“Hungry?” I ask Balloon, dropping my sunglasses, notebook, and book on the kitchen counter. “I’m starving.” I go to the fridge, pulling up a text message to Marcy, the owner of the posh stable my horse, Spartan, is boarded at. He’s the only pet I have, and I miss him dearly already. He’s an off-the-track thoroughbred, rescued six years ago from an abusive life on the racetrack. He slipped in the pasture on a rare rainy day recently, and we’ve been taking the last few weeks off from riding, making my escape from Los Angeles a bit easier than it normally would be. He’s well taken care of, and when I’m busy touring the world, a few girls who come to the barn for riding lessons brush him and feed him way too many treats.
Marcy texts me back only a minute later, while I’m still standing in front of the fridge looking at the vast array of food but not able to decide what to make. Spartan is doing just fine, and she adds a picture of him being loved on by three little girls. I feel a tug on my heart, missing my big beast. He’s a character in my series, though unlike the fictional Spartan, my real-life horse doesn’t have magical powers.
Settling on a block of cheese and a carton of strawberries, I plop down in front of the TV, watching a show about people with nasty wounds on their feet while I eat. Half an hour later I shower and move into the little-used office in the lake house, trying to force myself to write.
And only twenty minutes after that, I’m ready to throw my computer or cry. Or maybe do both at the same time. Closing my laptop before I chuck it out the window, or better yet, take it to the lake, set it on fire, and throw it in, I strip out of my blue dress, trading it instead for black leggings and a Nightfall merchandise t-shirt. I rake my damp hair into a messy bun and go into the kitchen, getting a water bottle and some snacks from the pantry. I shove them into my mini Gucci backpack along with my phone and a bottle of bug spray.
“Hey, kiddo,” Dad calls from Wendy’s front porch when I walk out of the house. “Going for a walk?”
“Yeah, I need to clear my head before I attempt to write another chapter.”
“Having a bit of writer’s block?”
“Kind of,” I say, not sure how to explain it. I know what I want to write, but I have to get through several chapters first until I get to the big action sequence I’ve been dying to write since the conception of this series. So it’s not really “writer’s block” but more like “motivation block” crippled by a healthy dose of pressure to make this book better than the last, not disappoint fans, and leave them wanting more. And I’m hating every single freaking word I type in my document, which is a bit of an issue. There’s nothing like deleting every other word to move a story freaking forward. “I’m hoping if I hang out at the coven I’ll feel inspired again.”
Dad chuckles, knowing exactly what I mean. When we were in sixth grade, Farisha and I found a little circle of rocks in the woods, and of course we thought the place was magical. A lot of weird things happened at the coven, leading us to one hundred percent believe it to be haunted. It inspired me to write my Nightfall series, and going back there has to give me the kick in the pants I so desperately need.
“A storm is headed this way,” Wendy says.
“I don’t plan on being out long, and if I do get caught in the rain, I’d actually like that, but it’s only a five-minute hike to that covered picnic area. It’s still there, right?”
“It is,” Wendy tells me, picking up a glass of iced tea. She’s sitting on the porch swing next to Dad. “They’ve added new tables and a few fire pits. It’s a popular site now. It’s probably busy today,” she adds, knowing my general dislike for people, which is funny since I moved to the overpopulated city of LA, but it’s easy to blend in there, well, it used to be.
Not like I’m some crazy popular celebrity or anything, but my fake relationship with Charles definitely got me unwanted—and honestly unexpected—attention. My name is known, and I naively thought it would stay that way. My publisher was happy to see the uptick in already-booming sales when TMZ starting reporting on the blossoming romance between the author behind the soon-to-be-streaming TV series and the star of said show. My social media followers doubled, which forced me to actually post stuff more than once a month.