Chapter 12

NEIL

Neil watched Skinner over his laptop. Her tongue stuck out of the corner of her lips; her brows pinched together, eyes narrowed as she tapped away. It was almost violent, the way she wrote. She attacked her keyboard with an energy that was frightening, a kitten pouncing on a toy mouse.

"Pen," Laszlo called. Skinner didn't look up. "Earth to Penelope Skinner? Okay, I'm starting the next one." Laszlo clicked the timer on his phone and motioned for them to begin.

Neil returned his attention to his screen, the sensor flashing in time with his heartbeat. This again. He needed to write , put something, anything down. Last night, he hadn't managed to write a single word, and writing retreats were for writing, weren't they? Neil stared at his laptop as the rest of the table began typing, and his eyes flicked over them. Their fingers moved confidently over the keys in a rhythmic tap-tap-tap .

Even Daniela, who'd complained loudly about not wanting to think, was writing, her eyes zeroed in on the words across her screen. But not Neil. There was nothing in that little head of his.

"Done!" Laszlo said, pulling him from his thoughts.

Neil's heart was in his throat as the others stretched and yawned, shaking out their fingers as if in those ten minutes of writing they'd written an entire fucking book. Fuck, this was not looking good for Neil. Blinking, he focused on his screen. He didn't know what he'd expected, but it was blank, still blank. How in the hell had he managed not to write a single word? His focus drifted back to Skinner, and suddenly he knew why he was so goddamn distracted. Her—she was doing this to him.

Laszlo restarted the timer before standing and crossing to the counter, refilling his coffee. Daniela followed suit, searching through the fridge and cabinets for snacks and breakfast. Despite his growling stomach, Neil didn't get up. Neither did Skinner.

Taking a sip of his now lukewarm coffee, Neil found himself drawn to her like a magnet. She was still seated before her laptop, hands stretched out over the keyboard, mouth parted slightly, just enough to make him trail its bow shape. Swallowing, he searched her expression for any hint of what she was feeling. There were words on her computer, he could see them reflected in her glasses, but there weren't many.

He watched, mystified, as she reached over her keyboard and deleted them. They disappeared one by one until her document went blank.

Sighing, she slumped in her seat, curling in on herself.

"Why'd you delete them?" he asked.

Her head shot up, gray eyes meeting his. "What?" She flipped her braid over her shoulder, exposing her neck and making the words stick in his throat.

"The words," he croaked. He cleared his throat and waved a hand at her computer. "You deleted the words."

She scrunched up her nose, and leaning forward, folded her arms on the table and rested her head on them. Her voice was muffled as she said, "They weren't good."

"But they're still words," Neil argued. He didn't understand. He never edited as he wrote, instead preferring to write as much as possible in one go and tear the draft apart later. First drafts were never good, that was the point. Write the book and fill in the flesh of the story later.

She sat up, sighing again. Skinner sighed often, soft exhales marking her annoyance, her exhaustion. Strangely, he found he rather liked the sound.

Skinner shook her head. "Most of the time, I try not to erase anything until the second draft. Sometimes, I can move the words to another spot entirely, and reuse them in different contexts. But those words," she said, pointing to the screen, "they were terrible. Sometimes, it's best not to write at all than to write terribly."

He narrowed his eyes, leaning forward. "Do you have any hobbies?"

"Not really, just reading."

"Okay," he drawled, tapping the table, and thinking. "If I played, say, the piano—"

"You would play the piano."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," she snorted, waving her hand at him. "Continue."

"If I played piano, and I only practiced when I felt like it, do you think I would get better?" She opened her mouth to respond, but he held up a hand, leaning closer. "If we only practice things when we are good, we'll never get good . You have to dig through the nasty before you can get to the good."

Skinner watched him for a long moment, and Neil squirmed under her scrutiny.

"You're oddly good at pep talks."

Neil smiled, the comment oddly warming. "I know. It's because I practiced."

"You're not good at being humble."

He frowned. "I know you think I'm some big shot or something, but I promise, it's never been easy. I'm not this confident guy you've made me out to be. I'm constantly second guessing myself, watching everything I do to see when I'll fail because I know I will."

Skinner stared blankly up at him, her expression inscrutable. He squirmed under her attention, and she said nothing as the others rejoined them, mugs refilled, snacks piled in their arms. Neil wished she'd sigh again. But Skinner didn't look at him as Laszlo tapped the timer on his phone.

"Begin!" he called.

This time, Neil tried.

