NOW
Brooke Sinclair had always dreamed of seeing her words in print. Only, she thought, as she picked up the book at the sign-in table, she hadn’t pictured her client’s name on the cover, her own name buried inside a legally binding gag order.
She ran her thumb over the raised text of the author’s name and the letters singed her finger like they were cursed. Maybe that’s why they called it ghostwriting.
“Better hurry in, Suzi’s about to start the discussion.”
Brooke gave the check-in woman a tight smile and skirted the D-shaped atrium of McEwan Hall at the University of Edinburgh—her almost–alma mater.
The front of the auditorium might’ve been a cathedral with a two-story gilded organ filling the space, capped off by a bridge of windows under a carved arch. The soaring dome rivaled St. Peter’s Basilica, and three stories of balconies ringed the room. It felt like the type of place that would host a Shakespeare play instead of a signing for a book Brooke had written but could never mention.
The words that used to ricochet through her as she’d walked these prestigious halls were bestselling author and creative writing fellow. But as she made her way to the back of the gathering, try hard clanged around in Brooke’s mind.
She’d once thought she’d graduate in this room, even looked forward to sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair so long as she was clad in a cap and gown. Surely seven years was enough time for the resentment to fade, but as she stared up at the blue-tinged rose window at the center of the ceiling, surrounded by ornately carved wooden embellishments and murals mimicking the Italian classics, that bitterness in her chest prickled as strongly as ever.
Usually, she swelled with pride when she attended her authors’ events. She loved celebrating their stories and achievements from the audience. But there was something about being back on campus that prevented her from blocking out that voice that said these jobs were a far cry from what she’d set out to do. Like she’d left all her old dreams behind in these hallowed halls and they’d sucker punched her when she’d walked in the door.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t attempted to write her own stories in the intervening years. But Brooke froze up. Choked. Wrote such absolute garbage, she was surprised her computer didn’t self-destruct in an indignant display of disgust.
She’d been a shooting star who’d flamed out spectacularly. All that potential people had talked about her whole life…maybe it had never existed in the first place. It was easier to slip into someone else’s story, someone else’s voice, than to admit she’d lost her own.
Brooke made her way down the aisle, discreetly glancing around for her editor, Charlotte. Brooke only had enough bravado to make it through the signing, not to have one single conversation with anyone she’d known back then.
She’d overdone it with the makeup this morning, as if a heavy hand with a shimmery eye shadow stick could disguise her crumbled confidence. It didn’t, and Brooke was reminded of that sad fact every time she had to raise her eyebrows to unstick the crease of her eyelids.
By the time Brooke spotted Charlotte in the second row, her flight reflex was in full-on hummingbird mode under her sternum. Or maybe a mockingbird. Mourning dove? Regardless, it was taking up her entire chest cavity and not leaving any space for her lungs. She clenched her hands to get some blood back into them.
Charlotte stood and waved to Brooke, the bangles on her wrist glinting in the low light. She was chic as always, her black hair styled in a wavy pixie with an undercut, wearing gold hoop earrings and an indigo floral midi dress.
Brooke moved down the row and slipped into the empty seat next to Charlotte, who ran a hand lovingly over the book Brooke held. “It turned out so nicely, didn’t it?” she asked in her soothing Scottish accent.
“It’s stunning.” And it was. The colors were vibrant; the title was perfect. It was a cover anyone would be proud of. Brooke set the book on the ground, tilted against the wooden leg of the chair in front of her.
“How’s Mhairi’s
draft coming?” Charlotte asked.
The thought of Mhairi—her old writing professor turned friend—brought a smile to Brooke’s face.
“Great.”
A research university demands publications and Mhairi loved teaching, running workshops, and inspiring students, so she’d hired Brooke for various academic projects over the years—including her first ghostwriting job after everything imploded. When Brooke had felt shell-shocked and aimless, not wanting to return to the States, but not sure where she fit in in Edinburgh, Mhairi had sat her down at her kitchen table and given Brooke a project, a direction, and a new dream.
But this project was different. Mhairi’s memoir; the pinnacle of her publishing career.
And she’d given Brooke the single greatest thing anyone had ever offered her: a cowriting credit.
A second chance.
When Mhairi had first approached her, Brooke had blurted out, “You don’t need my help!” Mhairi was a phenomenal author. But when she’d explained more about the story—founding the eighty-mile Skye Trail with a group of hikers through the Trotternish Ridge and the Cuillin Mountains on the Isle of Skye—Brooke had stopped objecting.
