Written by a Woman

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

SIGNE

“I have to tell you both something,” I glanced through the aisles of secondhand clothing we were all rummaging through, after putting back a bright orange jumpsuit that I unfortunately didn’t have the complexion to pull off. We had finally, after months, been able to sync our weekend schedules and go shopping together on Saturday morning.

“Is it bad?” Jamie asked holding a pair of jeans up to herself.

“No,” I winced a little as I considered it some more, “Well, maybe?”

“Tell me everything,” Mary demanded, ignoring her own search and facing me.

“It’s not necessarily bad,” I inhaled a deep breath as I lowered my voice, in case anyone from work happened to be browsing this thrift store too, “It’s just a little…icky?”

“Icky?” Jamie repeated.

I inhaled through my nose, staring at these two ladies whom I have been lucky enough to call friends ever since I started working at Sun Steer. I didn’t want to talk to my mom about this, and Eloise was busy with what I liked to refer to as “grown-up stuff”. Eloise’s pregnancy was really taking a toll on her body, and even though Logan was recently retired and available to take care of her and their daughter, my own drama seemed very trivial in comparison to growing another person.

If I was going to talk to someone about this, Mary and Jamie were my best options.

Even if I was still deeply worried about what their reactions would be.

“I have been keeping a secret from you both,” I decided to start, hesitating for no other reason than because I wanted to, “And I need someone to talk to about it and I’m hoping you two can be those people for me.”

Jamie’s eyes widened while Mary’s narrowed with suspicion, but both women made gestures to encourage me to keep going.

“What is it?” Mary asked, stepping closer to us.

“I may or may not be at risk of getting fired?” by the way both of their expressions morphed into a mixture of horrified, I decided to just keep talking, “That is, if anyone important finds out about what I did.”

“What did you do?” Jamie asked in a low whisper.

“I…” I dropped my face in my hands, unable to look at them as I admitted my crime, “May have stolen Zaid’s identity?”

“What the hell?” Mary asked, “Why? How?”

“I wrote him into my book.”

Silence.

You could hear a pin drop in the silence the three of us sat in after I finally admitted it. I kept my face in my hands for a few extra moments, telling myself that I needed to put on my big girl socks and face my friends, so after a few more painfully quiet seconds, I lifted my gaze to meet theirs.

Their expressions were mostly confused.

“You…what?” Mary was the most confused.

“You wrote a book?” Jamie asked.

“So, here’s the thing,” I folded my fingers together under my chin, “I’m writing a romance novel and it’s a super big deal. I am in the middle of the first round of edits. I have a literary agent who is helping me with my end goal of signing a three-book deal with a publisher of my dreams, and I might be able to make writing my full-time job. The problem, however, is that when I first started writing this book, I used Zaid as inspiration for the romantic interest.”

Mary was nodding along a bit as I explained, and to my complete and utter relief, she seemed to take in all the details of my secret hobby just fine. She wasn’t offended that she didn’t know about it already, she just accepted the new information.

“So, not actually stealing his identity. You just wrote a character based on him?” Mary asked, earning a nod from me in answer, “I don’t see a problem. I’m pretty sure authors write other people they know into their stories all the time.”

“Yeah,” Jamie added, “I assume his character has a different name?”

“Right now it’s Zayne Abdul.”

“Wow,” Mary deadpanned, “You’re so creative.”

“That’s not even the bad part.” I winced.

“What’s the bad part?” Jamie asked.

“My followers, which isn’t a small amount,” at that, Mary pulled her phone out and started thumbing away, probably looking for my author accounts I previously blocked her from, “Um, may have figured out that Zayne is based on a real person.”

“How?” Mary asked without lifting her gaze from her phone.

“Zaid walked through my live-stream one time and my followers put two and two together.”

The two women stared at me, Jamie added a little thoughtful nod while Mary glanced back down at her phone and started scrolling, before her eyes widened in shock, “Oh, damn. You’re not kidding.” Based on how she lifted the phone closer to her face and her fingers dragged on the screen to expand an image, I guessed what she was looking at.

“Is that a drawing of him?” Jamie gasped in a whisper. She reached forward and pulled Mary’s phone out of her hands so that she could take a better look. As if she had done so before and it was a familiar gesture. To my surprise, Mary didn’t fight to keep her phone or look surprised by Jamie’s reach. She let Jamie grab it right out of her hands.

Odd.

Jamie was usually so passive.

