“So you started writing it because you were a fan of something else?” I have to play a little dumb here, don’t I? I’ve had Charlie explain it, but I’d love to hear about this from Mia’s perspective.
“Right. But then I wanted more from the world. I was sad when it was over and wanted to stay there longer. I wanted to keep going back. Since there were no more books, I started coming up with additional stories on my own. And then I found this great community of other fans and writers and it just kind of grew from there. It’s really fun. I feel like I have a chance to explore new ideas and…” She shrugs. “Yes, some wish fulfillment.”
“So why not just write your own original stuff?” I ask.
“I’ve asked myself that,” she says. “Maybe I will someday. For now, I love the community and feel at home in that world. It makes exploring new ideas and themes and having these…adventures…feel safer?” She phrases it as a question and her brow furrows slightly when she says it. “I never thought about it, but I think that’s it. Since the things my characters are doing and the feelings they’re exploring are new and different for me, it’s nice that the setting and people around them are familiar. It’s as if whatever happens to them, it's still safe, because in this world everyone is good and things end up happy.”
She seems to be thinking that over.
“That makes sense,” I offer. It does. Completely. “You love books and stories because you can know the ending. You can choose the stories that make you feel a certain way. That gives you a sense of control that you didn’t have growing up. I get that.”
She meets my eyes, and I feel that getting-familiar jolt of connection.
“If you’re writing the stories, you want to be sure they end up good and happy and that you get those same feelings,” I say, thinking out loud. “But maybe your mind is telling you that the stories are bound to a set of rules then. Maybe that makes you feel restricted. Like you can’t actually tell all of the story you want to for fear it won’t turn out happy. If you set it in a world you already know and that makes you feel good, that you can trust to give you a happily ever after, maybe your imagination is more free to let the adventure go where you need it to.”
She’s staring at me now.
I shift uncomfortably. “Or fuck, I don’t know. Maybe you’re just really enamored with this other world.”
She reaches out and puts her hand on my arm. “No. David. You’re totally right. I think that’s it.” She swallows. “My stories are…the heroine is…she isn’t very experienced sexually.” She swallows again. “And the heroes—there are two?—”
Yes. I’m aware of that as well. It’s clear to me the heroine is in love with one of them and just very attracted to the other, but yes, there are two men helping this woman explore her sexuality.
“—and that’s all new and different and the things she’s learning about herself are exciting but a little scary, and she’s going through emotions about both men and…” Mia takes a breath. “I think you’re right that at least setting it somewhere familiar, that makes me happy, makes it easier to write some of that more difficult stuff.”
Charlie would fall off his damned chair if he knew I was just that insightful and I impressed Mia Freaking Hansen.
I can’t wait to tell him.
“Thanks for helping me figure that out,” she says, giving me a bright smile. “That’s a really great realization for me to have.”
“You’re welcome.” Now I want to know why Charlie feels the need to kill people in this town in this series he supposedly loves. “So,” I hear myself say. “What would happen in your romance story if the heroine and hero—one of them,” I add.
She smiles.
“—were out in a deer blind together?”
And she blushes.
A dark pink that makes me want to know every single dirty thought that just went through her pretty head.
She sits back, pulling her hand from my arm.
I did not want her to stop touching me. Which is the sure sign that it’s good she did.
“Oh, well, if it was at the beginning of the story, they’d talk and get to know each other better,” she says.
I nod. “Makes sense.”
“But he’d definitely kiss her.”
Heat hits me low and hard. My gaze on her mouth, I ask, “He would kiss her? She wouldn’t kiss him?”
She wets her bottom lip with her tongue. “Well, not this heroine,” she says, her voice a little softer. “She’s not confident enough.”
“Ah.” How much of Mia is in that woman? Then I do what I have to do and say, “We should probably get out of here.”
Because we are at the beginning of our story.
