Amazon. Really? I Mean, Really?!

This is pissing me off. I buy from Amazon a LOT. I should have shares in that company, really. But they are acting like a bully, and have done in the past, as well. The New York Times article is here.

Publisher's Lunch stated in bold font that Amazon has deleted the "Buy" buttons from all of titan publishing company Macmillan's ebooks, in a dispute over ebook pricing. Macmillan is an umbrella publisher for several publishing imprints, including Tor. This is a lot of ebooks they are banishing. These ebooks have even vanished from online Amazon wish lists of many customers.

Amazon wants the ebooks to remain $9.99, which is not unreasonable. Macmillan wants the pricing at $15.00, which I think is outrageous, but there has to be a better way of coming to an agreement than completely pulling Macmillan's ebooks from their cyber shelf. Amazon is effectively shooting itself in the foot, because these are profits they are not making in an effort to strong-arm Macmillan into bowing under their power tactics.

The authors are the ones who are really losing in this dispute. It's just silly.

But hey, folks, there's always Barnes and Noble and Borders, and tons of other places to order from, including Indie books stores and the publisher's own sites.

I'm not a big fan of bullying, and this is bullying at it's best.

So until you learn to play nice, Amazon, I for one, am not playing with you any more.

Taro

Every once in a while I check out Tarot. This was my reading for today:

The card in the middle represents the creative force behind the project, be it a person, organization, or other entity. King of Wands: The essence of fire behaving as air, such as lightning: A great and daring leader who inspires others to rise to challenges alongside him. An artist who can take hold of an idea and make it a reality through bold action. One who is forceful, charismatic, and honest, leading by example, but unafraid to invest authority in others. A dashing and magnetic personality, carrying authority naturally, and striking at the world with swiftness and grace.

The card on the top represents imagination - the prophetic image that stems from the creative force of the previous card to initiate the project. This is the poetry or voice of the undertaking. Knight of Wands, when reversed: The dark essence of fire, such as a great conflagration: One filled with vitality and limitless appetite. A sexy and exciting person, obsessed with style and outward appearance, overconfident in their abilities, and foolhardy in their actions. A hot temper and domineering nature, coupled with a love of false drama and all things theatrical. Anxiety over remaining in one place or with one person for too long. The rapid approach, or more likely departure, of someone or something that ruptures your world. Often suggests travel as the result of discord, or cruel indifference.

The card on the left represents emotion - the feelings aroused by or surrounding the ideation of the project that takes place in the previous card. This is the music or scent of the undertaking. Page of Pentacles: The essence of earth, such as a mountain: The surprising appearance of new prosperity and opportunities for advance in the physical world. One who delights in the pleasures of the body, material things, and nature. The embrace of hard work, realistic goals, and scholarly perseverance as a means to create solid achievement. Dependability, trust, and a studious nature. May portend a new job or promotion.

The card on the bottom represents thought - the analytical process of organizing the project and capturing the emotional content of the previous card. This is the science or vision of the undertaking. Judgement: A swift and conclusive decision. The resolution of a matter long unanswered. A change in point of view, most frequently towards greater enlightenment. Final balancing of karma.

The card on the right represents manifestation - the real work involved in completing the project, and the form it will take upon culmination. This is the painting or touch of the undertaking. King of Pentacles: The essence of earth behaving as air, such as a diamond: A true businessman, with a gift for identifying opportunities and taking advantage of them. A person well informed about the world, skilled in all things physical, and eager to encourage others. A pillar of practicality and dependability, embracing tried and tested methods, and possessing an innate understanding of the material reality. A philanthropist and devotee of both luxury and hard work, whose word is as good as gold.

Lovely Day

No takers, huh? Aaaaaalright. I'll leave the contest open until Sunday night anyway, and I'll keep checking.

Friday. It's colder than hell out there. Sunny though, and it's a spring sunshine, high in the sky, even if it feels like the dead of winter. Which it technically is. But it's a good day, and I'm feeling pretty good.

My workouts are keeping me on an even keel and my clothes are getting looser. This is a good thing. But I have a lot more energy as well. Exercise is a natural mood enhancer, and I sleep like the dead after a good work out. Great for plotting too, because when my body is busy doing something else, my mind works out problems in the plot. This happens in my sleep, too, while I'm dreaming. Kinda freaky.

I'm feeling especially happy and peaceful today, and am counting all my blessings. Life is a series of moments, and I'm thankful for the special ones I've had recently. So in celebration of this, here is Dido's Thank You.