“Yeah,” I scrunched my shoulders and leaned against a rack of clothing, tugging the collar of my t-shirt up over my nose in embarrassment, “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“I mean,” Mary’s lips quirked to the side as she and Jamie huddled over her phone to scroll through my feed, “It’s not…great. Do your followers know his real name or where he works?” I shook my head in the negative as I groaned into my shirt, the heat of embarrassment flooding my cheeks and neck.

“What do I do?”

“You can change your character’s name, for one,” Mary gave me a contemplative look, “But you said you already wrote the book?”

“Yeah, but my followers have been in love with this character from day one. It’s why I even have an agent and potential publisher in the first place. My followers fell in love with Zayne and blew this story up.”

“Well…shoot,” Jamie handed the phone back to Mary, “I’m guessing Zaid doesn’t know you did this?”

“No,” I shook my head as I released my face from the collar of my t-shirt, “I was hoping that I could just get away with it. I’m already so far deep into this that it would be suspicious for me to change details like the male lead’s name and how he looks, and I have a hard time believing that the CTO is someone who explores romance readers’ spaces on the internet,” I bit into my bottom lip as I made myself share this next portion of the situation, “The problem is that he and I are friends now.”

“And you weren’t before you did this?” Mary asked with the rise of a dark eyebrow.

“No, I mean, well,” I released a heavy sigh, “We were cordial. I said hi in passing and stuff, but he never went out of his way to befriend me. The past few weeks though, we’ve become friends. We tease each other. He let me wear his clothes. He got me a desk plant to apologize for the lack of accessible feminine hygiene products. I befriended his sister and am probably going to babysit his nephew soon. He’s read smut on my phone, and—”

“Hold up,” Mary held her hands up to stop my rambling the same time Jamie released a short, loud cackle that she quickly smothered with her hand, “He read what on your phone?”

“Oh my god, it was horrifying,” I placed another sweatshirt into the shopping cart we were sharing before we all started walking towards the dressing rooms, “I was going over edits the morning of the Halloween party. Well, I forgot I had that up on my phone, and so later when Zaid asked to use my phone to troubleshoot something for Nikhil, he saw the smutty scene that I had left open.” I still felt my stomach tumble into knots at the memory.

“How smutty was it?” Mary asked, surprising me with her question.

“Um…pretty smutty.”

“On a scale of one to five,” Mary pressed.

“I don’t know,” I threw my hands up in the air, “The guy was going down on the woman and calling her a good girl. Rate that how you wish.”

Jamie cackled behind her hand over her mouth, her shoulders shaking as her face turned the brightest red I had ever seen. Mary just smirked at me and wiggled her eyebrows, “Damn, Signe. What else goes on in that pretty little head of yours?”

“It’s a filthy, filthy place,” I admitted, “And Zaid read a glimpse of it.”

“Did he realize the scene was inspired by him?” Jamie asked with her own eyebrow wiggle. What the hell, that was a Mary move. What was going on?

“No,” I rubbed my forehead because a headache was starting to slowly make itself known, “He actually ended up apologizing for even reading it.”

“What? Really?” Mary asked.

“Yeah,” I grinned a little at the memory, “He knew I was embarrassed about it as I tried to get my phone back, but he held it up out of reach and used his arm to keep me away so he could continue to read it and mortify me. I don’t think he realized it was my book, just a book that I was reading earlier.”

Another few seconds of quiet passed between us while my friends absorbed this new piece of information about the clusterfuck that was my life. Jamie ended up being the first one to clear her throat and break the silence while we waited our turn for the one single dressing room stall in the store.

“…It sounds like he was trying to take some mental notes about women’s pleasure.”

“That’s exactly what I was about to say.” Mary agreed with an aggressive head nod.

“Are you serious?” a horrified and amused giggle erupted out of my throat with the words.

“Anyways, you two must be close if he’s able to tease you about the smut he thinks you’re reading,” Mary gave me a look that almost felt accusatory, “I mean…you got lucky. Imagine if Jacqueline saw smut on your phone in the office.”

I felt all the blood drain from my face at the thought, “Oh god.”

“Yeah,” Mary nodded along, “But he was cool with it. Cool enough to keep reading just to tease you, which, if we think about it, is an insane thing to tease an employee about.”

I sat with her words for a moment, realizing she was right.

“But he’s the sweetest guy,” I added, “He must be too laid back to get worked up about things like that. I mean, I yelled at him over tampons, and he took it like a champ. I don’t imagine Zaid being the kind of guy to get upset very easily. I don’t think he gets upset at all, actually.”

Mary and Jamie both exchanged a look before staring back at me.

“As a software engineer, who works with a team of very annoying software engineers, I can tell you that Zaid does, in fact, get upset about things.”

I tilted my head at Mary in surprise, “He does? I’ve never seen him truly upset.”

