In Other Words...Murder by Josh Lanyon

Author:Josh Lanyon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LGBT mystery, LGBT romance, bibliophile mysteries
Publisher: Josh Lanyon
Published: 2020-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

“If you want to ditch dinner with my father tonight, it’s not a problem,” I said to J.X. as we stumbled around the kitchen the next morning.

He had not slept well the night before. That was mostly because I had not slept well the night before. True, I did not sleep well a lot of the time, but Violet Sanderson’s phone call had rattled me, as it was no doubt intended to do. No doubt it was intended to rattle both me and J.X., but in the end I had made the decision to keep quiet about it until J.X. returned from his book tour.

As menacing as Sanderson’s message was, she had not said anything we did not already know, and J.X. had enough on his mind. If I’d gone to him about her call, he’d have cancelled that damn book tour for sure, and as much as I privately wanted that very thing, there was no justification for it.

“No, I don’t want to ditch dinner. I’ve been waiting to meet the man for a year!” J.X. held up the coffee pot in inquiry.

“Not a year,” I objected, holding my mug out to be filled. “You can’t count the months before we were officially together.”

“Long enough.” J.X. popped a couple of bagels in the toaster oven, then sat back down at the table. “I’m looking forward to tonight.”

“It’s just we both know you have this very tight deadline—”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You’re a lot more worried about this deadline than I am.”

“I noticed!”

“Life doesn’t stop because I have a deadline.”

I said ruefully, “It did for me when I was writing.”

He shook his head. “That’s not healthy.”

“Maybe not, but it was efficient.”

J.X. made a dismissive sound. “When you get back to writing again, things are going to be different. I’m not going to let you shut me out like you did David.”

It was my turn to express disdain. “When I get back to writing? Ha!”

J.X. got all dark-eyed and earnest, as he always did when I talked about my writing career being over. “You will, Kit. You burned out, that’s all. You needed a break, and that’s what you’re having.”

I said testily, “I wasn’t burned out. I was dropped by my publisher.”

“There are all kinds of burnout,” he answered, which was inarguable.

I stirred my coffee, glanced up, and he was watching me with that sometimes unnerving attentiveness. Attentive and sympathetic. A hard-to-resist combo.

“I think David was the reason I started shutting the rest of the world out,” I admitted finally. “I didn’t want to know what he was up to, and I used work to barricade myself from…”

“Being hurt.”

“Maybe,” I said uncomfortably. It still astonished me, the embarrassing confessions he dragged out of me. All because of his insidious gift of being able to really listen.

“It makes sense. But I’m going to give you plenty of reasons to keep that door—”

The phone rang, mercifully cutting short our conversation.

It was J.X.’s publicist, and he ended up excusing himself and taking the call from his office.

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