Wake up Call

~Leilani~
My heart hurt for Adam. All the girls that have trained him to expect such abysmal treatment honestly needed to be thrown off a cliff or burned at the stake. That thought made me giggle slightly.

“What?” Adam asked, confused.

I shook my head slightly before saying, “The Los Angeles bitch trials,” under my breath.

Now he looked even more confused, “Excuse me, what?”

I giggled again, “I was thinking that all those women should be burned at the stake and that brought the Salem witch trials into my mind, which then turned into-“

“The Los Angeles bitch trials, funny,” He laughed.

“They are just miserable from all the salads they eat. The only way a salad is any good is when it is smothered in French fries.”

I was rewarded by a deep belly laugh from Adam, “I’ve actually never tried that.”

“You are missing out, my friend. So, what do you have planned for today, other than rescuing a girl who is about to beat up her car?”

“Nothing, actually. I have a true day off. No interviews or meetings or rehearsals.”

“Well, I’ll only be at the office for a couple hours. You could come in and hang out and then we could head back to my place. We can work on my car if you like or just chill. I’ll even make you a wonderful dinner and we can watch movies or something. It’s the least I can do to thank you for the ride.”

“That sounds great actually. Can I ask you where you’re from? I can’t seem to place your accent.”

“No one here ever can. You’ve done shows all over the world; take a guess. I’ll even give you the big helpful hint that it is within the continental United States!”

~Adam~
She drew out her ‘o’s and I was going to guess Canada until she said it was in the US. “Hmm, maybe Minnesota?” I guessed.

“Ding ding ding! We have a winner. I was born in Hawaii, grew up in Minnesota, went to college in Washington and then opened my company in California. Nice job superstar, I knew you’d get it!” She chuckled.

“So, be honest with me, did you open a publishing company just so you could publish your own books?”

Her lovely laugh sounded again, “So many questions. Honestly, yeah, pretty much, but we also specialize in books that other publishers tend to overlook because they aren’t necessarily on trend at the moment. We like to find the diamonds in the rough, the books that aren’t about teenage vampires and happy-go-lucky cheerleaders. Plus, if we find authors that we like we usually put them on staff in some capacity.”

“Trying to keep it all in the family?” I mused.

“Well, that, plus not every book becomes a best-seller. We like to keep them on as editors or consultants so that they still have plenty of time to write whilst receiving a steady paycheck. It helps keep amazing writers writing!” She enthused. She got very passionate talking about her work. “Also, we try to publish books from every genre. We keep track of what the last book we published was about so we don’t publish two mysteries or two romance novels in a row. Plus we have a blog on tumblr and a book club and an amazing illustration and cover-art department.”

I was seriously impressed, “Wow, so much going on for such a young company! What is the name of it by the way?”

“Oh God, Paige and I each picked our least favorite nick-name that we’ve ever been called and mashed them together, kind of like they do to get celebrity couple names! Hers was Egghead and mine was Lemon drop, so we called it EggDrop Books,” She cringed and looked out her window.

“Hey, it’s better than Foghorn Press or Harlequin,” I said as we reached the building with a logo that I had actually seen on a few books before. It was an egg splattered on an open book, as if someone had dropped the egg onto the book. “I’ve seen this logo on a few books,” I said in awe, “I’ve read one with it, in fact.”

Her face brightened as I pulled into one of the five parking spots in front of the building that were reserved just for them. “Really? Which one?”

“Um, I don’t remember the title, but it was set in a prison in space that all the worlds with life sent their deadliest prisoners. I bought it in an airport bookstore.”

“Ah, Sepulcher Stockade, that was Austin’s first novel. He runs our tumblr blog and company website. He is quite a gifted writer.”

As soon as we walked through the front door we were greeted by cries of greeting that came from above. I looked up to see about ten women with their heads hanging over the railing of the upper floor. Leilani lead me to a spiral staircase that lead up to what seemed to be their conference room. It was decorated in patterns that in any other space would probably have clashed horribly, but seemed to work here. The floor was a large square with the middle punched out to look down onto the lobby. On one of the walls was a giant screen that was currently showing six guys in what was easily identifiable as a hotel suite’s living room; I had been in enough of them to recognize it straight away. There was a large mirrored table with rolling chairs surrounding it and ten laptops on its surface. The other side of the room was full of couches, pillows, and beanbag chairs. I thought maybe it was used to relax and maybe write in comfort.

Leilani spoke to me softly, “If you’d like to chill on the couches or whatever feel free, otherwise you can explore downstairs. The kitchen is full of snacks and drinks and the game room has video games and Netflix and pretty much anything you could want!” Then she turned to face the large screen, “Boys!” She called, “How is Vegas treating you? And more importantly, will we need to be setting money aside to bail you all out of jail again?”

It seemed like the conversation would be entertaining so I went and sat on one of the couches for the time being.

~Leilani~
I watched out of the corner of my eye as Adam went to sit on one of the purple couches that decorated our writing nook. Then focused back on the screen as Austin answered my question. “No, there shouldn’t be a need for bail this time, but you may need to send us more cash for gambling because if it keeps going as it has been so far Chris is the only one who will have any money left by tonight!”

All the girls erupted in laughter as Paige responded, “That is because he knows how to count cards!”

“Cheater!” Everyone yelled, followed by several loud ‘boo’s.

“I’m playing Craps!” Chris defended, “There aren’t even any cards involved!”

“Sounds like you guys need to start betting with Chris,” I said, “I paid for the hotel and plane tickets! I’m not paying for your strip club visits as well!” I joked.

“She knows us far too well,” Came Declan’s voice through the speakers in the wall.

“Shall we start this meeting so the boys can get back to their vacation?” Paige suggested.

“YES!” Came the resounding voices of our six male coworkers.

Another round of laughter accompanied the sound of the eleven of us ladies taking seats at our conference table.

“Okay, lets get the guys all set so they can get back to sullying our company name. Austin, how is the blog going?” I asked, pulling my computer out of my bag and opening it as I set it on the table.

“Great apart from the fact that we haven’t had words from our fearless leader in nearly two months,” He pointedly told me.

I saw Paige’s glare before responding, “Shit, that’s right. Why haven’t you reminded me?”

“I sent three emails and left four voicemails,” Austin reminded me.

“I know,” I sighed.

“That’s right, keep her honest!” Paige said.

I quickly typed the note into my to-do list so I wouldn’t forget again, “Right, it is officially on my list so I will get that to you tomorrow at the latest. Chris and Declan, any ideas for the cover of Onyx’s new book yet?”

“Yeah!” Onyx interrupted, “You’ve been putting me off for three weeks now!”

Declan answered, “In fact, we came up with the perfect idea last night! Chris sketched it this morning and put it into our cloud.”

I pulled it up and glanced at Onyx, “What do you think?”

“I hate that you get all your best ideas when you’re drunk! Totally unfair,” Onyx grumbled.

“In other words, you approve?” Chris asked.

“Obviously,” Onyx pouted.

“Lux, how is the writer’s block treating you?” I asked.

“It broke! I’ve written about three chapters since we arrived!” Lux said.

Cheers and congratulations erupted from around the table.

“Okay, last, but certainly not least, Bennett and Josh, how is the fan mail sorting coming along?”

Josh gave a big smile while Bennett answered, “Forwarded the last of it on to the proper authors this morning.”

“Wonderful! Thanks guys! Have a great rest of your trip and make sure you all come back safe and sound!” I said.

“Bye!” They all said in unison before waving and signing off.