“You’ve never seen him upset with you ,” Jamie defended Mary, “I’ve seen him get annoyed with the sales and product teams quite a few times. He never yells or raises his voice or anything inappropriate, but his words are stern and leave no room for misinterpretation.”

I just sat there, tapping my foot as I thought about it, “I…haven’t seen that side of him…actually, that’s a lie. He was short with me once before.”

When I first started at the company, but it was obvious to me then that he was just a guy who had a lot on his plate and didn’t have time to shoot the shit.

I empathized, Zaid’s job didn’t exactly sound easy breezy.

“Probably because he doesn’t get upset with you—oh my god,” Mary gasped and turned to look at Jamie so quickly that her dark hair whipped me in the face. She even startled Jamie who looked back at Mary with alarm at the sudden shift of demeanor, “What if Zaid is into Signe?”

“Oh my god, I can see it,” Jamie nodded enthusiastically a second after she processed Mary’s hypothesis, excitement pulling a wide smile on her cheeks, “Can you imagine?”

“I can totally see it,” Mary whipped her head back around to me, “What if—”

“Stop,” I reached forward and slapped my hands over Mary’s mouth, muffling whatever else she was about to say, “I can’t…I just can’t…”

I shook my head and released Mary’s face to drop my hands in front of me, letting my gaze fall there too as Mary asked, “What do you mean?”

“I—” My heart raced in my chest with the words, “Obviously I have a very…confusing crush on the man. I can’t get my hopes up that it might be reciprocated on his end. That makes what I did with my book that much more inappropriate.”

There was only a beat of silence between us before Jamie asked, “What if he reciprocates, and won’t be offended at the thought of starring in your romance novel?”

But it was Mary who responded, an analytical tone to her words, “The thought of Zaid not being even remotely interested in you is highly unlikely, Signe. You’re beautiful and smart and funny. Why wouldn’t he be?” Mary released a heavy breath before resting her weight on one hip and crossing her arms over her chest, “While I agree that writing a man into your romance novel that you have a real crush on is inappropriate on paper, I don’t think Zaid is the kind of person to not hear you out if you talked to him about it. Especially if he knew you did this before you two started being friendly with each other.”

I released a heavy sigh, rubbing my cheek with my palm in thought, “While it’s an exciting thought, it’s a huge gamble. The thought of him reacting poorly and me having to tank the story is too big of a risk. This is my dream …” I glanced at my two friends, who gave me sympathetic looks.

Jamie rubbed her forehead, “This is a messy situation.”

I nodded in agreement, “I’m meeting with my agent and editor later today, to discuss how to fix a plot hole I’m stuck on…maybe I’ll bring up the possibility of just changing the character’s name. Just to sever an additional link to Zayne and Zaid.”

I felt a wobbly smile tug at my lips as I stared at my two friends. Even though I wasn’t quite sure what to do to make any of this better, I did feel a little bit of relief that I had opened up to them about this. That they were trying to help me, instead of judging me.

“Thank you for listening,” I added, “I’m sorry I kept my secret from you.”

Mary and Jamie both exchanged a look so quickly, that I would have missed it if I blinked.

“Of course,” Jamie replied, “Thanks for trusting us.”

“I still don’t exactly know what to do, but I feel a little bit better with the two of you in the loop,” I smiled at both of them, surprised to see Jamie start gnawing on her lip before quickly darting into the changing stall. Someone else had finally vacated it and almost stumbled over from Jamie’s enthusiasm to finally have her turn.

Mary and I giggled at Jamie’s antics, glad that she seemed so excited to try on the jeans that she had picked out.

* * *

Later that night, I inhaled a deep breath of encouragement, stretched my shoulders as if I was getting ready to run a marathon, and shook my hands out before finally accepting the incoming video call.

“There you are!” Michelle greeted me when my image was finally displayed on the screen.

“The one and only,” I grinned with my fingers flat under my chin, “Sorry for the delay, I just needed to finish up some stuff first.” Which really meant I needed to sit on my bed and spiral about every decision I had ever made up to this point in my life.

“Should we get started?” Layla, my editor spoke up. She had jet-black hair that fell in loose waves past her shoulders. You could tell by the way she sat with one leg propped up against her chest on her chair, that she was wearing pajama bottoms with her black tank top. Flowery tattoos teased her collarbones.

“Yes, but before we do, I wanted to run something by you both,” I held a finger up and took a sip of my tea, waiting for their response.

“The floor is yours,” Layla nodded, folding her hands on her knees and resting her chin on top of them, dark eyes locked on her screen.

