“Kill me, Doug. Just kill me now. Put me out of my misery.”“Christ, Kincaid, what did you say to him?” murmured Doug.“Well,” I told Doug, “I ripped on his fans and on how long it takes for his books to come out.”Doug stared at me, his expectations exceeded.“Then I said—not knowing who he was—that I’d be Seth Mortensen’s love slave in exchange for advanced copies of his books.”

“So are you comin' back with me or what?"Megan lifted her head and sighed. "I have a few conditions.""Shoulda known," Doug said, rolling his eyes."First of all, I did not sign up for a truck stop bathroom," Megan said. "You guys need to start cleaning up after yourselves in there. No more blood, no more hair, no more stains that I don't even want to identify.""All right, all right," Doug said. "That it?""Hardly," Megan said. "I want a hands-off rule on all my stuff. Including my bike.""Okay...""And I want everyone to stop calling me Megan C Cups behind my back."Doug's jaw went slack as he flushed. "How did you know about that?"Megan raised her eyebrows."All right, fine.”

“It’s important to keep up appearances with books,” I explained. “Image goes a long way in this business.”He dared a look over at me, still nervous but steadily recovering his composure. “I go more for content.”"Really?” I repositioned slightly so that we were touching again, the soft flannel of his shirt brushing my bare skin. “Because I could have sworn a moment ago you were pretty caught up in outside appearance.”His eyes shifted down again, but I could see a smile curving his lips. “Well. Some things are so striking, they can’t help but draw attention to themselves.”"And doesn’t that make you curious about what’s inside?”"Mostly it makes me want to get you some advanced copies.”Advanced copies? What did he—?"Seth? Seth, where—ah, there you are.” Paige turned down our aisle, Doug following behind. She brightened when she saw me, and I felt my stomach sink out of me and hit the floor with a thud as I put two and two together. No. No. It couldn’t be—"Ah, Georgina. I see you’ve already met Seth Mortensen.”

“Look, don’t get me wrong. I worship the ground this guy walks on. I’m excited to meet him tonight. I’m dying to meet him tonight. If he wanted to carry me off and make me his love slave, I’d do it, so long as I got advance copies of his books.”

“My brother is a very bad policeman. So . . . you’re coming to school, right?” Doug“Nnnnnnno.” Zoey“Come so you can be around people,” Doug coaxed. “I don’t think you should be alone today.”“I think I definitely should.” Zoey “Come so I won’t worry about you.” Doug ;]”

“Finally Doug broke the stalemate and looked at Megan."Thanks a lot," he said sarcastically. Then he yanked off his plastic gloves, tossed them at her feet, and stormed away.Finn let out a sigh as he gazed after his brother. "You know, my parents really should have stopped with me.”