I’m about halfway through copy edits for Trial By Fire. Copy edits are the last chance an author has to change a word or rearrange a sentence. This means that I am talking out loud to see how dialogue sounds and calling my husband in from the other room to ask which word sounds better. He gives his opinion, smiles and nods at my choice, and brings me coffee. It’s nice when the person you live with understands your brand of crazy.
Anyway…here’s a scene from Trial By Fire. I can’t wait until April when I can share the book with you. (I replaced the scene I posted since I’d posted it before. I blame editing brain.)
“Dang.” Ivy spun in a circle taking in Bryn’s newly redecorated room. “This is unbelievable.”
Clint stood in the doorway frowning. “I can’t believe they have separate bedrooms.”
“Sorry,” Bryn said. “If you want to bleach your hair and get a tan, I’ll try to sneak you in.”
“No thanks.” Clint’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. Is that a bathroom over there?”
“I’m going to start on my tan tomorrow,” Ivy said. “I can’t believe you have your own bathroom.”
This was awkward. What could she say? Sorry, the Blues have all the money so they built themselves better dorms. “You could lodge a complaint with someone. Maybe they’d build you your own bathroom.”
“Excuse me,” Rhianna said from behind Clint. He stepped aside to let her come in. “Fair warning, Jaxon is coming over.”
Bryn nodded at her friends. “Do you guys want to stay here and study in the living room or head back to your place?”
“Let’s stay here,” Clint said. “If for no other reason than to annoy Jaxon.”
“We’ll study at the table and you guys can have the couch, if that’s all right.” Rhianna said.
“One question,” Ivy said. “Does your swanky cafe downstairs deliver pizza?”
Rhianna shook her head. “No.”
Clint grinned. “Bryn, I will do your homework for a week if you call Jaxon and ask him to pick up a pizza on his way over.”
“He won’t do it if I ask.” Bryn batted her eyes at Rhianna. “Can you ask your foul-tempered boyfriend to pick up pizzas for us?”
Rhianna struck a snotty posture. “Westgates order food. They don’t deliver it.”
Bryn laughed and then headed for the phone in the living room. “I’ll call in a pizza, and we’ll go pick it up.”
“I volunteer.” Clint brushed his fingers through his Mohawk, twisting it and making it stand up taller.
“Going for shock effect?” Rhianna asked.
“Of course.”
“It won’t work.” She spoke in a sad tone. “They’ll act like they can’t see you.”
Clint cracked his knuckles. “You underestimate my ability to piss people off. It’s an art form.”
Knock. Knock.
“That must be Jaxon,” Rhianna rushed to answer the door.
“She’s got it bad, doesn’t she?” Ivy said.
“I so don’t understand it, but yeah, she does.” Bryn picked up the phone and dialed the restaurant downstairs.
Jaxon had barely stepped foot into the room, when he spotted Clint and Ivy. The scowl he directed at Bryn was hard to interpret.
“What? You’re annoyed by me, or you don’t like my friends?”
“Being annoyed by you is a given. While I don’t dislike your friends, I don’t like them being here.”
Clint flopped onto the couch and stretched out, taking up as much room as possible. “I claim this couch as my new home.” He winked at Bryn. “You don’t mind if I sleep here tonight, do you?”
Jaxon glared at Clint and then stalked over to the table on the opposite side of the room and removed a notebook from his book bag.
Bryn remembered something. “Rhianna, isn’t this the night you’re supposed to meet Garret for coffee?”
“Yes, but it’s not until later.”
“I wish you’d reconsider.” Jaxon flipped pages in his notebook. “Gathering together with the other injured students is like painting a target on your back.”
“Then come with me,” Rhianna said.
Jaxon’s hand froze for a second, and then he resumed turning pages. “I would be happy to take you for coffee someplace else.”
“It’s not about the coffee and you know it.” Rhianna smacked her textbook closed.
“I’m not sure if my presence at that meeting would help or hurt you,” Jaxon said. “I don’t think my father would approve.”
“We already know he doesn’t approve of me,” Rhianna stated.
Jaxon shot Bryn a look. “Would you excuse us?”
It took her a minute to realize what he wanted. “You want me to leave so you can talk in private?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. We’ll go wait for our pizzas.”
Bryn, Clint, and Ivy headed out the door.
“That was interesting,” Ivy said.
“Jaxon is trying to do the right thing, but he’s trapped between his father and the way he grew up and what he thinks is the right thing to do. One of these days he’s going to snap, and I don’t want to be there when it happens.”
“You’re defending Jaxon,” Clint said. “That’s new.”
How could she explain? “Even though I want to shoot a giant fireball at him most of the time, he’s doing right by Rhianna. He’s standing up for her, and I respect that.”
By the time they made it back to the room with the pizza, Rhianna and Jaxon were nowhere to be seen. Their books still lay on the table like they might be coming back to study. Bryn settled on the couch and put the pizza boxes on the coffee table. Clint stretched out on the floor, and Ivy sat in one of the wingback chairs.
“I hope they don’t expect any pizza.” Clint grabbed a slice of sausage pizza and shoved half of it into his mouth, grinning as he chewed.
“Impressive.” Bryn took a normal bite.
Ivy laughed. “Don’t encourage him. At my tenth birthday party, he shoved an entire piece of cake in his mouth.”
“I was trying to impress you.” Clint snagged another piece of pizza.
“When we have kids, let me tell the boys how to impress girls.” Ivy said. “Or they’re going to be lonely.”
“What are you talking about? We’re together, aren’t we?”
“In spite of the cake,” Ivy said. “Not because of it.”
Bryn finished off her first piece of pizza and grabbed another. One of the major perks of being a dragon was a fast metabolism. She could eat whatever she wanted and not gain weight.
The sound of running water came from Rhianna’s room. Then the door to her bedroom opened, and Jaxon came out followed by Rhianna.
“I told you I smelled pizza,” Rhianna grabbed a piece of pizza, placed it on a paper plate, and then headed over to the table where her books were laid out.
Jaxon did the same.
Clint raised his eyebrows, glanced toward the blond couple and then to the bedroom they’d exited.
“Not a word.” Ivy said.
“You’re thinking the same thing I am.” Clint said.
“No way,” Bryn whispered. When she’d been paired with Rhianna, she knew Jaxon would visit, but she hadn’t thought through what he and Rhianna might be doing while they were there.
“I could ask.” Clint said.
Ivy smacked him on the shoulder. “Behave.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Clint polished off another piece of pizza, and then smiled at Ivy like he was up to something. “Bryn, are you going to the dining hall for coffee with Garret and the others later?”
“I wasn’t invited.” Bryn said.
“You could go with me,” Rhianna spoke up from across the room.
Wanting to be supportive, she turned and smiled. “Sure, I’ll go with you.”
“No,” Jaxon stated. “You won’t.”
He did not just pull that lord and master crap on me again. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
Jaxon reached up and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We’ve had this conversation before.”
“Which is why you should know better than to speak to me like that.”
“Before you start in on another rant, perhaps you’d like to hear why I don’t want you to go with Rhianna.”
Whatever his reason was, it wouldn’t be good enough. “Fine. Talk.”
“Strategically speaking, if you go with Rhianna, it makes her look weak, like she can’t stand on her own two feet.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Rhianna said.
“That must be some weird Blue Clan logic,” Clint said. “In my Clan, friends go places together to support each other.”
“Yes. And you also do strange things to your hair and mar your skin with tattoos.”
Lightning crackled in Clint’s palm. “I bet I could make your hair stand on end.”