"You look lost in your thoughts again," I stated, looking across the restaurant table to where Hope was resting her cheek in her hand and staring off into nothing. I had been promising to take her out for dinner at a nice place in town since getting back together, but because of my hectic work schedule, I was only getting around to it now.

"Oh, I'm fine," Hope replied. Straightening in her seat, she dropped her hands on her lap and flashed me a smile. "Just daydreaming about my book."

That was a lie, but I didn’t push it. I had no idea what happened to Hope at South Peak Road that night. I only knew that in the time that had passed since she slipped out of my house in the middle of the night to go see Teagan, she was…different. Distant. Further away than before.

I wasn’t sure if it had something to do with me, but either way, I didn’t dare broach the topic. I was afraid if I did, I'd hear something I couldn’t handle.

She kept secrets from me now.

That, I was certain of.

I could see it in her eyes.

Somewhere along the way in our eight years of misery and separation, I had lost the right to be in Hope's internal circle. Of course, she'd vehemently deny it if I asked. But it was obviously to me that my spot had been filled by Teagan and Noah.

The waiter arrived to our table with our main courses then and we both tucked in. "So, how's it coming along?" I asked between bites of my salmon. "The book?"

"Okay," she replied as she devoured her steak. "Not as fast as I would have hoped, though."

"Isn't that normal?" I swallowed a piece of fish and took a sip of water. "You can't rush creativity."

"No, I suppose not," she agreed with her mouth full, both hands armed with a fork and a steak knife as she attacked the piece of meat on her plate. "But try telling that to a hoard of eager readers and a demanding editor." She swallowed another bite of her meal before reaching for her glass of wine. "I've been steadily releasing five books a year since I first published. It's now March and I haven't released since August last year. That's an eight-month gap." She looked disappointed in herself and I couldn’t understand why.

Maybe I was clueless about the business of indie authors and self-publishing, but I thought eight months was totally acceptable. "That's nothing," I tried to assure her. "Most authors I read have gaps of one and two years or more between releases."

"Most authors you read are traditionally published and financially cushioned by a publishing company," she shot back, stabbing her meat with her fork once more. "Trust me, I've been in the indie publishing business long enough to know that an eight-month gap between producing a book is not a good thing." She grabbed the stem of her wine glass and gulped down a large mouthful before saying, "Time breeds doubt in readers, and for every month that passes in this industry that you don’t produce a book, you risk losing your ranking."

I didn’t get it. I honestly didn’t. Hope was writing stories, not racing against time to find the cure for cancer. She made it sound so cut throat and dire.

"Why don’t you just try and get yourself a deal with a publishing house and be done with all this added pressure of trying to do everything by yourself?" I heard myself ask. I saw the long days and countless sleepless nights Hope invested into her work. It was a solitary and isolating career.

Personally, I didn’t understand why she felt the need to do it all on her own. She was talented. She didn’t need to be wasting all of her spare time on marketing and formatting and all that crap. She was good enough to get a deal.

"Have your agent send out some feeler chapters and see who bites?" I Immediately wanted to take it back. The look of outrage in Hope's eyes assured me that I had said the wrong thing.

"For your information, my being self-published is a choice." She spat the words like poison. "I've had plenty of offers from multiple publishing houses all over the world." Dropping her fork and knife down on her plate, she picked up her napkin and wiped her mouth before tossing that down, too. "I've turned them all down because I choose this route."

Dammit, I had clearly offended her. I opened my mouth to apologize, but she obviously wasn’t finished ranting.

"I really hate that," she growled. "Someone sees a self-published author and automatically assumes that their one goal in life is to be traditionally published. Like anything else is second best. Ugh." Huffing loudly, she drained the last drop of wine before slapping the glass down on the table none too gentle. "Has it ever occurred to them that maybe said author doesn’t want to take that path in their career? Has it ever crossed their narrow traditionally published minds that the financial opportunities and freedom of choice that come with self-publishing just might be in that author's best interests? No, of course not. Because when they see that an author is self-published they automatically assume it's because they can't get a traditional deal." She blew out a breath before adding, "What fucking bullshit."

I tried and failed to come up with something to say to ease the tension that had settled between us. We ate the rest of our meal in silence, opting out of having dessert before paying the bill and leaving. It wasn’t until we were pulling her truck into the driveway of my house, that Hope finally broke the awkward silence.

"So, I may have overreacted a tad back there," she announced, casting a quick glance in my direction.

A tad? "You're passionate about what you do," I replied, trying to smooth everything out. "I didn’t mean to insult you."

"You didn’t." Killing the engine, she unfastened her seatbelt and turned in her seat to look at me. "Okay, maybe you did, but I know you didn’t mean to." She exhaled a heavy sigh and placed her palms on the steering wheel. "I'm very defensive about what I do, Jordan." Her voice was low as she spoke. "For me, writing has always been my therapy. My safety net. The thing I threw myself into when my life spun out of control. And now I'm struggling… it makes me feel uncertain. And when I feel uncertain, I get anxious. And when I'm anxious, I get blocked. I hate being blocked."

"I bet." Dealing with uncertainty couldn’t be easy for Hope. She was always so sure of herself. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No," she sighed sadly. "I'll have to figure this one out on my own."

I understood that.

I knew all about needing to do things by myself.

So instead of telling her lies and promising I could fix something we both knew I couldn’t, I remained quiet and let her think it through on her terms.