Though his speech had been gallant, and he'd meant what he'd said, sometimes there were no good words. Neil could be inspired, and still, nothing he wrote was worth the breath. He deleted and retyped the same sentence in six different variations:

She ran through the halls. Ran through the halls she did. And so, she ran. Through the halls. She galloped through the halls. She ran fast through the halls. She ran through the halls.

Neil glared at his screen. He was neither Yoda nor a horse, and he was certain both the first and the last iteration were the same. He'd tried, oh, he'd tried. Neil had thought if he switched the words around, if he found the correct path of the action, it would suddenly be okay. The story would flow from him like some unstopped dam of creativity, but that's not how these things worked.

In the end, there was still no plot, no characters, just a vague action and a vague girl running (or galloping) through the halls. He had no story, no sense of a plot. Neil was, once again, lost.

Failed, he'd failed again.

Laszlo's phone beeped, the round of ten minutes up.

"You can't be serious," Neil whispered.

Laszlo clapped him on the shoulder as he stood and stretched, walking away to join Daniela at the counter.

And again, only Neil and Skinner remained seated. He didn't want to meet her eyes, for her to know he'd failed so miserably, but he couldn't help the magnetic pull. His attention was locked on her.

"How'd you fare?" he asked, grimacing.

She scratched her scalp with both hands, mussing her hair. "Terrible, it was terrible." She narrowed her eyes, angling her chair toward him. "And you? How did the great, magnificent Neil Storm fare?"

He winced in turn. He did not deserve the title of "magnificent." He probably never did. It was likely the self-pity, the doubt, but there was nothing magnificent about him in the least, especially not now.

"I've been better."

She made a soft sound, her eyes not quite meeting his.

Neil thought back to his words in the ruins. What had he told her? He'd said something along the lines of "every writer struggles," insinuating that he was struggling. And to make it worse, last night he'd laid it all out for her, been the most open he'd ever been with… anyone. And what had she done? She'd turned him away. Grinding his teeth, Neil leaned forward conspiratorially.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked, voice low.

Skinner narrowed her eyes but inched closer. She was so close, in fact, that he could smell her, that fresh, sweet scent of her shampoo lingering in the space between them. Neil couldn't help but remember how she'd felt, how she had moved under him, against him as he'd bent toward her and cupped her face at the ruins. His hand gripped the edge of the table tightly as he fought the urge to touch her.

"What?" she asked.

She pulled out a nondescript tube of lip balm and rolled it over her lips, puckering them as she pocketed it.

He blinked, his thoughts trailing off as he stared across the table at her. "What?" he repeated numbly.

Skinner laughed weakly. "Um, you said you were going to ask me something?"

Neil frowned. He had said that, hadn't he? Whatever it was, it must not have been too important, because he suddenly found himself captivated by her lips. And her hair. And her eyes, which glared across the table at him as he floundered.

"Are we done?" she asked, standing and closing her laptop.

"Yeah," Daniela said, stretching. "I could do with a break."

"Be back here in an hour for the next exercise!" Everyone stopped and turned to Laszlo. "Fine," he relented. "Three hours!" he called as Skinner fled and Daniela sauntered off.

Neil didn't leave, his nails tapping against the table as he stared across at the empty chair where she'd been sitting. His emotions swirled, dipping and tumbling. Emotions were annoying. This whole thing was so goddamn annoying.

Laszlo touched his shoulder gently, making him jump. His tall friend pulled back and smiled down at Neil. "Are you okay, Neil?"

He shivered and closed his laptop. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Probably just need to walk around a bit." He smiled up at him as he pushed back his chair to stand, but it rocked backward, sending him sprawling across the floor.

Neil struggled to sit up, shoving aside the chair with a string of obscenities. Laughing, Laszlo held out a hand for him, and he took it, cheeks flaming. Neil glared up at Laszlo, at the phone in his friend's hand.

"Did you take a picture?" he asked, suspicious. "Did you just take a picture of me?"

Laszlo shrugged, pocketing his phone. "Maybe I took a video. Who knows."

" You know, Laszlo. Please delete it."

"I don't have a clue what you're referring to."

"Not a word to anyone," Neil said, moving past Laszlo. "I better not see that picture… or video circulating anywhere."

"I make no promises, Neil Storm! We all need a bit of good blackmail from time to time."

Neil grumbled to himself as he turned down the hall and strode away. Fuck, he felt so lost. Maybe he just needed some time to himself. Yeah, that ought to do the trick. He needed to get his emotions under control and stop thinking about Penelope Skinner.