Interesting Timing

Every so often my first ex-husband, I have two, messages me on Facebook. I haven't heard from him in about a month, but he struck up a conversation with me this morning when I was checking to see if my sitter sent me a message. Our conversations are pretty reflective.

We were best friends from the time we were about 13 years old. For years after we split we didn't talk. But we come from the same neighborhood. My street a little worse than his, but not by much. He lived down the road and across the tracks from me. But I digress.

He happened to mention to me that young women help to ease "the pain" for a while. I told him that it was an illusion. More trouble than it's worth, in the long run. He told me I was a buzz kill. Which I'm sure I was, in that particular dialogue. But I've had my mind in my book and in researching sexual addiction. Maybe a lot of people experience varying levels of sexual addiction. Or some addiction. Everyone is recovering from something, me thinks.

We didn't talk long. We never do. It's more of a checking in with each other than anything else. We've known one another forever and a day. And it's nice to be able to converse without hostility and to actually feel good will toward each other. He's one of the few people in this world who really knows me, has seen me transform through many stages in life.

But it got me thinking. About who people are and how we react. What we reach for when searching for reprieve. The decisions we make. My second marraige was a wreck. But I agreed to get married when I was in a sexual stupor. I agreed to move countries because I was in a sexual stupor. My judgement completely skewed. Moving proved to be a good decision for me. The marriage, not so much.

So I can relate. Anyone care to share about their opiate of choice? Food? Exercise? Alcohol? Drugs? Sex? Books? Anger? Gambling? Spending? Leave a comment and I'll sweeten the deal by offering up any book in my back list to a winner to be chosen randomly.

I see on the side bar that I have a few more followers. Silent lurkers. Nice to see you. I appreciate you hangin' with me :)

Something I Didn't Realize

Writing is both organic and technical for me. The creation part of the writing is organic. The characters come from some place in my subconscious, as much as I may try to plan out their traits, it doesn't work that way for me. They are very real people to me as I'm creating the story. I'm very close to them. And so consequently, I often don't realize things the others may see as glaringly obvious about them.

I'm realizing something that should've been clear to me a long time ago about Leah. Another plot thread has fallen into place in my mind. As a method of coping with the horror she faces when working a new case, or even in dealing with the memories of older cases, Leah uses sex. She uses sex as a numbing agent. Shades of sexual addiction, which, during this book,is definitely having a negative effect on her life.

It's not that she's promiscuous, but the very fact that she turns to sex as a coping mechanism spells out addiction. Needing the high, the rush, the euphoria, the distraction when things go badly, all point to addiction.

In this book, the addiction effects every part of her life. Now I have to find a way to get her back on track. Save her from the shambles she's making of her life, and still be able to be the heroine she needs to be.

Not an easy task. I've got my work cut out for me.

So I've been reading Sue Silverman's Love Sick: One Woman's Journey Through Sexual Addiction. Wow. What an excellent memoir. Very candid. Very disturbing, but amazing.

On a happy note, I've been able to get on the elliptical three times a week for the past two weeks! And I've been able to get one for 40 minutes! This is an achievement because usually by the time my little guy finally falls asleep, it's too late for me to get on for very long, and sometimes at all.

But my mother has been spotting me while she's here so it's worked out, which means I'm sleeping better and feeling better. This is good. I'll need to rope my fella into staying inside long enough for my work outs. He's a guy on the go. But I'll tie him down if I have to.

Hmmmm. There's a thought.

This 'N That

Had another break through this morning, bouncing ideas off my mother. A bunch of stuff came together for me. A whole other plot line I hadn't even considered, which is now going to be a pretty important part of the book. My mother is awesome at bouncing ideas off of. She's got as devious a mind as I do, I guess.

In the world of publishing, here is an excellent post by Paula Guran at Juno Books. Good news for any writer who was feeling a little pessimistic about getting published or moving on to a different publisher. There is hope!

Yes, the slush pile is still alive. There are many editors who have found their gems through the slush pile, and treat it as mining for gold. Cuz it is! They just have to sift though a lot of stuff to get to it.

And yes, many writers get their start with ebook companies, as I have, but that doesn't mean we won't move on to something else eventually.

Break Through

I just had a break through. There was a grey area concerning one of the plot threads of this book, and as I was sitting here listening to Sick Puppies Going Down (which is one of the theme songs for this book), getting revved up for the writing session, it came to me. I love when this happens.

