The Chase and the Catch

Chapter 1 Brilliant sunlight shot daggers of pain into John’s eyes and he fumbled for his sunglasses with one hand, blocking with the other, as if, somehow, a single leather-gloved hand would do any good against the assault. Snow had fallen the previous night, and everything gleamed with the lustre of freshly polished silver. The parking lot was a postcard-worthy image of pristine white surfaces surrounded by burdened evergreen branches and puff-capped fence posts—the kind of scene that a year prior would have found John dragging out his tablet, inspired into tapping words about flush-cheeked kiddies or curiously joyful rodents. Now the view just made him want to growl about delays and inconveniences. “Did you call ahead?” John adjusted his sunglasses, flipped up his collar, and thumbed at the dash of the car. “Yeah. No flight delays. Pop the trunk, will you?” When his sister didn’t react, John tilted his head and sighed. “What?” She didn’t hesitate, but then Jenna never did. With everyone in his life still treating him like he was going to explode into a million shards of anxiety every time he opened his mouth, Jenna could be counted on to speak when she felt like she needed to. And even the times when she just damn well wanted to. “You don’t have to do this.” “Actually, no, I really do.” He worked up a smile. “I mean, I could drive, but the weather’s kind of shitty and it would take me something like thirty-five hours.” “I don’t mean the flying and you know it.” Jenna snagged his jacket when John reached for the door handle. “You don’t have to run off and do this. The writing will come back to you when you’re ready. Since when does a person trade poetry and romance for scribbling down some guy’s autobiography?” John held up a finger. “Biography. My perspective. An autobiography would be—” “What the f**k ever. Don’t change the subject. Let’s just say that this does end up being a good thing for your career.” She caught his gaze when he looked up with another smile and pursed her lips. “It won’t be. But regardless. Why do you have to go down there? Why can’t you do it like a normal twenty-first century human being and use Skype? Or you know, the telephone? Why do you have to be a billion miles away from home? I can’t be the only one who thinks this isn’t the smartest idea you’ve ever come up with. You haven’t exactly been…” She tapped her temple. “Well.” John rolled his eyes and drew a snort of disgust through his nostrils in the extended, too loud way that he knew drove her crazy. Jenna’s grip tightened into a fist. “Seriously. I’ve done some research on this guy, John—” “Really?” John feigned absolute shock. “Me too! Weird…” “I’m just not sure you’ve thought this all the way through. The guy can be an asshole. Self-centered, pompous—” He disengaged Jenna’s fingers from his coat, placed her hand on the seat, and patted the back of it. “I’m sure his fans would disagree. As a matter of fact, most of them would have you drawn and quartered for even daring to think such a thing.” “I couldn’t give a single f**k about any of his fans.” Her fingertips began to play a beat on the vinyl seat. “I care about you. And you already feel bad enough without immersing yourself into the life of a narcissist—” John whistled through his teeth. “Harsh.” “Read the blogs.” John rolled his eyes and snapped the handle of the door. The onslaught of cold air was immediate. A good thing, John decided. It would get him out of the car that much faster if Jenna was shivering like a Chihuahua. “I’ve read the blogs. And I’ve read his Twitter and stalked his Tumblr and, and, and. He’s interesting. There’s a good story hidden behind that damn mask he’s been wearing for the last decade, and I want to be the one to dig it out.” “You write romance—” “No.” John drew himself out of the car and then turned back to lock up their eyes. “I write. Plain and simple. Now, please, pop the trunk. Because if I miss this flight due to the fact that you’re holding my luggage hostage, I swear to God that I will make you pay for the next one. First class, nonetheless.” He shut the door with a solid swing and walked to the back of the car to wait for the latch to release. The sound of the trunk popping was almost simultaneous with the clunk of the driver’s door opening. “You call every day,” Jenna said, rounding the car, the high heels of her boots managing to click soundly even through the layer of snow. “I mean every f*****g day.” John dragged two suitcases out of the car and nodded at the open trunk. “I will. Get that for me, please?” She ignored the trunk to worry her hands against one another. “And take your medication.” “I haven’t been on meds for weeks now.” It was somewhat of a lie, but John soothed himself with the thought that the statement was mostly true. He still took the sleeping pills, but the antidepressants were gone. Thank f**k. “By doctor’s orders or your own?” Jenna’s glare was colder than the wind. John leaned forward, kissed Jenna on the cheek, and turned towards the glass doors of the airport. “Be good, Jen. And get back in the car before you freeze to death. Mom would kill you if she saw you out here in that jacket.” “I can park,” Jenna called. “Come in and sit with you?” “No time.” He kicked the silver disc that would operate the automatic door. “Flight’s probably already boarding.” He slipped through the half-open door. “Drive safe.” “And what do I do if Sam calls?” John bit back the reaction to tell Jenna she could invent new ways to penetrate the man with large, unforgiving objects, and pass them on to Sam in graphic detail. Instead: “He won’t.” “But if he does?” “He won’t.” She was still standing beside the open trunk when he turned to walk away. She was worried. They all were: his agent, his parents, and his friends; her husband Mark, and probably both their terriers and their entire tank of fish. Not that he could blame them. It hadn’t been a good year. He’d always been able to use his writing to get him away from his problems, a retreat of sorts, where he could work things out in his head before having to deal with them. So, when the words had abandoned him, be it in retaliation for the pills he’d taken too frequently, or because his brain was too busy focusing on the images of horror that kept playing through it, John had thought he was going to lose his mind. Confusion had become depression. Panic escalated into obsessive-compulsive behaviour. He was no longer ‘that crazy writer.’ He was just f*****g crazy. “But this is writing,” John mumbled, staring at the flight board and trying to make his eyes focus on the words that would tell him where to go. “It’s still writing.” After all, what biography wasn’t spiced a bit here and there? Perspective was everything. And if Mr. Parker Chase—actor-extraordinaire, supposed-charmer, but potentially more-of-an-egotistical-d**k-than-his-agent-would-like-anyone-to-know—was willing to let John be the one to offer that perspective, then it didn’t matter that the story wasn’t fiction. Or romance. Or even working its way towards a happy ending. He could live with the compromise just to be at it again. For the time being, at least. * * * * “Can I give you some assistance?” John startled and turned his eyes away from the tray he’d been fighting and up into the aisle. A pretty attendant smiled patiently, her perfect white teeth all but glowing in the overhead lighting that John had attempted again and again, each time as unsuccessful as the previous one, to get to shine without glare on his laptop screen. “I can’t get the thingy to go back up,” he said, trying for apologetic and ending up far closer to the side of whiny. He cringed back in his chair when the attendant reached forward. “I mean, I can get it up. I just can’t get it to stay there.” A chuckled snort sounded from the row behind him and John frowned. He looked at the attendant, saw her smirk, and heard his own words in his head again. He closed his eyes and ran his palm over his face. “I mean the tray thing. I can’t get the tray to stay up.” “Yes, sir.” She pushed the tray in place and smiled. “That should do it then. If you could just fasten your seatbelt…” John shot her a one-finger gun with a sideways smile. “That one I can do.” He made an elaborate show of clicking the belt closed, grinned at her “Excellent,” and once again slumped back in his seat. Then, as an afterthought, he shoved his fist over the back of his chair and gave the snorter behind him the finger. If he was lucky, the man wouldn’t be a line-backer with a talent for martial arts; if he wasn’t, oh well. His pride deserved the retribution.