She wanted to live in Mhairi’s memories, to get lost in her passion, in the way Mhairi reached for what she wanted and held on tight. Brooke remembered being that kind of wide-eyed dreamer, too, but while the world had slapped her down, Mhairi had thrived. She’d changed the world.
Getting to hear her story was a privilege, but writing it? That was an honor.
“I think we’ll have a draft to you by the end of the week.”
“I can’t wait to read it.” Charlotte clasped her hands together. “And as soon as you’re done, I heard a juicy rumor this morning about a celebrity memoir opportunity. I can’t share details yet, but I think you’d be the perfect ghostwriter for it.”
Brooke tried to muster the same thrill that always coursed up her spine at Charlotte’s faith in her, but like everything else today, it felt like a ghost of what it’d once been. “I would love to be considered. Thank you for thinking of me.”
“You’re the first person I’d call.”
Charlotte turned to speak with the woman on her left and Brooke willed the chatter in the room to settle on her shoulders like a weighted blanket instead of burrowing under her skin as she stared up into the balconies.
The first time she’d been up there had been Fresher’s Week ten years ago. Meant as an orientation for the University of Edinburgh, a time to get settled and buy books, Fresher’s Week was, in reality, a five-day pub crawl. Brooke had been delighted that she could legally drink at eighteen while her high school friends were getting MIPs at frat parties back in the States.
That night, she’d come to the ceilidh and met Kieran and Chels. They’d twirled around to the sound of fiddles and stomping and when they'd
been too sweaty to carry on, they’d retreated to the balcony to drink from Kieran’s flask. He’d reclined in the maroon seats while Chels had heckled dancers from above and Brooke had had the sense she was falling in love, that she’d met her soulmates.
Another memory in that balcony floated to her, hidden in the dark, warm lips pressed close to her ear with whispered promises and stolen touches.
The pads of her fingertips caught in the seam of the wooden chair, as if her body was trying to physically hold her back from that particular memory lane. She wasn’t thinking about Jack today.
The people in her aisle shifted while an older white man made his way to the empty seat next to Brooke. Charlotte leaned forward with a broad smile on her face. “So glad you could join us.” She gestured for him to take the seat next to Brooke while Brooke’s heart attempted to climb the balustrade and throw itself from the balcony.
The dean of the English Department.
She made a quick calculation of how easily she could hurdle over Charlotte’s lap and how many steps it would take to reach the women’s bathroom. She figured it was about thirty. Completely within dashing range.
But Brooke wasn’t a coward. She rolled her shoulders back, ignoring the way her pulse had spread all the way down to her fingertips. She would show him she couldn’t even remember the tiny dash of pity on his face, completely overshadowed by judgment, when Brooke had walked into his office seven years ago.
“Brooke Sinclair, this is my dear friend, Thomas Campbell.”
Brooke dragged her eyes up to the dean’s. He looked exactly the same: white button-up and tie under his maroon sweater vest, full white beard, bushy eyebrows, wire glasses. He gave her a warm smile and reached out a hand. “Pleasure to meet you,” he said in his low burr.
Brooke deflated like a popped bag of chips. He didn’t even recognize her. As if that day didn’t haunt his literal dreams like it did hers. As if his decision that’d caused an inflection point of catastrophic proportions in Brooke’s life didn’t weigh on him at all.
God, would she even recognize herself? She felt so far from the girl she’d been—so optimistic, so sure things would simply work out because she willed them to.
Brooke could only nod in response and shake his clammy hand. Where was Kieran’s flask when she needed it?
“How do you two know each other?” Dean Campbell asked, ever the networker.
“She’s one of my
writers,” Charlotte said before Brooke could fumble for an answer. “She’s fabulous.” Charlotte placed a comforting hand on Brooke’s shoulder. She already loved Charlotte, but would now gladly give her a kidney for heaping praise on her in front of the dean.
“Oh, wonderful,” Dean Campbell said with a broad grin. “Anything I’ve read?”
Brooke bristled at the question, clenching her teeth. Ghostwriting was a job of secrets—but not the fun kind like working for the CIA. She usually skirted this question, but she wanted to yell, Yes, I wrote this book! and wave it around under his nose. She wanted to revel in knowing that he knew how far she’d gone despite him. But she couldn’t. Not with Charlotte sitting right next to her.
