To Hate Adam Connor

“Twenty-five percent? Are you crazy? Do you even know how much of an advance you’re getting?”

Was I really considering taking money from my friend? And that amount of money? I didn’t think so.

“That’s around what agents take. Every book deal, audio deal, foreign rights, or whatever you get in front of me to sign, you’ll get twenty-five percent of it, both from the advance and the royalties.”

Feeling uncomfortable, I shook my head and shifted in place. “No way.” No freaking way, that was too much money. “Twenty-five is too much. Don’t give that much of your money to anyone.”

She shrugged as if I was the one who was talking nonsense. “You’re my agent. You’ll look out for me and get me the best deals possible. You already did it. I don’t know why we’re still talking about this. I would never even think of suggesting that I could narrate the book with Jason. Even if I did think of that, I could hardly get them to say yes on it. Also, Jason already played Isaac, are you sure his contract wouldn’t be a problem?”

“Way ahead of you. I already talked about that with his agent. Tom said it would be a good promotion for the movie when it’s out on DVD. And he checked the contract to make sure, too. Everything is okay on that front.”

“See?” She pushed my shoulder with her index finger—a little too hard. “You already thought of everything. You’re my agent.”

“Yeah,” I relented and rubbed the spot she had just poked. “I’m an agent who doesn’t even have an ARC of your next book. What an agent. Maybe you should ask Jasmine to be your agent.”

Was I still a little jealous about that? Yeah, maybe. So what?

Olive extended her hand and gestured with her chin for me to take it. So I took it.

“Twenty-five percent.”

I sighed. “Ten percent.”

She gave me a bored look. “Twenty-four percent.”

I think you can guess how long it took us to agree on a number, but in case you’re not sure, a long, long time. There was a lot of handshaking along with nodding and some more headshaking. At the end of it, we agreed on fifteen percent and that was it.

“Now can we go to sleep?” she asked with a hopeful look. “Maybe a short nap?”

I tackle-hugged her, and we fell onto the pillows. “We’re working together.”

She laughed. “Yes. I can already hear the distant sound of you cracking the whip.”

I let out another long sigh. “Always thinking the worst of me. I’m being very nice to all the publishers.”

“I love it when you crack the whip, so it’s all good. Wouldn’t want anyone else to be my agent. You know what you should do?”

“What?”

“You should call Catherine and let her know you got a job.”

I gazed at the ceiling, my stomach turning. “I don’t think she’d be happy to hear that at all. She really wanted me to take that accounting job.”

Feeling Olive’s eyes on me, I did my best to look unaffected, but she knew me enough to see through it.

“Okay. I shouldn’t have even brought her up. My bad.”

I made a noncommittal sound and tried not to think about any of the bad stuff. “All right, are you ready for the second piece of good news?”

“No napping, then? Fine. Hit me.”

“No napping because we’re going out to celebrate the audiobook deal.”

“Mimosas?”

Alcohol…I wasn’t sure I could do that. I wanted to drink all the alcohol, all the tequila I could get my hands on, but I was very afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to do that for quite some time. I nodded anyway and thanked all my stars that Olive didn’t question my silence and left it at that.

“Now before a celebratory breakfast, the second piece of good news is that I have a much, much bigger, like a humongous-ly big deal I’m trying to finalize before I tell you about it, and the third piece of good news is that I found an apartment!”

Olive propped herself up on her elbow and looked at me with a pouty mouth, looking all sad and heartbroken. “What? You’re leaving?”

I turned onto my side to face her. “Did you hear what I said about the humongous-ly big deal? No?”

She kept staring at me, so I rolled my eyes.

“I’ve been here for weeks, Olive, and I’ve been looking for a small apartment since the day I got here, I just hadn’t found anything.”

“And now you have. Where?”

“Closer to our old apartment. You remember the tea shop that closed? The one where you dumped a cup of tea over my head and got us kicked out? Two blocks from that. It’s still close to USC, so I think I’m gonna look into getting a roommate.”

She eyed me sharply. “I didn’t dump it over your head. I tripped and fell.”

“Yes. You fell on me. When you had a hot cup of tea in your hand.”

“It wasn’t hot. It had cold milk in it. Anyway, you survived. And you shouldn’t leave now. Not when you’re getting closer to Adam and Aiden.”

I snorted and let out a not-so-ladylike laugh. “Getting closer to Adam Connor? Are you kidding me? I hate him even more than I did a few days ago.”

“Why? Because he isn’t doing those pushups anymore?”

Jesus! Even my own friend was taking that self-absorbed bastard’s side. I sank back into the bed.

“So disappointed in you right now, my green Olive. I bet you won’t feel all lovey-dovey toward him when you hear that he broke into your house last night.”

Hmmm, maybe I could convince Olive to press charges against the Hotshot Movie Star. Now, wouldn’t that be a great plot twist! And such great revenge, too. However, Olive was quick to kill those beautiful dreams.

“He didn’t break in. He called Jason, and he let him in. And I was right on the other side of your door after he sneaked into your room because I had to listen and learn why he was here, but Jason pulled me away, and I couldn’t hear a damn thing. So spill already. Did he rock your world?”

“We didn’t have sex,” I mumbled under my breath.

“Not for your lack of trying, I assume?”

Ignoring Olive, I reached for her phone on the bedside table and checked the time.

“Look at that, we need to head out. I don’t want to be stuck in traffic until lunchtime. My stomach is grumbling; I need food, maybe waffles, maybe eggs, maybe croissants, maybe all of the above. I also need coffee. Then I’ll probably need dessert. Come on, lazy head.” I jumped out of bed and smacked her with one of the pillows. “We’re going out to celebrate.”

“I’ll never understand your enthusiasm for mornings, Lucy.” She pulled the pillow out of my hand when I was about to smack her—lightly, of course—again and pushed her hair out of her face.

Just as she was rolling out of the bed, she stopped and turned to me with a frown. “You said you had good news and bad news. You never told me the bad news.”

I avoided eye contact and played with the edge of the covers to have something to occupy myself with. “Let’s just say we have to swing by Target to get something. I’ll tell you all about it after the celebratory breakfast. I’m dying from hunger, come on.” I threw the cover at her face. “Stop torturing me and get up.”

“Jesus. Fine.” She flung the covers and hopped down from the bed after a long stretch and yawn. “What time is it?”