I'm tired, because baby woke up at 1:30 and was wide awake until 4 a.m, so I was wide awake too. But I've got good, stong coffee and this break through, which is fueling me through the writing session today. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, finally. I see the shape of the book clearly. I know where all the scenes go.

This is the part of the writing process I was waiting for. It's starting to be fun again, and feel less like work.

So off I go.

The No-Name Post

Can't think of a clever name, or even not so clever name for this post. Just another ramble, I guess.

I was talking to my mother last night about how people react to different situations. She and I are fighters. We're made of pretty strong stuff. Even if we're feeling week, we push through and try harder to get back our equalibrium. We've been in some pretty bad situations that we've come out of, because when we're under the gun, we focus and do whatever we have to get out of a bad situation.

Some people come up swinging. Some people get paralyzed and get mired down by hard times, and sink lower into the quick-sand of depression. I have a couple of friends like this. It doesn't matter how much you talk to them, they need to be ready to either pull themselves out of the muck or search for something solid to grasp onto, like a helping hand or solid land. Something.

I'm not made that way. If I lay down during times like that, I feel like I'm dying. I tend to take on a lot of tasks to keep my mind off things and I go on a kind of manic autopilot. I don't act predictably if I'm backed into a corner. I'll react in the least likely manner to get myself out of the corner. The least likely way I'd respond is to succumb under force.

A while back I was placed in a situation in which my opponent (for lack of a better term at the moment) thought he could force me into responding the way he wanted me to. There was one way I could back him down, but I risked being hurt in the process. So I could succumb, or I could leap into the fire and take him with me. I chose the latter.

He backed down and by some miracle I wasn't hurt. He knew where I lived. For a while I looked over my shoulder, my back completely up, but he never came after me.

I'm not saying this is the most intelligent route to take. It's the only route I can take. And so I have little sympathy or patience for people who lay down and wait to die. This may be a flaw in my personality, because it's not a very nice way to be. But for me, the best way to be a friend is to offer a friend a kick on the butt. I offer an ear, then make suggestions and point them to resources that could help them. But to pat somebody on the ass and tell them it's okay to wallow is not my way.

Life is too short. There are too many preditors sniffing out weakness in this world. Making yourself vulnerable, the weakest in the pack, is a sure way to get eaten.

If I need to, I do my shaking and crying afterward. The release of built up tension. I tend to feel the magnitude of danger when I'm safe again. But during a bad situation, I'm all strategy.

On that light and cheerful note, I'm onto the work for the day!

My friend Deb loves Lifehouse. Here is their latest video:

Ooooh Baby!

Got my little netbook. I looooove it. It's so sleek and pretty and shiny and all mine! ALL MINE!! OOooh yeeessss. Preeecccciiooouuuuusssss! I can't stop running my fingers over it. Caressing it. Talking to it. It's soooooo lovely.

Still wading through the first pass. Daaaunting. Not loving it. It feels like work during this part of the process. It'll feel fun again when I start adding scenes.

I thought I'd share the first few lines of A Sudden Frost. It's not carved in stone yet, but this is what I have so far, and I like it:

I was somewhere I shouldn’t have been when I heard about the dead girl. At that point she was only missing, but soon enough she’d be dead. I didn’t know that to be true then. But a terrible, creeping dread had moved over me and I knew that her death was the most likely outcome.

New Toy

I ordered a little netbook and it's on it's way to me now. I'm stoked, because I need something small that I can carry with me, and this little jobbie is only 2.5 lbs and small enough to put in my purse. I'm going to look for a little case for it, too, to keep it from scratching.

This little charmer is going to make it easier for me to work on my lunches and any time I need to get out of the house to get an hour or so of work done. My little bean is getting bigger and is napping less, and so I'll need to steal a couple of hours here and there on the weekends, away from home, so that I can work. I don't care if I'm sitting in a parking lot somewhere. As long as I can get 'er done.

The tracking information shows that the last scan was in Altamont, NY, which means I'll have the netbook in my hot little hands today! Wooohoo!

I'll try not to tackle the Fed-ex guy when he gets out of his truck.

At Just the Right Time

I got a really nice letter from someone who just finished Repo Chick. The reader really enjoyed the book, and took the time to tell me so.