But there was one book she could talk about. “I’m cowriting Professor McCallister’s memoir right now, actually.” Brooke savored the way his eyebrows went up, in tandem with his stock in her.
Suzi walked onto the grand stage, her heels clicking until she made it to the plush rug and taupe armchair situated in the center. She set the copy of her travel memoir—a Costa Rican Eat, Pray, Love—on the little side table and tapped the microphone, the resulting feedback screeching through the room.
Brooke winced, partly from the noise and partly to brace herself against the words she was sure Suzi would throw around about a labor of love and finding the right words to tell her story, and Brooke would sit in the audience and no one would ever know about the painstaking effort and details she’d poured into those pages.
Oh, how the mighty had fallen.
THEN
Tripping over cobblestones, Brooke, Chels, and Kieran made their tipsy way across Edinburgh’s lamplit old town. Kieran’s older brother’s house parties were legendary and they’d pregamed accordingly.
Kieran and Chels took almost nothing seriously, especially a costume party. He was in a red shirt with a sign around his neck reading Netflix and Chels wore athletic pants and a tank top with a matching Chill sign, even though they’d immediately part ways—Kieran to the beer pong table and Chels to the dance floor.
Chels hooked one arm around Brooke’s neck. “I’m so glad you’re coming with us,” she squealed in her posh English accent, raising Kieran’s flask in the air and bumping her fake glasses off kilter. Brooke snatched the flask before Chels spilled it and tossed back a burning swig.
“Classes haven’t started yet. She’s no excuse to miss it,” Kieran said.
“You’re making it sound like I lock myself in the library.” Sure, Brooke was driven—she had a scholarship to maintain and the world to impress—but with friends like these two, there were always shenanigans going on in the periphery.
Kieran quirked an eyebrow at Brooke and she crossed her arms in indignation and also to combat the September wind cutting through her black hoodie, stealing away the warmth from her whisky-fueled alcohol jacket. “Not all of us can descend into a caffeine haze and learn an entire term’s worth of material during revision week,” Brooke defended.
Chels and Kieran always emerged as zombies from exams and proceeded to sleep for ten days straight. Brooke worked hard for her grades. And she wasn’t graduating this spring and getting into the summer writing fellowship Professor McCallister—her favorite author and all-around idol—hosted by slacking off.
“That’s literally what revision week is for. Why else would they give it to us?” Kieran asked, jumping over bike racks and hollering into the night. If he and his brother, Rohan, had been American, they’d be Philadelphia sports fans, for sure.
By the time they made it to Rohan’s new flat, the party was in full swing. A heavy bass line reverberated in the stairwell and people spilled out onto the landing.
“Alright, overachiever.” Kieran pulled his flask out of Brooke’s hand midsip.
“Hey!” Brooke wiped away the whisky dribbling over her chin as she followed Chels into the humid living room—cleared of its furniture to make space for the crush of dancers, string lights hanging at the top of the tall ceiling. The electropop beat of Calvin Harris’s “Summer” pulsed so loudly through the oversize speakers, Brooke was surprised the neighbors hadn’t called in a noise violation yet. Rohan must’ve invited his football team, all their fans, and the entire building.
Chels punched her hand above her head to the rhythm, weaving through the crowd and towing Brooke behind her. She bumped against a guy dressed as Deadpool, a lumberjack, and a human piñata wrapped in fuchsia, yellow, and green fringed paper as they made their way toward the kitchen.
Crammed in with so many sweaty bodies, Brooke was sweltering. She pushed up the sleeves of her black hoodie and unzipped it so the low V of her black bra was almost showing. She felt bold tonight.
A loud pop sounded and silver confetti rained down to the screaming delight of the party. A beach ball bejeweled like a disco ball bounced around the room and Brooke reached up to hit it back into the air.
The night was awash with possibility. Like they might end up at the beach or climbing onto the roof, but either way, they’d have a story to tell.
Chels twirled her around and pulled Brooke in close, scream-whispering in her ear, “Jazz is here!” before heading into the middle of the dance floor toward her on-again crush.
Chels’s peer pressure was the only thing keeping her dancing. As Brooke made to leave, she nearly collided with Rohan, dressed in a red-and-white-striped shirt, red ski hat, and glasses. At six foot two, it was the easiest Where’s Waldo? she’d ever played.
