“Oh, you know.” She sort of flapped at the air dismissively, then told herself if she’d been foolish enough to confess her dream to him, she might as well go all the way. “Novels. Fantasy novels.”
He didn’t laugh. “That’s cool. Are you going to write about witches?”
“No,” she replied, trying to sound severe but not being terribly successful about it. “I know they say write what you know, but….”
“But familiarity breeds contempt?”
She did chuckle a bit at that question. “‘Contempt’ is a strong word. And it’s kind of hard to write fantasy without writing about magic, too. It’s just a really different kind of magic.”
“So have you written anything yet?”
And now she was about to divulge her biggest secret…well, except that whole thing about still being a virgin. “Yes. Three novels so far. I finished the third one in December while I was on winter break.”
“That’s impressive.” He did sound impressed, and Caitlin relaxed slightly.
“I’m still editing it, but it should be ready to go next month sometime. And then I’ll have that trilogy done and published, and I can move on to the next one.”
“Wait,” he said. “You mean you already have a publisher?”
Oh, boy. “Not exactly. These days, you can upload your work directly, you know? I’m in an online critique group to get feedback, and I trade tutoring with someone who’s studying graphic design at my school, so she does my covers. I’m not selling a lot yet, but I make a couple hundred bucks every month.”
“Wow.” His admiration didn’t seem at all feigned. “I had no idea.”
Neither do my parents, she thought. The books were published under the pen name of C.J. Marsters, and her royalty payments directly deposited into her checking account, so no one knew — except Tracie, the graphic design student who was brilliant at typography and Photoshop manipulation, and not so great at writing term papers.
“I don’t talk about it, really,” she confessed. “Even Danica doesn’t know, and we’re roommates. She just thinks I have to write a lot for my classes, and since I’m an English major, it makes some sense.”
He changed lanes, edging over the right, and she realized he was getting ready to exit the freeway. So they were almost at their destination.
It wasn’t until they’d pulled off onto a feeder road that ran parallel to the highway and were waiting at a red light that he asked, “Are you ever going to tell them?”
“Eventually.” She hesitated for a moment, watching houses that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Jerome pass by outside the window. This part of Pasadena appeared to be fairly old. “It’s just — if I say anything now, they’ll think I’m taking time away from my coursework. And I’m not. I’m really careful about that. And also…I guess I’m hoping I’ll start making some real money from it, once I have my trilogy done, and then they’ll have to take me seriously.”
“You really think they wouldn’t?”
“Did your parents, when you said you wanted to go into local television instead of working at the store?”
“Ouch.” He shook his head. “No, not really.”
They turned left then, passing back over the freeway and into a much more commercial area. An impressive-looking building fronted the street they were currently driving on, and Alex turned again, this time onto a much smaller street so he could head into the hotel’s underground parking garage. When he took the ticket, he looked at the prices and winced. “Twenty bucks a night just to park? We really are in the big city.”
“If it’s a problem — ” Caitlin began, and scrabbled in her purse for her wallet.
“It’s not a problem. It’s just highway robbery.” He took the ticket from the machine, and the automated gate arm in front of them lifted.
At least there was a parking space not too far from the elevators, so Alex pulled in there and turned off the engine. It only took a minute or so to unload their luggage, and then it was time to check in.
By then it was past ten o’clock at night, and the lobby was almost deserted, except for the woman behind the front desk and a bored-looking bellhop standing duty by the sliding doors that opened on the street. He gave the two of them the side-eye as they passed, and Caitlin wondered if he was annoyed that they’d parked themselves in the garage instead of using the valet service out front.
No time to worry about that, though, because Alex had moved purposefully to the front desk and was giving his information to the woman there, along with his credit card. Caitlin waited off to one side, trying to look as if she checked into hotels with guys all the time. All right, not all the time, but at least she didn’t want to give the impression that she was doing something illicit.