This email came at just the right time because I'm struggling with a roaring case of I SUCK lately. This happens during the writing of every book, I'm sure I've mentioned before on this blog, many times. So this email helped me through the writing session today, when all I wanted to do was gaze out the window at the falling snow.

I still have a ways to go before I finish the first pass of Frost. This one is kicking my ass. It feels like work right now, and I like writing much better when it's fun. I'll feel better after I get to the end.

This one is emotionally draining for me, so I need to do something fun in between the sessions to balance it out.

Today, I'm cooking pork loin and shopping with ma. We'll pick up my little bean later and he'll be a little clown, as usual, and all the squirmy feelings from the writing session will fade away :)

Sniffles

My little guy has a cold. Pool little bean. He's still in a good mood though. He just hates when I have to wipe his little nose every five minutes. He keeps yelling, "I mean it!" This is how he expresses his extreme displeasure at having to momentarily stop playing with his matchbox cars.

My motherh as him playing downstairs so I'm opening my document of Frost. See how much work I can get done on it this week. I'd love to get the first pass through. It was quick writing the first draft but soooooo sloooooow on the first read-through. Ugh.

Yeah yeah. I know I'm whining. I'll stop.

Off I go.

Saturday Ramblings

Typing this out while my little guy is talking and singing away to himself, looking through his books. I'm sharing my bookshelf with him, and he's really good about just going on his own end. If he does take one of my books, he's very careful with it, fanning the pages out with his little hands, facinated by the words. My books have no pictures!

Had to close the laptop because he insisted, so that I could read him a book. Hehe.

Four hours later. Man. I feel tired today. Got on my elliptical for 25 min, had a long, steamy, sudsy shower, then rushed around cleaning before my mother got here. Feeling sleeeeepy. Almost fell asleep in the truck on the way back. But must work. The little bean is napping so I'll take advantage of the quiet and open my document of Frost.

Date night tonight. We're actually going out of doors for this one. This is rare for us without taking the critter. But my mother has offered to babysit so that we can go out. Of course, I'm tired by 9:00 pm. Not much of a wild woman.

So to work on the book I go.

Just Blah Blahing

Yesterday went by so fast my head is spinning, as Mondays always do for me. But I did manage to get on the elliptical at around 8:30. Gave her hell for 25 minutes then jumped in the shower.

I slept great until 2 a.m when I woke up and couldn't get the hell back to sleep. I hate when that happens. My mind gets going and I can't shut it off. This has been happening almost nightly lately, and it's screwing with my internal alarm clock. I'm waking up at almost 6:30 a.m instead of 5:30 a.m. This is bad.

But I hate alarm clocks. Large.

Not much else new. Looking forward to a week of vacation. The first real time off since the critter was born. My mother is coming up to see us from Northern Ontario. She's fun. And she is one of the few people that I can spend days with and not be sick of.

I'm hoping to get a buncha work done on Frost while she's here, too. She'll spot me so that I can write, and I'm bringing the bean over to the sitter's twice during that week so that I can get some writing time in without worrying when he'll wake up from his nap, or feeling badly because I'm not playing with him instead of writing.

Instead I'll feel badly that I've dropped him at the sitter's instead of playing with him and blowing off the writing.

Ah well. Lunch time is over. Back to work for me.

Stepping Lightly

I've been thinking about Frost and why it's so difficult for me to stop distracting myself from it. I love this story. I feel a real connection to it for many reasons. The characters are real to me. The situations are real. This is also a reason it's hard for me to get back into the way that I need to. That zone.

When I'm deep in the writing of a story which deals with issues that are close to my heart, press my buttons, piss me off or tear me up, it's like being a moth drawn to the flame because I spill a lot of my own blood on those pages.

Recently I told somebody that I have no filter for the horrible stuff I see in the news. This is true. I've always been a person who can't stand the suffering of others. I take it personally and I have never been able to change that. For better or worse. It's a part of who I am.

This story deals with a particular issue that I tried tackling before and failed. Each word that got me closer to the images in the story that I couldn't stand even imagining in my head, I felt myself cringing away from it. And if I'm pulling punches, it's not genuine. In short, it sucked.

This time, I have a little distance and characters I'm familiar with, so it's easier, but the issues still effect me in the same way. So as excited I am to get back into it, I still feel cuts from my own bloodletting in the process.

I won't waste my time or a reader's time writing shit I don't care about. I won't go through the motions. If I don't feel it deep where I live, I'm not doing it. So it's slow going. This story was written in a flurry of feverish imaginings because I had no time to edit myself. It's pretty raw.