“You made it!” he shouted over the noise in the room. He had all the dark-eyed beauty of his Indian mother and his Scottish father’s penchant for mayhem; he and Kieran were a duo of charismatic menaces.
Rohan pulled Brooke into the kitchen and twirled her under his arm. “Meet my new flatmate.” She spun and stumbled, hand landing against a frilly pirate shirt over a hard chest.
“This is Brooke.”
She steadied herself and looked up at Rohan’s roommate with a half-formed apology and a smile that got a bit lost when her eyes found his dark ones locked on her, framed with eyelashes that put her mascara to shame, a shadow under his full bottom lip.
He blinked twice, pulled off the skull-and-crossbones patch covering one lens of his tortoiseshell glasses, and slipped it into his pocket.
“Captain,” Brooke said breathlessly.
A sexy half smile stretched across his face and spread through her like a vodka shot. He held out his hand. “I’m Jack.”
“Sparrow?” She slipped her hand into his—warm, gentle, lingering.
“Sutherland.”
“And here I thought you were the real deal,” she teased.
Rohan placed a red cup in front of her and she dropped Jack’s hand; she’d forgotten Rohan was there. Brooke hooked a thumb in his direction. “Bold move living with this one,” she said to Jack, then tipped her head. “Or do you not know that yet?”
Rohan let out a full-throated laugh but Jack’s was a low, rumbly thing that tugged at her stomach.
“I’m aware of the antics.” His eyes didn’t leave her face and she couldn’t help tracking the bow of his lip and the curve of his glasses where they rested against his cheeks.
“We play footie together,” Rohan added before turning to welcome a woman with a pink pixie cut dressed like Tinker Bell, wrapping her in a hug and lifting her off her feet.
It’d been a grave tactical error declining all of Rohan’s invitations to his matches. If Jack was this good-looking as a pirate, he’d be devastating in joggers.
He tweaked the black felt ear safety-pinned on her hood. “And what are you supposed to be?”
“An I-Don’t-Care Bear, clearly,” she said, gesturing to the white circle in the middle of her stomach housing a pot leaf, a storm cloud, and a middle finger she’d drawn herself.
Jack broke into a full-fledged smile and the brightness was enough to turn her into an I-Care-A-Whole-Fucking-Lot Bear.
“Clever,” he said, and in a lifetime of wanting to be the best, Brooke had never enjoyed hearing that quite so much.
A guy torpedoed
in, wrapping Jack in a headlock and chanting, “Beer pong! Beer pong!”
Jack scuffled, attempting to knock the guy’s feet out from under him, and Brooke took a step back. The other guy seemed to anticipate Jack’s hook maneuver and remained upright. He held out his free hand to Brooke, his brown hair curling into his eyes, while Jack twisted uselessly under his arm. “I’m Logan.”
Brooke looked to Jack who stilled and heaved out a defeated sigh. “My brother.”
“Oh. Hi,” Brooke said with a laugh and took Logan’s hand.
Jack landed a heel on the top of Logan’s foot; Logan yelped and released the hold. Jack’s eyes were hot on her, as if he didn’t like her attention on his brother, and it sent a thrill through her stomach.
“Where’s Rohan?” Logan asked. Brooke scanned the busy kitchen and found him making out with the pink-haired girl sitting on the counter.
When Brooke turned back to Jack, he arched an eyebrow at her. “It looks as if I’m in need of a beer pong partner.”
“Wait just a minute.” Logan held his hand up between them. “How good are you?”
“There’s a lot riding on this,” Jack said, crossing his arms. “Two decades of competitive spirit and bragging rights.” He lifted a hand to shield his mouth and mock-whispered, “Say ‘Abysmal.’”
She bit back a smile and told Logan, “Totally average,” when in fact, she was fantastic. She didn’t do things she wasn’t damn good at.
Logan eyed her skeptically, but she was pulled back to Jack’s dark gaze.
“She’s it,” Jack said.
The heat flaring in her chest and spreading into her cheeks was better than any spark she’d read about in a book. Brooke smiled a too-wide smile as she followed Jack farther into the dimly lit kitchen, tracking the stretch of his shirt over his back muscles and noticing the way he cracked his knuckles down by his side.
A redheaded woman in sunglasses and a flamingo floaty racked cups on the far side next to Logan.
Jack handed Brooke a warm beer she immediately cracked and started pouring. He stood beside her, arm brushing hers as he poured his beer. Excitement fizzed in her like the bubbles inside the can.
