Chapter Text
Derek’s hand is cramping and he’s still got an hour of this torture to go—possibly more considering he can’t see the end of the line, and he knows he won’t be leaving anything unsigned. Just because he doesn’t want to be here doesn’t mean he’s going to be rude about it; these people bought his books and waited in line, the least he can do is meet them all.
He scrawls his name under a brief message on the title page of the book, tries to smile at the woman in front of him, and takes a moment to drop the pen and shake his hand out. Erica had warned him that the signing would be popular; not only has he just released the final book in the series, this is the first book signing he’s ever agreed to do, finally battered down by constant pleading and threats. He hadn’t imagined writing becoming this popular nearly a decade ago when he was scratching out character biographies on the back of napkins at the cafe he was working at to put himself through college, sketching out battle movements across vast territories in the back of his notebook while he was supposed to be taking notes in class, or sneaking in research on medieval armor during his resident advisor hours. In his wildest dreams he imagined a small, dedicated audience—never a line of people stretching out past the door of his local bookstore.
His first book did alright; he self-published as an e-book right at the end of his junior year and he and his best friend, Allison Argent, spent the summer learning how to do promotion, but it wasn’t until he’d published the second book a year and a half later that it really took off. It wasn’t even because of the somewhat terrible attempt at promotion that he tried to keep up—someone had sketched out one of the battle scenes and shared it on Twitter, the whole thing got posted to a subreddit, and people fell in love with Lady Allis, one of the characters who had her own arc. He hadn’t meant to turn his best friend into one of his characters—she had started out as Lady Eleanor, but somewhere in the middle of his sophomore year he’d started spending his free time watching Allison take part in archery and fencing and Eleanor had slowly taken on more and more of her characteristics until Derek gave up and let it happen.
Derek had written her to be as true to her namesake as possible, and unsurprisingly, people adored her.
His visibility was enough by then that he started getting contacted by agents after the second book; by the third he’d hired an editor, Erica Reyes, and started looking into how to get the series printed. Ten years later he’s what Erica swears is a household name, final box sets are starting to come out, and he’s turned down eleven out of the eleven movie contracts that he’s been offered, much to Allison’s dismay.
He’s just picking up the pen again when Allison slides into the seat next to him, twisting the diamond on her ring finger with her thumb as she sets a cup of coffee on the table in front of her. “Here you go, sweetheart,” she says, and he tries not to wince. Allison’s been keeping people away from him for as long as he’s known her, but it feels different in front of a crowd, different when it’s unplanned. He hadn’t realized he’d be hit on so many times during a book signing but he was grateful she was there, an immovable wall between him and the more persistent fans.
“Thanks,” he says, leaning into her briefly before looking up at the disappointed woman in front of him and forcing a smile onto his face. “Who can I make this out to?”
An hour and twenty minutes later there’s just one person remaining, and Derek fights the urge to sign the book so quickly that his signature turns into a straight line. “Dinner?” he asks Allison as soon as the teenager walks away, clutching the book to his chest.
“Absolutely,” she says, pushing in her chair after she stands and gathering up a handful of things people had left for him; artwork and notes, various memorabilia having to do with his work. “I already spoke to the manager and she said they’d get this all put away so we can just get out of here. Italian? I could go for some bolognese.”
He raises an eyebrow at her and stuffs the handful of pens the store manager had given them into the empty cup they’d started out in, pulls his leather jacket off the back of the chair and throws it on before putting his hand on her lower back and moving her towards the doors. “Guess it’s lucky that your favorite place is a whole block away,” he says, and she grins at him before taking his hand and swinging his arm between them.
“Simply a coincidence,” she assures him with a grin. They talk about the signing on the walk over, recounting and laughing (or in Derek’s case, sighing) about some of the things he had been asked to sign. She pulls out a stack of artwork from her bag as soon as they’re sat and Derek pours over it, traces his fingers along the lines that make up his characters, a warm feeling spreading in his chest when he realizes that people have gotten so wrapped up in the world he created that they spend their time putting their own spin on it, making it their own.
“She looks just like you,” he says, pushing a watercolor rendering of Lady Allis across the table for Allison to see.
“Your descriptions were very detailed, if a little generous,” she says with a smile. “Can I have this one?” He must hesitate for too long because she pushes it back across the table and squeezes his arm when he opens his mouth to speak. “Just promise me you’ll put it somewhere for everyone to see,” she says, and he snorts.
“Sure, I’ll make sure all three people who come visit me can see it,” he says, and swallows back the rest of his sentence when the server appears and takes their drink order before asking if they’re celebrating anything.
“Just engaged,” Allison says, holding up her hand and beaming as Derek sighs.