“What if we changed Zayne’s name to something else?” I tried so, so hard to balance that line between casual and serious. Like I wasn’t desperate for this change to happen, but also, I had thought about it a lot and thought this suggestion was important.

“Oh,” like I had surprised her, “Um. What else did you have in mind?”

I froze.

Frick.

I should have thought about this more instead of actively trying not to think about it in case I talked myself out of bringing this up.

“I don’t know, what if we named him something like…Zander…or maybe even something that isn’t a Z name?” I tilted my head in thought, “What about Sam? Or Connor?”

Michelle’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion, “Connor?”

“Yeah,” I lifted a shoulder, “I’m just not sure if Zayne is a good fit.”

Layla blinked at me, before speaking up, “I’m not sure Connor is a good name for someone with the character’s Arab background.”

I shrugged again, “What if he wasn’t Arab? We could change that too.” Damn, I was sounding over-eager here.

“…But then everything about his family, like when he brings Sydney home to meet his brothers, changes.” Layla shook her head, “I just feel like these details are already too ingrained in the story.”

“Plus,” Michelle chimed in, “Readers are obsessed with Zayne and already have character art circulating of him. Changing both his name and ethnicity would throw everyone off. You might even lose interest in the story.”

I frowned, “You think so?” I had thought about it myself off and on, but hearing my agent confirm why I had pushed through with Zayne made nerves simmer in my gut.

There was no way out of this.

“I know changing the background might seem like a good way to deal with the one plot hole I mentioned in my edits,” Layla shrugged, “But I think we can get creative and find a better way to address it.”

I blinked because I hadn’t considered using that as the reason I wanted to change his name, but I wasn’t going to correct her. I’d made my bed. I needed to lie in it and allow Zayne to be Zayne.

“Speaking of that…” Michelle started talking about the ideas she had regarding the plot hole, and although I was able to keep up with the conversation just fine, and add my two cents, I kept thinking about how there was no way out of this.

Either I continued with the story with the love interest exactly as I had written him, or I had to pull the plug on the entire project and lose the progress I had made.

…But I wasn’t willing to do that yet, so instead, I took extensive notes during the meeting with these ladies on how to troubleshoot the plot.

* * *

I was already settled in at my desk that following Monday morning when Jamie and Mary walked off the elevator together. Mary looked casually confident as she always did, but I could immediately tell by the way Jamie forced herself to stand a little taller, and with a determined downturn to her lips, that something was up.

“Morning,” I greeted my friends.

“Good morning,” Mary replied as she leaned her arms on the ledge of my desk, before checking our surroundings. I immediately leaned toward them too, “How did your meeting go?” Mary whispered, ensuring our conversation wouldn’t echo down the halls.

I slumped a little, “Not…great…” I kept my voice in a whisper too, making both women stand closer together and lean their heads towards me. Jamie almost pressed firmly against Mary’s side, and I was surprised she went to such an extent to make our conversation feel more private.

“Your character’s name is staying the same?” Jamie asked.

“It looks like it…I couldn’t push for the change without revealing what I did. I didn’t want to give my agent and editor the ick and potentially make them drop me and my story.” I mindfully traced a leaf from the snake plant that Zaid gave me in thought.

“That’s a bummer,” Mary added, before turning to Jamie and giving her a look I couldn’t quite decipher, “But I still think telling Zaid would be fine. I thought about it more over the weekend, and not that I claim to understand men, but I feel like he would be the kind of guy who is flattered to star in your story.” I rolled my eyes, loving the idea in theory, but not daring to get my hopes up.

“Plus, Zaid isn’t really friends with anyone else in the office besides Nikhil and Brandon,” Jamie added, “You’re the only other one who he seems to be friendly with…maybe he has a little crush too?”

I tucked my lips into my mouth, “As exciting as that theory is, think about the logistics. Let’s pretend that my crush is possibly reciprocated, is that even allowed? He’s upper management, I’m a glorified receptionist. Doesn’t Sun Steer have a no-fraternization policy or something?”

Jamie kept her eyes on her fidgeting fingers as she recited, as if from memory, “Sun Steer employees are discouraged from starting any romantic relationships in the workplace, however, if any fraternization occurs, it is expected of the employees to disclose the relationship to human resources to ensure the protection of all parties involved.”

I blinked at her, “Wow. Were you looking that up recently or something?”

“Actually, yes,” Jamie nodded.

We all let the silence hang after Jamie’s words, but the energy between the two women was thick. I easily picked up on it and kept staring between the two of them to see what they were being so weird about. Why they were suddenly fidgeting and having a silent conversation with each other.

“I don’t like keeping secrets,” Jamie finally said, meeting my eyes.

