“Wanting to exert influence over situations that seem out of control and not only control them, but turn them positive?” She laughs lightly. “Yeah, I think it’s pretty obvious where that comes from, David.” She pauses. “It’s the same place that drives me into fictional worlds. In a story, all the motivations are explained to me. I get to literally see inside people’s minds. I get to see the journey all laid out, and I can know the ending before I even begin.” She takes a breath. “That all, of course, comes from all the uncertainty in my early childhood. All the times I wondered why my parents made the choices they did. And not knowing how things were going to turn out.”
“Do you read the last chapter first in books?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Every time,” she confesses. She smiles self-deprecatingly. “Chaos was the theme of your childhood. Uncertainty was mine. You now need control. I love knowing what to expect. Books give me that. And I’ve discovered that writing…”
I lift my brow. She almost confessed to me. I love that she feels as comfortable with me as I do with her spilling secrets, and deep thoughts.
“Writing what?”
She lifts a shoulder. “I just write sometimes.”
I take an apple slice and swirl it through the cheese, then lift it to my mouth. I lick the cheese off before biting into the apple.
She watches my mouth the entire time.
Her eyes on my mouth heat my blood.
“What do you write?” I should confess that I know this. I should tell her that I’ve read it.
But I want her to tell me.
“Romance,” she says.
Hmm, okay, far be it from me to tell the woman how to describe her own writing. Her characters definitely care about each other. “Are you a romantic, Mia?”
“For sure,” she says without hesitation. “How could I grow up with Scott and Peyton Hansen and not be?”
I smile. “I feel the same way about Tucker and Delaney.”
“There are actually a lot of great examples around here.”
“Is that why you write it?” I would love to know why she writes what she does. I’m fucking dying to know, in fact.
“Probably in part,” she admits. “Also…some wish fulfillment, I suppose.”
I almost swallow my tongue.
I’m not saying that her fanfiction has no romance in it. It also has humor and some pretty great heartfelt moments. Maybe that’s what she’s talking about too. She wants a relationship that has all of that.
But there’s no way she hasn’t put some real thought into those other scenes.
“Wish fulfillment,” I say, after I’m sure my voice will sound at least somewhat normal. “The things you write about are things you want for yourself?”
“Of course.”
Of course.
Of. Fucking. Course.
Well, I’m never going to get that out of my head.
And I’m probably not going to sleep very well tonight. At least not with any dreams of sweet candlelight dinners with Mia.
But that doesn’t mean Mia won’t be in them.
“Is your stuff available for reading?” I ask. Fuck. What happens when she finds out I’ve already read it?
“Yes.” She dips her head, looking down at her hands. “It’s posted online. It’s fanfiction. Though, really, I just borrow the setting and a few characters from the main fiction. The primary characters I write about, I made up. They don’t show up in the original series.”