“Wow, fifth time this year, congratulations,” the server says, lips pursed like he’s trying not to laugh. “We’re out of the flourless chocolate cake you like, so you’ll have to pick something else today.”
“Worth a shot,” Allison says, and adds “what?” after he’s walked away and Derek’s still looking at her with his eyebrow raised.
“We’re here too often if they don’t need to ask for your order,” he says, reaching into the basket for a piece of bread and breaking off a piece. “And for the hundredth time, I’ll buy your dessert, please stop telling people we’re engaged to get free things.”
She rolls her eyes at him. “Hey, if we’re playing up a fake engagement to keep people from hitting on your grumpy ass, we can play up a fake engagement for actual perks like dessert, champagne, and attention. Deal with it. Besides, Max would love to promote you from Uncle Derek to Daddy Derek.”
“I don’t know why I’m friends with you,” he says, leaning back in his chair and popping the bread in his mouth.
“It’s because I’ve never had a sex dream about you,” Allison says, laughing at the face he makes at her. She starts shuffling the memorabilia into a neat pile and sweeps it off the table just as their drinks come, and Derek watches as she carefully packs it back away into her bag. He wishes it were that easy—that he could fall in love with his best friend, that they just woke up one day and suddenly felt anything but familial towards each other. He’d thought about it in college, wished for it after Allison had warned him about Kate and he failed to listen, wondered if he could do anything to push it along after his disastrous relationship with Jennifer. But Allison is just Allison to him, a sister he just doesn’t happen to be related to. He loves her—he’s just never going to be in love with her.
She nudges his foot and raises her glass, smiling widely before taking a sip. “Cheers to surviving your first—”
“Only.”
“—first book signing,” she says. “I noticed you kept deflecting the ‘what are you writing next’ question from your adoring public, and you haven’t said anything to me but seriously—what are you writing next? You must have something in mind.”
He shrugs, but he feels his cheeks heat up and bites back a groan. He’ll tell her eventually, but he’s still unsure of the idea and he’d like to refine it a little more before she begs it out of him. As-is it’s too self-indulgent, unfit for anything except Derek’s daydreams. She’s watching him patiently though, so he stalls by taking another bite of bread, sipping at his wine, and finally says, “I was thinking something more contemporary.”
“Yeah? 16th, 17th century this time?” she teases, stealing his glass of wine when he sets it down and taking a sip.
“Funny,” he says, and swipes her drink from in front of her when she keeps his glass on her side of the table. “I was going to draft it out this weekend, I’ll email it to you when it’s done. Did I tell you that another studio called and asked to meet with me? They want to turn it into a mini-series.”
Erica hums as she reads, fingers of her left hand tapping out a slow rhythm on the table as she wields a blue pen in her right, making quick strokes across the pages he’d begrudgingly handed her after he’d admitted he’d printed them out. It’s too much commentary for his liking; he’s pretty sure she’s marked up every single page, so he distracts himself by watching people walk by the windows of the cafe. It feels like the entire afternoon has passed as she turns the pages slowly, still scratching out notes, but eventually she sets her pen down and considers him thoughtfully.
He’d found Erica just after his series started getting real attention; Derek had known he could be wordy, that there were parts of his books that got too hindered by details, the plot inching along more slowly than it really needed to. Editing, however, was not his strong suit—to him, every word he wrote was important. Erica had been doing freelance jobs at the time and by the time he was ready to publish his fourth book, she’d gotten him set up with an agent (her husband, Boyd) and had an offer ready from the publishing house she had started working for. It was the only reason he’d signed a contract; he’d originally chosen to self-publish not only because it was nearly impossible to get a book deal, but because he didn’t want to give up too much control. He trusted Erica, though, and although they had a tendency to get into arguments about what did and did not need to be cut, he couldn’t deny that his books were better with her input.
“Are you hoping to print this?” she asks, and he shrugs. It’s not a great sign, but Erica has always been too blunt to sugar-coat things. “Boyd could absolutely find a house to publish it,” she says, “I just don’t think it will be ours, it’s not what we’re looking for right now. There are smaller LGBTQ focused publishers, or maybe St. Martin’s Press—but I won’t lie, Derek, it needs a lot of work. Have you ever been in a relationship with a guy before?”
He scowls at her. “I’ve never been a 15th century female knight before but you thought I wrote that just fine.”
“I see the answer is no,” she says, and he glares down at the table. “The problem is that it shows this time. Everything is too stiff—it doesn’t read like someone struggling with their feelings or with self-control. The way you wrote the power dynamics in the relationship between Rowan and Duchess Elizabeth in The Archer’s Song was excellent—but you’re writing Tristan and Connor’s relationship the same way here. This isn’t a loving relationship, and it’s not a good portrayal of stability and respect. The dialog is fine, it’s just—well, everything else. I mean, for God’s sake, it reads a little like no one has ever treated you with kindness before.”