This freaks me the hell out. So I try to take little breaks, but my mind is still in the story. I can't stay away. Moth to flame.

So it's slow going. But I'm moving forward with tentative, cautious steps right now. Eventually I know I'll get into the place, that zone, where there's no turning back and I'll take a breath and bullet through it. It's my way. And there's no way I'll abandon this story because although it's tough to finish, I love it.

It's just getting myself to that place where I allow my momentum to carry me through it. I'm still at the edge of the forest right now, peering through the branches and psyching myself up to take that trek back into the thickest, darkest part of it. I know where the creepy crawlies are. And to get to the other side of the woods, I have to go through them again.

During the writing of the first draft, I was pounding through it, discovering. It's scarier when you know what's waiting.

I think the next book will be about underwater macrame.

Tasks for the Day

Aight. I've got my playlist on. I've got my swiffer wet jet at the ready. So far I've made muffins, fed the crew, did one bathroom, got a couple of loads of laundry on the go, called my mom and got the bean down (kind of). He's sitting in his crib looking through a book and talking to himself. A trait I never grew out of.

I have high hopes of setting the office up downstairs as mine. Currently, I don't have a designated writing space. My elliptical is in there. So it's kind of my space anyway. My fella suggested I take it over, because he rocks. His man cave is the garage. I don't have a woman cave. So this will be mine. I'm excited, because he tells me I can cover the walls in post-it notes if I like, which I will be doing, as well as getting a giant white board that I can scribble on. I'm stoked!

Before the critter came along, his room was in the process of being set up as my office. I need to get a video monitor so that I can see him as well as hear him while I'm down there. He's gotten pretty resourceful, being a month and a half short of two, and is capable of all kinds of chaos and mayhem. As it should be with a healthy, happy little guy. But I like to get a heads up and keep him from injury, if I can.

So, now I'm about to wash the floors. Then I'll swap out laundry, throw a new load in, put some away and do another bathroom. In between this, when the bean falls asleep, I'll work on Frost.

So here I go. Watch my dust.

Stimulation

I had an excellent conversation with somebody today and I feel positively invigorated. Lovin' that. When somebody I like and respect tells me their stories, it's like fuel to me. It fills me up. I love picturing the things they are telling me in my head. This is better than any wii game for me.

Mental stimulation. That's where it's at. Diggin' it. That's what sends me.

I have a ton of stuff to do this weekend. Floors, bathrooms, laundry, and various other tasks, and somewhere in there, during the bean's nap, I need to work on A Sudden Frost. Get the first pass done so that I can start adding scenes.

Need to get on the elliptical too. Oooh my boneless wings are here. Gotta git.

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors

Alexandra Sokoloff's Screenwriting Tricks for Authors is now available. I've used many of her techniques in my own writing over the past six months or so, and I don't know how I would've finished Nano without her methods. She is fantastic. If you're a writer, you could seriously benefit from this book.

Alexandra is an incredible writer, and she's offered up her techniques for free on her blog for a long time. I think it's great that she's arranged her tricks of the trade into a book that you can buy and have at your fingertips at any time. This book will be my new writing bible.

So go! Now! And buy her book!

Fun with the Digital

No pics of me with my geek-girl specs on, so here are two, and the bottom one is my new hairstyle that I got yesterday, and me doing my best 1920s Vamp look. Not sure if I pulled it off or not but it was fun.

She cut it pretty high at the back, which I didn't expect. But it's fun and funky, and she called me adorable several times before I left, so that's good enough for me.

New Years Resolution and Excerpt

Had a great New Year's Eve. My love grilled steaks, which were tender and mouth watering. We then sat on the couch and hung out. Later in the evening he made me a peanut butter hot fudge sundae with triple chocolate icecream, which he'd gotten earlier in the day. It was outstanding. It was a perfectly lovely night. This is the PG 13 version of the events, censored for public consumption ;)

Needless to say, it was a freakin' awesome evening.

My New Year's Resolution: Finish A Sudden Frost and The Collectors (the book I began before A Sudden Frost.)

I've had a moment of clarity. Can't elaborate, but I feel like I've been holding my breath, driving a run away train heading for a sharp, jagged cliff. I'm putting on the brakes. Getting back on course. I've been distracted, focusing on things that are going to derail me.