The others had dispersed throughout the castle, and Neil followed in their tracks, meandering lazily down the long hall. He wandered past creepy paintings and eerily watchful busts, pausing in the foyer to regard the painting of the woman in black. She looked almost regal up there, chin tilted just so, every hair in place. Her gray-blue eyes seemed to follow him as he took two steps to his right.

"Holy shit," he cursed, tilting his head this way and that. There was something uncanny in her narrowed glare. Had it been her in the hall? The more Neil thought about it, the more he believed there was merit to Fanny's words about a woman lost in this castle for all time. Neil shuddered and pivoted down the hall and into the study, shaking off the feeling as he took in the room. It looked different in the light of day, less morose with the sun blaring in through the tall windows.

As Neil crossed to the large desk, he heard what sounded like a whisper along his neck and the shell of his ear. His head whipped around, eyes scanning the room and the hall beyond, but there was no one.

"Hello?"

Nothing. Of course, it was nothing. He was alone in here.

His lips pressed into a thin line, Neil hurried toward the bookcases in the back. Toward the light—if he could get toward the light of the large windows, everything would be fine because ghosts in this castle seemed to prefer the night. Ghosts didn't like daytime, right? They liked darkness and shadows. Things just didn't go bump in the day.

Refocusing, his fingers danced across the spines, eyes scanning over the titles and authors. Fanny was right, these books were almost all newer. Neil could see the line where the shelves and the books had been repaired or replaced by crisper tomes.

But as he scanned, he heard it again, that soft whisper across his skin, so loud it was as if someone gasped it in his ear: Archie . Neil jumped as a red book landed on the ground behind him.

Almost like it had been thrown.

Or pushed.

Or worse, pulled .

Glancing around, Neil stooped and lifted it carefully from the floor, holding it delicately in his hands as he turned it over. It was brick red, the leather cover and spine seemingly empty of its title or author. Frowning, he flipped through the pages, recognizing the neat handwriting.

"This is the same journal," he murmured, standing. The same one that had fallen at his feet last night. The one he'd put back before truth or dare, as if it were nothing.

He turned through the pages, eyes going wide as he stopped on an entry, his finger shakily tracing the name "Archie."

And then he heard it again, clearer this time: Archie .

A feminine voice, raspy and aching.

Neil's phone buzzed. He slammed the book shut and tossed it behind him in surprise. Heart beating frantically, he pulled out his phone, eyes narrowed at the name across his screen. He could ignore it, pretend he didn't have service in this abandoned corner of Scotland, but she was known to call and call until he answered. His agent did not give up so easily.

Puffing out his cheeks, he settled on the arm of the couch and swiped the screen up. "Hey, Tabitha."

"How's my favorite client?" she asked, voice extra perky.

"You say that to all your clients."

A pause. "Yeah, you got me there. Listen," she said, speeding up, "you know how I am with phone calls."

"Hate 'em," they said in unison.

Tabitha laughed. "I just wanted to check in and see how you are." A pause. Neil rolled his eyes, focusing on the red book he'd tossed on the floor. "You aren't answering my emails," Tabitha chided. "I haven't heard from you in months, Neil. I wouldn't call if I weren't worried."

"Tabitha," he said, leaning back, "I'm fine."

Another pause.

"We both know that's not true."

He sighed, tugging on his curls. "Just because I haven't written anything new doesn't mean I'm struggling." He waved his hand in the air. "I have a TV show in the works, for crying out loud. Everything is on track."

"But no new work."

"I just turned in my copyedits for On the Backs of My Ancestors, " Neil hissed.

"Yes," she drawled, "a book you sold as an option three years ago."

There it was: the truth. No books. His creativity had been sponged from a floor covered in the guts of his stories, and he was hungry for scraps. For anything, really. He was starved for creativity.

"Neil," she said softly.

"Tabitha, I've got this figured out."

A third pause.

"I heard Penelope Skinner is there."

"How on earth—" Gritting his teeth, he lowered his voice, glancing toward the hall. "How do you know that?" he demanded.

"Eh, just have an inkling—"

"Tabitha."

"Daniela Mitchel, okay!" She sighed into the phone. "She's been posting nonstop since you arrived. I spotted Skinner in the background. Including," she said, voice raised, "photos of your trip to the castle."

Neil squeezed his eyes shut, running a hand over his face. Of course Daniela had posted about it. He'd seen her a few times with her phone, snapping selfies, typing furiously across the small screen.

He just hadn't known she'd included him and Skinner.

"Tabitha," he started.

"Neil," she snapped on the other end of the line. It was coming; it always was. He braced himself. "This could be good! No one has seen you two together since Book Con—"

"Listen," he started, switching his phone to his other ear as he crossed to the journal and snatched it off the floor. "I'm working on something, and it's going great. I just need to get together a proposal; a synopsis and a few chapters."