He clenches his jaw and reaches for the stack of papers, shoving them into his messenger bag. He’ll read her criticism later, when he’s better able to separate himself from it. “I’ll rewrite it,” he says, because he sure as hell isn’t going to tell her that both of the relationships he’s been in have been monumentally fucked up. “Thanks. How’s Boyd?”
She looks at him critically for a moment, like she’s trying to decide if it’s worth pressing, and gives up. “He’s good,” she says. “He’s obsessed with perfecting this recipe for something his grandma used to make—it takes like three days for the beef to marinate, I don’t know. It’s pretty good though, I’ll have him make it the next time you’re around.”
He keeps the conversation centered on her, spends fifteen minutes refusing to make plans with her just because he knows it’ll waste time, and finally pretends to give in just before he knows she has to leave to catch her train. He’s not fooling himself; she knows what he’s doing, too used to Derek’s defense mechanisms after years of working with him, but he’s never been good at setting boundaries or asking for what he needs so he’s lucky she can read between the lines. She kisses his cheek before she goes, no doubt leaving a bright red lip print in her wake, and he takes a sip of his coffee before pulling the draft back out of his bag and reading her comments.
They’re blunt but not harsh, different enough from the comments she would make on his previous books that he wonders if she somehow knew this novel was more meaningful to him, that criticism would cut deeper under his skin. He makes his way through the suggestions slowly, trying to read his words from a new perspective, and is disappointed to see that far from exaggerating, Erica might have actually been kinder than she should have been. Derek’s experience with men has been limited to hours, a night at most, and he’s willing to admit that he has a type—but extrapolating an entire relationship from his one night stand preferences clearly isn’t working.
The problem is, he has no clue what to do about that. The last relationship he had that didn’t end in disaster was with his high school girlfriend, Paige, and although he can easily recall the butterflies that would appear in his stomach when they started dating, young love isn’t the tone he’s trying for in the novel. Their relationship had ended at graduation, when Paige went off to Texas to attend Rice and Derek started making the trip back and forth home from Boston College several times a year. He’d met Allison at his freshman orientation, started dating Kate a few months later, and had thrown himself into writing to bury his feelings a year later, after Kate attempted to kill his whole family by burning down their house—they were just lucky she was caught before she could light the match. He wants more than anything to rewrite his history, to give a part of himself experiences that didn’t end in tragedy; he wants to give himself the chance to fall in love as an adult, to depend on someone who wants the best for him, to be reminded to choose love, to turn into the stumbles and rough patches instead of pulling away. But he doesn’t trust it—not the process, not other people, not himself—so he’ll write it instead, give his fictional self something he’s becoming increasingly convinced that he’ll never have.
He makes note of some of the changes he could make without falling neck-deep into a life crisis, word choices that Erica didn’t like and phrases that he tended to repeat and marks them with a highlighter he dug out of his bag, then rereads her comments until he’s almost got them memorized until his phone beeps with a text from Allison. He’s supposed to meet her for dinner and a movie—mostly to make up for completely forgetting to pick up Max and take him to the park earlier in the week. He doesn’t even have the excuse of getting lost in writing—in fact, he’d forgotten because he spent four hours rewriting a single paragraph and had been so frustrated that it hadn’t occurred to him to check the time.
On my way, he texts back before pushing everything into his bag again, draining the rest of his coffee, and walking out the door into the rain.
February passes by slowly; Allison’s busier than usual so he makes himself useful and takes Max to and from preschool, gets suckered into letting him skip school entirely for a couple of days after Max turns the full force of his three-year-old puppy eyes on him and eventually asks Allison if they want to go with him on his monthly trip to Vermont see his parents. Allison declines, but Max runs into his room and grabs a random assortment of clothes (three shirts, a pair of shorts, a bathrobe and a single sock) so quickly that Derek ends up taking him anyway.
It works out in his favor—his mom, used to Derek’s perpetual single status, spends the entire time harassing his sisters during phone calls about when they were going to give her grandchildren and spoiling Max with cookies, sweets, and way more television time than Derek ever got as a child. They go skiing at Killington together and Allison cries on FaceTime that night after Max falls asleep in his lap. He’s not sure if he should downplay how much Max misses her or talk it up so he says nothing at all and just watches the screen as she presses a tissue to her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose.
“We’ll be home soon,” he says, and she nods. “We can always come out here again, if you want. You know they love you and Max, you’re always welcome.”
“It’s not that,” she says, and he watches her shift around before she lays back in bed and pulls the blanket up over her. “It’s nothing.”
He searches her face as best he can with his limited view of her and narrows his eyes. “You aren’t pregnant again, are you?”
