"I wish we didn't have to leave." Rissa looks longingly out the window as I pull out of the lodge's parking lot.

"Me too." I have a similar feeling of melancholy, with an added dash of anxiety making me as tense as I can get.

It turns out the teacher did figure it out and then found my Instagram.

She replied to two of the mystery date posts late last night. One was an innocent-so cute! The other, not so much. It was from the carriage date collage. She wrote a damn paragraph about meeting me and a "special someone" at a ski lodge. Then she had to go and say how adoringly I was looking at that someone. That was not all, though; she was smart enough to write out that she assumed all these pics must be from dates with them, with some curious emoji faces. She wondered if maybe I'm doing some feature on places to date in Minnesota, which is a decent red herring, actually. 

Needless to say, Emma's text was anything but friendly about it. I have a meeting tomorrow morning that I am not looking forward to. 

I've been able to hide it from Rissa, not wanting to spoil our last day here. But it was easier to do so when we were whipping down the hills one last time.

Silence fills the enclosed space as I drive back down the steep road. Rissa doesn't complain about the lack of speed this time, maybe because there's snow on the road.

She seems lost in her head, though. I noticed it last night, too.

"Are you thinking about the new job?" I ask as we reach the bottom of the hill, and I can pick up speed a bit. "Or the old one?"

"I actually didn't think about either until now." She pulls her phone out of her purse, and the screen lights up. "I wonder if everyone is talking about what happened. A few people love ranting about work. Lemme check Shawna's... nothing!"

I glance over and see her closing Facebook, and ...shit, I cringe as she logs into her Instagram. 

"Conner, there are replies to the dating posts!" She sees it before I can warn her.  

"I already know."

"What? Why didn't you tell me? What should we do? There are so many likes! Do you think Emma knows already?"

I sigh and hand her my phone. "She knows."

"Damn. She's big mad," Rissa says as she looks at the text. "What do we do!? Does this mean they'll say I broke the legal contract? Am I going to get sued?"

"No! Of course not. I already called Emma and explained nothing is going on between us."

The words feel so wrong ... and I only hope she doesn't hear them in my tone. I glance over to see a flicker of something in her eyes, but it's gone too quickly for me to register what it means.

The moment outside the lodge before the teacher came out replays in my head again for the hundredth time. There was something there, not just for me—something beyond the growing bond of our friendship. It's good the teacher came out when she did. I know better than to lean into these feelings. Rissa doesn't need that right now, and I need to get a better grip on my feelings around her. 

Not just for her but for me. Rissa was right. I never moved on from what happened with Serena, and it's time I did.

"But all these likes... what did Emma say?"

"Nothing. We're going to have a meeting tomorrow." 

"For a non-dater. I guess you pulled off a fake date pretty well," Rissa says as looks over the comment again. 

"Uh yeah... " The word 'adoring' haunts me, and I hope Rissa thinks I was just playing it off like we were a couple.

"There's been five more likes since I looked at this. What do we do, Conner?"

"I'll handle it, don't worry, okay?" I say softly.

"How?"

"I don't know yet..." I mumble.

"That doesn't make me feel any better!"

"I know, but just trust me on this. You have enough on your mind with the job."

"But.. what if— they're all mad and stuff?"

I let out a soft chuckle. "The publishing team getting mad at the writer is a normal part of the process."

"It is?" She looks confused, and it makes me laugh again. I can't help but reach over to ruffle her hair.

"I'll be fine, Riss."

But they will be pissed after this meeting and not just about the social media stuff...

 "You once told me the best books are the ones that swerve from what was planned." My mom reminding me that on the same week I watched Rissa fall in love with my first book, shifted something. 

 I know exactly what I want to do with this book now. 

***

Despite my bravado with Rissa, I feel pretty nervous as I sit in front of my laptop, waiting for the meeting to start.

But when Johnathan's face appears on the screen, and I see him smiling and I arch an eyebrow.

The rest of the squares pop up, and we all exchange polite hellos.

"Well, let's get started," Johnathan says.

"Have you checked your Instagram today?" Emma asks.

