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“What made you want to write books?” she asked, chewed on her lip, then added, “How did you know, or when rather, that you were really an author?”

I thought about that. It was a good question, and the way she’d asked it, not idly but seriously, made me try to answer honestly.

“I was shaped by fiction,” I explained. “It made me who I am. Words, sentences, prose.” I paused. “Lies.” I paused again, got back on subject. “Reading never felt like anything so much as a necessity to me. I couldn’t stop once I realized what was in books. The magic they could contain. I was reading everything I could by the time I was ten, and I had very strong opinions about it—what I liked, what I hated.

“Dair was my favorite author from the moment I discovered him. He is to this day. I thought for a long time I’d write like him, that my books would be some sort of homage to his, that his career would be a prototype for me, down to its root, but once I really started writing that just didn’t fit me.

“It just so happened that I liked writing the gory stuff best. Actually, writing sex is my favorite, gory stuff second, tragedy third, if I had to choose. Did that answer your question?”

I liked how she was looking at me then, like I’d pleasantly surprised her.

“It really did. Thank you.

“You’re stubbly today,” she told me one morning as she handed me my perfect cappuccino.

I rubbed my jaw. “Do you like it?”

“Do you like it?”

“Sure, why not? But do you like it?”

She shrugged, barely looking at me. “Sure, why not? It suits you. I need you to sign some books today, and a—”

“Touch it,” I interrupt.

She paused, looked up, imperious brow raised. “Excuse me?”

“Touch it.” When she just stared, I moved closer and brought her hand to my face, rubbing my stubble against her palm.

“Give me two words to describe the way it makes me look,” I told her. “This is part of your mentorship. More in-depth descriptions.

She didn’t miss a beat, glaring at me. She tried to pull her hand away, but I held it there. “Dastardly. Rakish. You look like you’re about to captain a pirate ship or deflower a young maiden just for the hell of it. How’s that?”

I was grinning. “It was good. I like the way your mind works, Ro. Less and less wholesome by the hour.”

I let her go, and she was striding away as she said, “Maybe you are corrupting me.”

Unaccountably, that made me hard.

“Everybody loves a scoundrel,” I called after her.

“Says a scoundrel,” she called back.

That afternoon she returned with several copies of my book Red Door for me to sign for some promotions.

It was after five, and I was sipping at a small glass of straight Scotch, the really good shit, as I grabbed a pen and started signing.

“How do you write books like that and sleep at night?” she asked, more curious than judgmental. “I had nightmares for weeks the first time I read this one.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” I said as I signed. “Most of my books have a supernatural element, and I’m a complete skeptic. It’s hard to be scared when you don’t believe in anything.”

“You’re crazy, you know that, right?”

“Of course I do. Do you know why writers are crazy like this?

“Why?”

“Because there’s magic in chaos. We need to find you yours.”