So I'm focusing on the writing and exercise again (haven't been able to because I've been sick with one virus or another for the better part of two months. I'm thinking it might be part of having a toddler who spends his day with a three year old who goes to nursery school twice a week).

Felt like sharing an excerpt of A Sudden Frost. It's still the first draft. Going through the first reading pass now. This bit reveals a little of what Leah struggles with. She's a good person who is afraid of intimacy, though she wants it. She doesn't know what to do with love when she has it. This is only one trait that makes up her sometimes self-destructive, adrenaline junkie personality, but it's the one that bites her on the ass again and again.

But this trait is a two-sided coin, because if she weren't a person drawn to high risk situations, she wouldn't be the strong herione she is, and wouldn't have rescued as many people as she has in the two previous books.

A Sudden Frost Excerpt:

We got the key to the house Alexia shared with her husband, who had been gone for a week. Everything seemed in order. Nothing seemed disturbed. Mrs. Costas had been there earlier in the day and couldn’t think of anything that seemed wrong about the house. Her car was not in the drive-way. Nor was it at the mall. Mrs. Costas and Nicholas had searched the parking lot several times. We checked her email going back several months. Nothing strange. No red flags.

What the hell had happened to her? She was like smoke. There one second, gone the next.

Jack and I had gone to a small hole in the wall place that had the best wings going.

“You’re stalling again.” He looked at me as he bit into a wing.

“I know.” I took a long swig of my beer.

“What’s going on with you? You and Calahan okay?”

“We’re wonderful.” But I didn’t want to go home.

“That’s the problem, huh?” Jack knew me better than I knew myself. Always had. With us, it was like breathing, reading the other without even trying. We had an uncanny connection which had served us well over the years, both in work and in life, which had proved to be dangerous for us both from an early age.

I put my beer down and sighed, placing my elbows on the table and my face in my hands. “Why, Jack? Why do I do this?”

“What, sabotage things with Callahan when they’re going perfectly?”

“Yeah, that.”

He chuckled. “Leah, I’m your friend. Not your shrink. But my best guess is that it’s your absolute terror of intimacy, which makes you the wonderful person you are.”

“He wants to get married, Jack. Married.”

“I know. He told me. Many times.”

“Isn’t it enough that we live together? It took me three years to agree to that.”

He gave an easy shrug. “Apparently not. Some people want to move forward. Want that ultimate commitment.”

“But it’s a sham, Jack. You know as well as I do that most marriages today end up in divorce. I think that piece of paper is the beginning of the end for most people.” I stopped, thinking about it. “Actually, no. Lots of people get married when it was over long before the actual ceremony. Sometimes before the engagement.”

“Or as soon as the engagement takes place? As in your case?”

“No. It’s not over between us. I just feel so. . . trapped. Suffocated. I feel like I can’t breathe.” Just talking about it was making me feel like I couldn’t catch my breath. I took a deep breath and let it out.

Jack lifted hand. “I know. You don’t have to explain it to me, Kicks.”

Jack had called me Kicks for years, ever since he had started teaching me kick-boxing and I’d taken a real liking to it. Had a flair, even.

He looked at me, his green gaze level. “Don’t you think you should tell Callahan all this?”

“Yes and no. This is the conversation of doom. He gets hurt. I feel like crap. Nothing gets resolved.” I sat back, feeling tired but not wanting to move. I’d sit in that booth all night if they’d let me.

Reading my mind again, he said, “You need to go home, Leah. Staying away from him as much as possible isn’t going to help your situation. And here’s a thought, it may even make it worse.”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.”

“Hey, at least I have some form of wit.”

“Ha. Ha. Okay, we’re getting stupid.” I sat forward, pulling my jacket on and sighing heavily. “This case isn’t going to fill him with joy, either. That’s your fault, my friend.”

“Kicks.”

His tone was serious and made me stop and pay attention. “Yeah.”

“I see the way you look at Lucas. You’re playing a dangerous game there. You know?”

I looked at the table. “I know.”

“If you want to end things with Callahan, do it. But don’t play him for an idiot. Don’t leave him twisting in the wind.”

I nodded, eyes still downward. He was right.

The problem was that I didn’t really want to end it with Callahan. I just couldn’t help feeling attracted to Lucas.

I slapped the table, punctuating the end of discussion. “I know. You’re right. I’ll straighten up and fly right, partner.”

Another promise I wanted to keep. But I knew myself and I felt like a liar.