“A White Russian sounds great,” Gus answered.

Of course it did.

People liked to imagine their favorite male authors sitting down at a typewriter with a taste of the strongest whiskey and a hunger for knowledge. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rumpled man sitting beside me, the one who’d mocked my career, was wearing dirty day-of-the-week underwear inside out and living on Meijer-brand cheese puffs.

He could show up looking like a college junior’s backup pot dealer (for when the first one was in Myrtle Beach) and still get taken more seriously than I would in my stuffy Michael Kors dress. I could get author photos taken by the senior photo editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and he could use his mom’s digital camera from 2002 to snap a shot of himself scowling on his deck and still garner more respect than me.

He might as well have just sent in a dick pic. They would’ve printed it on the cover flap, right over that two-line bio they’d let him shit out. The shorter, the fancier, Anya would say.

I sensed Gus’s eyes on me. I imagined he sensed my brain tearing him to pieces. I imagined Lauren and Maggie sensed this night had been a terrible mistake.

Pete returned with another blue wineglass full of milky vodka, and Gus thanked her for it. I took a deep breath as Pete slid into a chair.

Could this night get any worse?

The Labrador nearest to me audibly farted.

“Okay, then!” Pete said, clapping her hands together.

What the hell. I slid my purse-wine out and took a gulp. Maggie giggled on the couch, and the Labrador rolled over and stuffed his face in between the cushions.

“Red, White Russians, and Blue Book Club is now in session, and I’m dying to hear what everyone thought of the book.”

Maggie and Lauren exchanged a look as they each took a slurp of their White Russians. Maggie set hers on the table and lightly slapped her thigh. “Heck, I loved it.”

Pete’s laugh was gruff but warm. “You love everything, Mags.”

“Do not. I didn’t like the man spy—not the main one, but the other one. He was snippy.”

Spies? There were spies in The Revelatories? I looked over at Gus, who looked as puzzled as I felt. His mouth was ajar and his White Russian rested against his left thigh.

“I didn’t care for him either,” Lauren agreed, “especially in the beginning, but he came around by the end. When we got the backstory about his mother’s ties to the USSR, I started to understand him.”

“That was a nice touch,” Maggie agreed. “All right, I take it back. By the end, I sort of liked him too. I still didn’t care for the way he treated Agent Michelson though. I won’t make excuses for that.”

“Well, no, of course not,” Pete chimed in.

Maggie waved her hand lightly. “Total misogynist.”

Lauren nodded. “How did you all feel about the twin reveal?”

“Honestly, it bored me a bit, and I’ll tell ya why,” Pete said. And then she did tell us why, but I barely heard it because I was so absorbed in the subtle gymnastics Gus’s expression was performing.

This could not possibly be his book they were talking about. He didn’t look horrified so much as bemused, like he thought someone was playing a prank on him but he wasn’t confident enough to call it out yet. He’d drained his White Russian already and was glancing back at the kitchen like he was hoping another might carry itself out here.

“Did anyone else cry when Mark’s daughter sang ‘Amazing Grace’ at the funeral?” Lauren asked, clutching her heart. “That got to me. It really did. And you know my heart of stone! Doug G. Hanke is just a phenomenal writer.”

I looked around the room, to the credenza, the bookshelves on the far side of the couch, the magazine rack under the coffee table. Names and titles jumped out at me from dozens, if not hundreds, of dark paperbacks.

Operation Skyforce. The Moscow Game. Deep Cover. Red Flag. Oslo After Dark.

Red, White Russians, and Blue Book Club.

I, January Andrews, romance writer, and literary wunderkind Augustus Everett had stumbled into a book club trafficking primarily in spy novels. It took some effort to stifle my laughter, and even then I didn’t do an amazing job.

“January?” Pete said. “Is everything all right?”

“Spectacular,” I said. “Think I’ve just had too much purse-wine. Augustus, you’d better take it from here.” I held the bottle out to him. He lifted one stern, dark eyebrow.

I imagined I wasn’t quite smiling but managed to look victorious nonetheless as I waited for him to accept the two-thirds-drunk chardonnay.

“I’ve thought about it some more,” Maggie said airily. “And I think I did like the identical twin twist.”

Somewhere, a Labrador farted.

7

The Ride

“THANK YOU SOOOO much for having us, Pete,” I said as I pulled her into a hug in the foyer.

She patted my back. “Any time. Any Monday, especially! Heck, every Monday. Red, White Russians, and Blue could use fresh blood. You see how things get stale in there. Maggie likes to humor me, but she’s not much of a fiction person, and I think Lauren comes for the socializing. She’s another faculty wife, like me.”

“Faculty wife?” I said.

Pete nodded. “Maggie works at the university with Lauren’s husband,” she answered quickly, then said, “How are you getting home, dear?”

I wasn’t feeling the wine nearly as much as I would’ve liked to at that point, but I knew I shouldn’t risk driving anyway.

“I’ll take her,” Gus said, stern and unamused.

“I’ll Uber,” I said.

“Uber?” Pete repeated. “Not in North Bear Shores, you won’t. We’ve got about one of those, and I doubt he’s out driving around after ten o’clock!”

I pretended to look at my phone. “Actually, he’s here, so I should go. Thanks again, Pete. Really, it was … extremely interesting.”

She patted my arm and I slipped out into the rain, opening the Uber app as I went. Beneath the rain, I heard Gus and Pete exchanging quiet goodbyes on the porch behind me, and then the door shut and I knew he and I were alone in the garden.

So I walked very fast, through the gate and down the length of the fence, as I stared at the blank map on my Uber app. I closed the app and opened it again.

“Let me guess,” Gus drawled. “It’s exactly as the person who actually lives here says: there aren’t any Ubers.”

“Four minutes away,” I lied. He stared at me. I pulled my hood up and turned away.

“What is it?” he said. “Are you worried it’s a slippery slope from getting into my car to going down the Slip ’N Slide on my roof and competing in my heavily publicized Jell-O wrestling matches?”

I folded my arms. “I don’t know you.”

“Unlike the North Bear Shores Uber driver, with whom you’re quite close.”

I said nothing, and after a moment, Gus climbed into his car, its engine sputtering awake, but he didn’t pull away. I busied myself with my phone. Why wasn’t he leaving? I did my best not to look at his car, though it was looking more appealing every moment I stood there in the cold rain.

I checked the app again. Still nothing.

The passenger window rolled down, and Gus leaned across the seat, ducking his head to see me. “January.” He sighed.