Overlooked(1)(15)

“Can we guess the name and you tell us if it’s the right one or not?” my mom asks with a smile.

Harper laughs again. “I could get in trouble for that,” she says. “But anyway, he’s been writing for us for a long time, and the editor he started out working with recently retired, so they’ve assigned me to be his new editor for the next book.”

“Congrats,” I say, wondering again why Harper’s started blushing. What does she have to be embarrassed about?

“It’s a big deal,” Nadine says. “We’re all really proud of her.”

“Well of course you are!” Mom adds. “That is awesome! My surrogate daughter is going to have a major book come out with her name in it.”

“I won’t be on the cover,” Harper admits. “I mean, I’ll be named in the acknowledgements and all that. The credits, that kind of thing.”

“As soon as you can tell us who it is, and the name of the book, you’d better,” Mom tells her. She starts looking through the pictures Harper has chosen, and Nadine pulls Harper to sit down next to her.

I catch, maybe, half a second’s glimpse of Harper’s panties, another lacy-frilly set like the ones she was in the night before. It’s all I can do to not react.

“Do you get any kind of royalties for it?” I ask.

Harper shrugs. “It depends,” she says. “We haven’t really worked out those details yet, since the author in question only just accepted me to work on his book.”

“Does it come with a pay increase at least?” Zane asks.

Harper shrugs again. “Like I said, there are a lot of details to work out,” she continues. “But if I do well on this, then I’ll probably be promoted to a main editor, which would mean more and bigger projects.”

“Both our kids are doing well in their careers, how about that?” Mom says, gesturing from me to Harper. “And both of them came out looking gorgeous. Figure the odds on that one.”

Harper and I grin at each other, rolling our eyes. I need to find something else to do before I suggest to Harper that we go somewhere more private.





CHAPTER ELEVEN





HARPER POLSEN



I look up at the sky from the hammock my parents installed sometime after my last visit, enjoying the sun and the breeze. Zane, my mom and I have been helping with projects around the Lewises’ house to get ready for the big anniversary party in a couple of days, and since the stuff that needs to be done today is best done by professionals, I actually have some time free to just chill out.

I’m thinking about the big book project. I got an email earlier in the morning from the office, full of paperwork I need to print, sign, scan and return after I get back and before the project starts. It can wait until I’m back in the office, but if I do that I’ll have to have it in before my boss even gets into work. Besides, I know it’s better to at least have a good understanding of what I’m getting myself into before I sign anything.

“Hey!”

I start almost enough to take a tumble out of the hammock and look around to see Zane walking to me from his parents’ house.

“Hey yourself,” I say, righting myself in the hammock. “I figured you’d be like, I don’t know, out meeting with the boys. Finding a bar.”

“I’m not all drinking and video games, you know,” Zane says with a smirk.

“The same way that I’m not all books and craft projects,” I counter.

Zane sinks down onto the grass a few feet away from me, and I turn enough to be able to look at him without missing the beautiful sky above me.

“I mean, of the two of us you’re the more successful,” Zane points out. “So I guess books and crafts are pretty solid things to base your life on.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re successful enough,” I tell him. “I mean, if the military wants you to stay in. I think I remember people saying you’ve got specialist training and all that.”

“Yeah, but as long as you follow the rules you pretty much succeed in the military, to a point, anyway.” Zane insists. “You went to college and got that degree, and got a job right out of school.”

“I know a lot of people who weren’t able to work in their field,” I admit. “It was sheer luck on my part, at least half luck.”

“Half luck still leaves half hard work,” Zane reminds me. “And all the luck in the world won’t help you if you’re shit at your job. They’re about to trust you with some star author.”

“That’s one of the few things I can really claim,” I tell him. “He chose me out of the editors available.”