“What? You have a secret, too?” I asked, leaning my elbow on the desk after checking over my shoulder to ensure nobody else was entering the hallway.

“Are you sure?” Mary asked.

“Wait,” I lifted both of my palms up, “Does Mary know your secret and I don’t? Jamie, what the hell?” I was mostly joking around, but a small part of me was a little hurt at being left out. I guess I couldn’t be too upset though since I only just opened up to both of them about my book and the chaos around it.

“Mary and I are…” Jamie paused, visible nerves making her swallow something a couple of times before a shy smirk tugged at her lips. At that, Mary turned to me and beamed.

“Jamie and I have been in a situationship for a while now,” I felt my mouth drop open when I saw Jamie reach forward and rest her hand on Mary’s arm as if she had done it a dozen times before, “And we are thinking we want to make things official.”

I was slack jawed.

I released a gasp of laughter right when Jamie’s cheeks started to heat under my reaction to their news.

“You sneaky motherfu—” I cut myself off because I was, in fact, at work, “That’s amazing! Oh my god!” I stood up from my chair and ran around my desk to the two women. They were grinning and prepared themselves for the group hug I initiated, squishing them together while I wrapped my arms around each of them. The bonus of being the tallest one in the group, “I’m so happy for you two. Oh my god, I had no idea.”

“That was by design,” Jamie’s voice was muffled against my shoulder before I finally released them, “I wasn’t quite ready to, well, come out yet…”

I pressed my hands to my cheeks, “I’m so honored, thank you so much for trusting me.”

Jamie grinned while Mary rubbed her back, pride beaming from her, “Jamie was really touched by you trusting us with your secret, so we talked about it, and she thought it was time.”

Jamie nodded, “And now we need to tell…” her voice trailed off when her eyes landed on something over my shoulder. I turned to see Jacqueline walking towards us, wearing a cream-colored pantsuit with her dark hair slicked back in a perfect bun on her head. She was tapping away on her iPad, but when she stepped closer to my desk she finally looked up and saw all of us staring at her.

Jacqueline gave us a small friendly smile, before scooting her glasses up the bridge of her nose some more and asking, “Am I interrupting?”

“No,” All three of us answered, making me giggle.

“Actually,” Jamie forced her shoulders back, the same posture she had when she stepped off the elevator a few minutes ago, “Do you have time to meet with the two of us today?”

Jacqueline immediately tapped on her iPad to pull up her schedule for the day, “I have some time before lunch, about thirty minutes or so. Can I ask what for?” Jacqueline lifted her gaze to my two friends, and I beamed when Jamie nodded to herself and replied.

“Mary and I want to disclose our relationship.”

I immediately started walking back towards my desk, wanting to make the situation feel more casual and less like a formal gathering as Jamie came out to a second person today.

“Ah,” Jacqueline nodded, a smile tugging on her lips, “I can help you with that. I’ll have the document ready for you both before you show up.” I had to hand it to her, she didn’t seem surprised at all that Mary and Jamie were dating. I wondered if there had been some sort of sign or body language that Jacqueline had picked up on that I didn’t.

I thought I was an observant person, but apparently not.

“Just as a reminder,” Jacqueline added their meeting to her schedule and gave the two women a look that reminded me of one my mom would give, “You both are still at work and while it’s none of my business what you both do on your own time, it’s important to keep in mind that passionate displays of affection shouldn’t happen on company property. More importantly, the breakroom,” Jacqueline raised a dark eyebrow right when both Mary and Jamie stiffened in surprise at her words, “You two haven’t been exhibiting that kind of behavior, right?”

I had never seen Mary speechless before, but I loved seeing the woman blush in clear embarrassment for the first time.

“N-no,” Mary shook her head as she stammered her reply. “We wouldn’t think of doing that, right?”

“Not at all,” Jamie added.

Both women used tones that heavily implied that they both, did in fact, do that.

Ah, that’s why Jacqueline wasn’t surprised.

“Glad to hear it. I also want you to know that I am forbidden from disclosing relationships between employees to others. If the only people you want to know are standing at Signe’s desk right now, it’ll stay that way until either of you decide otherwise.” Jacqueline nodded to them, before turning to me, “Can you help me with this?” She airdropped a document to my iPad, and I opened it up for her to walk me through what she needed that morning while Jamie and Mary continued to their own desks, finally starting the workday.

I was so, so proud of Jamie and Mary. Mary for being patient with someone like Jamie, and Jamie for not only being brave enough to come out, but to come out to me and her company within the span of minutes. Huge steps were being made, and I made a mental note to squeeze her again the next time I saw her.