“Do me a favor and smack yourself in the head,” she says. “You can’t ask if I’m pregnant every time I cry, Jesus Christ.”
“I don’t ask every time, I asked this time,” he says, shifting his arm when Max’s head lolls to the side to keep him upright, settling back against the headboard of their shared bed. “You’re not normally—”
Allison rolls her eyes and sighs. “The answer’s no,” she says. “I just—one of the girls at work just got engaged and we were talking and she mentioned it must be difficult for me to find a date because of Max and—” she stops abruptly and he sees her mouth tighten, jaw becoming more set.
“And me,” he says, pressing his nose down into Max’s hair. She’s never confirmed it, but he knows that the last guy she dated was uncomfortable with how close they were, with how often Derek was around.
“We’re a package deal,” she says stubbornly. “Just like if some miracle happens and you actually go outside your house and meet someone. You wouldn’t let anyone in who didn’t love Max—I’m not just going to throw you to the side, Derek. It doesn’t matter. I just let it get to me for some stupid reason.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and she shakes her head. Max is starting to become an uncomfortable dead weight against his arm and he tries to shift him back towards the center of his body, but he ends up sliding down in Derek’s lap and Allison laughs quietly on the other side of the screen. He needs to lay him down and get some sleep—Max is always up with the sun and Derek and his family have always preferred to sleep in—but he doesn’t want to hang up if Allison’s still upset. “Are you sure you don’t want to come out here? We can change our tickets—I can get you a flight out here, we can stay a few extra days and take the train back together.”
She hesitates for a moment and sighs. “Maybe—yeah. That would be nice. You don’t have to get me a flight, I’m perfectly capable. I’ll rearrange everything in the morning, I might be able to make it out there by tomorrow night. Thanks, Derek.”
He nods; it’s not like it’s a big deal, he’d do anything for Allison. Staying at his parent’s place for a few extra days is nothing. “Max doesn’t believe that you’ve been out here before, he keeps pointing out all the things you’d like,” he says with a grin. “Get ready to be reintroduced to McDonald’s.”
“You didn’t,” she groans. “You know how I feel about that.”
“I didn’t, but Dad did,” he says. “Apparently the food at the lodge wasn’t filling enough so Dad took him for a happy meal while he was supposed to be napping.”
Allison shakes her head. “Well, I knew I couldn’t keep it from him forever. As long as he’s happy. Did he do okay skiing?”
“He spent about an hour in the learning zone before Dad decided he’d have more fun on the inner tube,” he says. “He did pretty good, though. There was this guy on a snowboard that was painted like Elmo that he was obsessed with watching, so he and Dad spent some time playing in the snow near the jumps so he could see him.”
“Your Dad is so sweet with him,” Allison says. She falls silent and he takes a moment to set his phone down and shift Max onto the bed, carefully pulling the blanket up over him. He moves the phone so Allison can watch him sleep before pulling his shirt off and searching through his bag for his sweatpants. “Have you gotten any time to yourself since you’ve been there? You told me you wanted to head up there so that you could write and I know that Max doesn’t make that easy.”
“Yeah, Mom took him on her errands the other day so I had the place to myself, and I stayed here while they skied today,” he says, and doesn’t mention that he spent more time rereading Erica’s comments than anything else. He tugs his jeans off and unfolds his sweatpants, shaking them out before stepping into them and grabbing a new shirt. “I don’t know, it’s just not happening. Maybe I need a new idea.”
“Maybe you need a change of pace,” she says. “One of my interns was talking about a retreat she goes to every year—maybe that would be good for you. You know, no internet, no friends, no distractions. Just a place to sit and work and enjoy nature. I made a list of ones I thought you would like, I could email them to you. Most of them start in the fall but the applications are due at the end of the month.”
He picks the phone back up and slides into bed, tilting his head and pressing a kiss to Max’s temple when Max immediately rolls into his side. “Just happened to make a list, huh?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “Sure, send it over, it can’t hurt. You okay now? I need to sleep before this little guy decides it’s time to wake back up.”
“Yeah, I’m good,” she says, and blows him a kiss. “Love to you both. See you soon.”
“Love you too,” he says, and sets the phone on the nightstand without bothering to charge it when she hangs up. Sleep doesn’t come easy, though; he’s stuck repeating her words about not letting someone in if they didn’t accept her and Max on a loop, and finds his chest aches at the thought. As if the thought of going out to find someone who would put up with him wasn’t daunting enough, he hadn’t even considered that his relationship with Allison and Max would be a deterrent to a lot of people. When he’s still awake thirty minutes later, unable to shut his brain off, he picks his phone back up and taps on his email. If he can’t sleep, he might as well look at the retreat information Allison had sent.