He hoped it would turn out great, hell, he hoped it would turn out at all. At this rate, he had maybe two sentences to work off of and it involved a girl running through a fucking hall.

"You are? What are you working on?"

Neil searched the room, scanning the bookshelves. "A period piece."

"You know how they feel about period pieces. I thought we talked about this. You said you were going to work on that gruesome horror you told me about instead. The one with the antlers?"

Neil worked his jaw, eyes skimming over the room once more, taking in the upholstery, and the décor. "I'm thinking gothic, so around early to mid-nineteenth century."

"Thinking about? Neil, have you or have you not started it?"

"Tabitha." He dropped the book on the desk and pinched the bridge of his nose, tamping down his anger. "We already talked about this. I'm writing the gothic."

"They don't want a period piece from you, Neil. We already tried."

"Then let's workshop it! My sales are stellar. We could go to another publisher, someone open to something new."

Even he knew it was futile. After the Incident, he'd approached Tabitha with a book he loved that he'd shelved previously. When they were happy with it, they'd prepped the proposal, then sent it to his publisher. It didn't take long for them to send back the dreaded "no." His ideas were too niche, or not original enough in an already crowded market. Not to mention, Neil Storm was a brand .

But what if his brand wasn't working for him? Neil had once turned down a path full of untold stories, Native characters, and hard truths, and publishing had steered him down another. He wished he'd seen the signs. And now, he was tired of catering to everyone else, of feeling like his books no longer deserved their spots on shelves when people like Penelope Skinner were writing from their hearts.

If he didn't get his shit together fast, it would be his first time in six years uncontracted. It made him feel like a failure. His newest book, On the Backs of My Ancestors, was set to release in nine months. After the last rejection, Neil was beginning to wonder how much more he had in him at this pace. Authors used to take their time and space out their releases, but if an author wanted to stay relevant in the modern era, a book a year had become the new minimum, and he just didn't have it in him.

"You have a contract, Neil. And you have a reputation at this publisher. Do you really want to burn that bridge?"

He sighed, tilting back his head. "I've gotta go, Tabitha."

"Neil—" she began, tone serious.

"I'll check in with you after the retreat," he promised before swiping down the screen and ending the call. He pocketed his phone and turned to go, then paused. Skinner stood a foot away, her eyes going from the book on the desk to him.

How much had she heard?

"Skinner," he said, tone resigned.

She crossed to the desk and picked up the journal, ignoring him.

"You know," she said, "my eyes kept going to this on the shelf."

Neil stepped closer, drawn to it.

Drawn to her .

"There's something about it, right?" he asked quietly.

She nodded as he stopped before her. Skinner leaned against the desk, the red journal in her hands, messy braid spilling over her shoulder. She didn't look up at Neil until he was a few inches away, his hand reaching for it.

His thumb brushed over the back of her hand as he took the journal. Suddenly, this close, he wanted to ask her about the night before. Neil wanted to know about the manuscript. He wanted to ask if she'd even read it, or if his apology was worthless at this point.

But every question, every word seemed to fail him as she stared up at him, expression carefully blank. His eyes were glued to her lips once more, to the freckle just to the left of them, so clearly the first thing he could think to blurt was, "Were you writing about cheese earlier?"

She stared at him, taken aback. "I'm sorry, what?"

What the hell, Neil? he thought. He wanted to hit himself in the head and tape his mouth closed before he said anything else absurd. But he couldn't seem to stop himself.

Neil cleared his throat, empty hand sliding into his front pocket. "I could see your screen reflected in your glasses." Creepy, he warned himself, that's kind of creepy, Neil. He shrugged, thoughts scrambling even as he continued, "I thought I saw cheese."

Blushing, she snatched the journal from his hand and slipped it under her arm, storming across the study.

"Fucking cheese," she cursed as she disappeared down the hall.

Neil went to the nearest bookcase and knocked his head into the shelf, eyes squeezed tight. He'd had the chance of a lifetime to say the things and do the things, but all the things had gone right out the window when the time came.

He had never been good at things .

Not that he'd had a lot of time to think about any of those things, seeing as how twelve hours ago he and Penelope Skinner had been rivals—no, not rivals, enemies, and oh, how twelve hours could change everything. The things he was beginning to feel for her were new and confusing, but Neil could not deny the fact that those very feelings were there, waiting for their chance to shine.

If only he could speak like a normal person.

"Yeah, because cheese is really sexy, " he muttered, covering his face.

What an embarrassment.