“Now, you don’t have to worry about Logan. He can’t aim for shit when he’s pissed,” Jack explained, pouring the last of his beer into a red cup.
Logan threw a Ping-Pong ball at Jack that went wide and Jack caught it with a self-satisfied smirk. He turned around and leaned against the table, tipping his head in closer, as if it was of the utmost importance that he give Brooke every strategic advantage. “But Elyse, she gets better the more she drinks.”
The red-haired girl curtsied, holding out an imaginary skirt.
“Unless she gets overconfident,” Logan reminded her, making keep-your-eye-on-the-prize fingers at her.
Jack handed Brooke the Ping-Pong ball for her to start the game. With an easy flick of her wrist, she sank the first shot.
“Falsification!”
Logan shouted.
Jack turned a crinkly-eyed smile on her. “Well, you appear to be perfect.”
She glowed under his praise and gave a casual one-shoulder shrug. “I introduced Rohan to this game.” She’d taught everyone in their first-year dorm, and like anything competitive and belligerent, Kieran and Rohan had immediately taken to it.
“Ah, so you’re the American responsible for this preposterous kitchen table.”
Brooke smiled. “You said you knew what you were getting into.”
“I fear I’m not at all sure what I’m getting into,” Jack said as Logan’s Ping-Pong ball dropped into the beer. Jack picked up the cup, chugging, and slammed it back on the table with a devilish grin. “I have a new house rule,” he said.
“You just moved in.”
His eyes were bright and dancing. “For every ball we sink, we have to tell each other something about ourselves.”
It was intoxicating, him wanting to know her. And she desperately wanted to know more about him, too.
“Aye, aye,” she said with a pirate salute, and sank her next shot. She leaned against the table, studying the slight flush along the open neck of his shirt, while she thought of something interesting to tell him.
“I’m dying to know. Whatever you’re going to say.”
“I know how to gut a fish.”
Jack’s eyes twinkled as a smile bloomed across his face. “You’re going to be full of surprises. I can tell already.”
Jack sank his next ball and Brooke looked expectantly at him. He glanced up to the ceiling and his lips pushed to the side like he couldn’t think of anything.
“Dig deep,” she said, and his eyebrows furrowed dramatically.
He looked at her from under those long eyelashes. “I can play a rousing rendition of ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ on the piano.”
Brooke broke out in a laugh, reveled in the glow that seemed to cling to the edges around them.
When Elyse sank the next ball, Brooke drank, wiping the beer foam from her mouth with the back of her finger, and Jack’s eyes followed the motion.
Brooke and Elyse were well matched in skill—and competitiveness—and a group of guys huddled around the table, cheering. A crowd usually elevated Brooke’s performance, but it was hard to focus with Jack this close. There were too many people in the room, too much alcohol in the air, too much heat coming off his body. Her head felt lighter and lighter as they played and the music pulsed as if it emanated from inside her chest.
On Brooke’s next turn, she made her shot and said, “I’m excellent at Balderdash. Using the right amount of detail to sound believable. I’m
a writer,” she added, volunteering more information than he’d asked for, her filter most likely lost on the walk over.
“It just so happens, I’m an excellent reader.”
Earlier that night, while riffling through Brooke’s closet for a costume, Chels had said, “When you’re a famous author, sitting in your cottage by the sea, trying to write the next great American novel—from Scotland, of course—you’re not going to have anything to write about if you don’t live.”
The image Chels had painted of that cottage Brooke absolutely coveted and the blinking black line in a blank document she deeply feared, had settled on her with the heft of a typewriter.
But now, looking at Jack as he ran his knuckles across his chin, his eyes soft and engaged, Brooke had to breathe through the lightness in her chest like there was simultaneously too much and too little oxygen in there. Like she could fill pages and pages with the sparks crackling between them.
He continued to brush against her arm as they played, holding her gaze while he tipped back cups, and cheering her on. He was a terrible player, but Logan was drunk and considerably worse.
When Brooke sank the last ball, Jack turned and gave her a double high-five, his fingers slipping between hers, a bright smile lighting her up. He said something and she wasn’t sure if she couldn’t hear over the noise in the kitchen or because she was so distracted by the movement of his lips.
She leaned in closer. “What?”
He yelled something she couldn’t make out. But she wanted to know more. Wanted to live more.
She yelled back, “Can we go someplace quieter?” ...
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