The Neighbor Favor(26)
Also, Edith conveniently liked to ignore the fact that her father, Edward Pearson, had been hired at M&M in the early days and she’d inherited the imprint from him.
Lily’s tight smile was plastered on her face as she glanced around Edith’s office, which was even messier than Lily’s desk. Edith arrived at exactly eight thirty every morning and didn’t leave the office until nine most nights, and Lily had no idea what Edith did during those hours, because most of the day-to-day work fell to her. Edith was surely confused if she thought Lily wanted to achieve what she had.
“I’ll email the agent in the morning,” Lily said, backing away. “Have a good night.”
Edith grunted a goodbye, and Lily reminded herself that she needed to apply for more children’s editorial positions as soon as she had the chance. She’d fallen behind lately because of her current workload, but she couldn’t spend another year working with Edith. She’d quit publishing altogether if that was to be her fate.
When she stepped off the elevator into the lobby at M&M, she was accosted with an image that made her freeze. There, on the screen that rotated upcoming book covers, was the brand-new cover for The Elves of Ceradon by N.R. Strickland. The title was written in silver script, and behind the lettering loomed large, dark blue castles—the mythical land of Ceradon.
It wasn’t like Lily hadn’t seen the cover before. Back in January, the publishing world had been in a frenzy when Mitchell & Milton’s sci-fi and fantasy imprint, Pathfinder, acquired The Elves of Ceradon for a rumored seven figures. It had been a true rags-to-riches story. Six years ago, the epic fantasy novel about a clan of Black elves had been published by a small British press, but an agent at Worldwide Artists Management had managed to resell the publishing rights to M&M, and HBO had quickly snapped it up for a television series adaption. Everyone was even more intrigued that N.R. Strickland preferred obscurity. Allegedly, even his editor didn’t know what he looked like. The mystery only added to the appeal. Elves was crashed onto the publishing schedule with an early-September release date. M&M was making it the book of fall, and she’d heard a rumor that it was being highlighted at M&M’s notorious, and notably exclusive, end-of-summer industry party.
Yet another reason why Lily needed to find a new job.
She averted her eyes from the screen and marched outside toward the subway.
She might never know the truth of whom she had been emailing with for the better part of a year, but whoever it was had been right about an agent trying to resell Elves in a big way. The same website was still up and running, so the person emailing her had to have known N.R. Strickland in some capacity. Maybe she had been emailing with his assistant, or the graphics designer who made the website. Or maybe she’d imagined the entire thing in a yearlong fever dream. Either way, she wanted it all behind her.
But she was still so angry. Angry at Strick—or whoever they were—for lying to her for months. Angry at herself for revealing so much about her life to a complete stranger. For being so lonely and vulnerable that she hadn’t even thought twice about doing so. For being swept away by his imaginary date ideas and charm. God. How pathetic. How embarrassing.
She jostled her way onto the crowded subway car and managed to find a seat. As the Q train took her from Midtown to Union Square, Lily tried not to fall into old thinking patterns. Like how she used to spend so much time last year imagining her fake life with Strick. She’d pictured him to be average height and brown-skinned. Cute and approachable. For some reason, her imaginary version of Strick wore circular tortoiseshell glasses. He didn’t care that Lily was awkward sometimes and he was happy to fill the silence with stories about his travels. He laughed at her jokes when she managed to make them. He was okay with spending a Friday night inside, reading beside her on the couch. And during the nights when he couldn’t sleep, they’d hold hands and walk through the city. He was perfect and wonderful with a smooth British accent.
He also wasn’t real.
As she got off the train and walked through Union Square park past the chess players and skateboarders, she did not think about that hypothetical Christmas date with Strick where they walked through this same park. She did not think about how the Christmas lights would reflect in his glasses as he leaned in to kiss her. Nope, she was not thinking about that at all.
In fact, she wasn’t thinking about it so hard, she didn’t even notice that Fine as Hell Neighbor was walking right toward her until he was literally feet away.
“Hey,” he said, pulling open the door to their apartment building. Today, he wore a black T-shirt and black denim shorts. He looked effortlessly sexy. He stepped back to let Lily go through first and smiled.
She felt it again, that weird sensation of familiarity.
Don’t just stare at him! Say something!
“Um,” Lily mumbled.
No, not that!
“Thank you,” she said.
Better, much better.
“No problem.”
He walked a couple feet behind her through the lobby. She purposely slowed her walk so that they’d fall into step together. She took a deep breath and forced herself to look at him.
“I’m Lily, by the way,” she said.
His eyebrows furrowed for a second, but his expression quickly cleared.
“Nick.” He held out his hand and Lily fumbled with her bag and manuscript before clumsily offering her hand too. “Nice to meet you.”