disapproval of his work.
She didnt know what it meant to him to be a writer. How could she? Oh, she knew it was what hed wanted and hoped for. But she didnt know why it was so vital to him. Hed never shared that with her.
There was a great deal that he hadnt shared with her; he admitted.
His work, yes. Hed often asked her to read something hed done, and naturally had been pleased and satisfied when shed praised it—intrigued and interested when shed discussed the story and offered her opinions.
The fact was, on a purely practical level, hers was one of the opinions he valued most.
But hed never told her how much hed needed to make something of himself. As a man, as a writer. For himself, certainly. And for his mother. It was, for Jordan, the only way he knew to pay his mother back for all shed done for him, all shed given up for him, all shed worked for.
But hed never shared that with Dana, or anyone else. Never shared with anyone that private grief, the drowning guilt or the desperate need.
So, he would put it away again and concentrate on rebuilding what he could and starting fresh with what he couldnt rebuild.
His current hero wasnt the only one looking for redemption.
* * *
DANA waited until shed painted an entire wall in what was to beZoes main salon area. Shed bitten her tongue half a dozen times that morning, had talked herself out of saying anything, then had taken the internal debate full circle again.
In the end she convinced herself that it was an insult to friendship not to speak.