"Not yet..."

Last night, the comment exploded with several thousand likes, and now all the dating posts have comments under them asking who the mystery girl is. There are so many questions, like, who am I with, how serious is it, am I writing about her? Did I meet her by following my advice in Dating with a Purpose, and so on.  

 Tons of them are begging for the lodge pictures. They have also started following Rissa's anonymous handle in droves, asking her for them too. They'll all be very let down. We didn't take many photos because it wasn't a solo date. We stayed in the moment and kept our phones in the room most of the time. 

"The comment went viral," Emma says with an excited grin. "This is huge. Everyone is interested in you now!"

"You're not mad?" I ask as I blink at the screen.

"Mad? I said viral Conner!"

"But they think he's dating the subject," Brenda points out.

"I know, and I was pissed about that at first, but I can't be mad about this kind of attention! I didn't even think about how much people like gossip."

"We need to keep the momentum going," Johnathan agrees.

"How?" Brenda asks.

"Don't respond. Keep it a rumor. Do not even give them any pictures of the lodge, as that will just confirm it was you she saw. I think it's better to stay coy." Emma directs as she jots down some notes in a little notepad. "We can combine the love of gossip with the love of a mystery. Which means we still do not want you and Rissa spotted together anywhere someone could take a photo."

"Are there places they could be seen where phones or cameras aren't allowed?" Johnathan asks.

"I'll do some digging," Emma says. "We don't need many sightings, but a few more will further fuel the rumors and the hype."

"I don't think we need to be doing that," I say quickly. 

"We'll talk more about it later." Emma cuts off the argument at its pass. 

I'm relieved I'm not getting reamed out, but the point of this is for Rissa to solo date, and I will fight them on trying to set up fake dates or whatever. The vacation was a one-off. We need to get right back to what we were doing. Rissa has come a long way in a short time, but she still has work to do. She's starting a new job with a new schedule. Things like that are major stressors that can make or break a relationship. It'll be a good test for her. 

"I think you should also do some sort of vague post about working on something," Emma adds with a thoughtful look in her eyes. "I'll come up with some ideas for you."

"Speaking of, do you have your next few chapters?" Johnathan asks. 

Here we go...

"About that." They all look at me at once, and I brace myself for their reaction. "I'm going to need the first ten chapters back."

"What!?"

"Why?"

"Conner ... what is going on?" Johnathan asks as he narrows his eyes.

"I have a different vision of how I want this to look, and I need to rework them," I say slowly, watching as all their faces stiffen.

"Ten chapters!? This will put us so far behind the timeline," Johnathan complains.

"It won't," I assure him. "I know exactly what I want to write. It'll go fast."

"Let's hope so," Brenda mutters.

"We need to know more about this direction you're taking... before you go through ten chapters of changes," Johnathan says.

"No."

"What?" Johnathan looks at me in pure shock. Brenda's jaw drops, and Emma's eyes are so wide that she's probably giving herself a headache. I'd laugh at their expressions if it wouldn't piss them off even more.

"I know this puts a lot of pressure on the editors, but... I want this to be just right, and I don't want any pressure to change what I want to do," I explain. "I'm asking you all to trust me here, please." 

"That's a huge ask. You know we're always involved in any book changes," Johnathan says. 

"I know. But—I'll give you this much." I let out a long sigh and I quote Rissa. "We're all broken. That's what life does. It breaks us."

"That's a beautiful line and so true," Emma comments.

"That's the line I'll be playing off of that'll be the theme of the book. Fixing what's broken so you can come into a new situation with a clean slate and an open heart."

"I love that," Brenda says, and Emma also nods along. 

"I want to love it, but redoing ten chapters?" Johnathan groans.

"Trust me. I have a good feeling about this direction," I assure them.

"We're putting a lot on the line here, Conner- can you get us the chapters soon?" He relents.

"Yes, give me a few weeks," I promise.

I don't mention that how I tell the story will not be what they expect. They might even hate it initially, but I think it'll resonate with people much better than my first book.

Rissa has shown me I should trust my instincts again, so that's what I am going to do.