Wish Come True (The Blogger Diaries Trilogy Book 3) (37 page)

The next day, Lola sent me a message telling me that her editor, Becky Johnson, wanted to expand her company, Hot Tree Editing, and wanted to take on another editor, and that she told Becky about my find in her book. Lola told me if I was interested, I should contact Becky about the position. I did right away, and Becky sent me two chapters of a book, telling me to “edit it the way I think it should be”.
 

Opening the document, I went through it, correcting punctuation, adding in missing words, restructuring sentences to make it flow better, and checked and fixed details of continuity. When I sent it back, I was super nervous, since I really wanted to impress this lady, who at the time was an English teacher who ran her editing company on the side in Australia. When she wrote me back, though, my heart nearly leapt out of my chest. “Please, work for me!” the message had said. “You caught over 200 revisions more than the other people I was interviewing. You have the job if you want it!” And so I became a Senior Editor at Hot Tree Editing.
 

I started helping to perfect such authors’ works as Lila Rose, Milly Ly, Aurora Rose Reynolds, and yes, even my first author friend, Belle Aurora, plus many, many more. I was being paid, real money, to do something I loved, a job that wasn’t even a job at all. Sure, it’s a lot of work, and it takes a lot of time and brain power, since I want to do the best job I can for these authors’ babies, but it’s the dream job I never even thought to dream, never thinking something so amazing could happen to me, the girl who didn’t have a clue what to do with her life besides be a wife and mother.
 

Over the years, I told many of my author friends the story of how Jason and I met, fell in love, lost our way for a while, and then finally ended up together in the end, and each one always said, “Man, you should write that as a book!” especially Danielle, who told me I married my real-life book boyfriend. I always laughed it off, thinking I’ll never have the time, especially now, working full-time at Legacy in the evenings, editing during the day, and blogging, not to mention being a mom and wife, even though it’s been my dream since I was twelve years old to write romance novels. But who knows? Maybe one day.
 

Last month, I went to my very first big author signing, Naughty Mafia in Las Vegas. I don’t think anything will ever compare to the excitement I felt meeting so many of my favorite authors at one time. A few months ago, I saw it being advertised on Facebook, and after talking to Marky, he said I could stay with him and Kim at their new house in Vegas if I was able to attend. Jason told me to go for it, which set everything in motion. For my blog, I had an idea to contact all the authors who would be signing and asked them to participate in my Dare to Tell the Truth interview, and I would feature an author each day as a countdown leading up to the signing. A ton of them agreed, and I figured since they did my interview, which tended to stand out among the rest, I might have a better chance of them recognizing my name when I met them in person.
 

I became Facebook friends with quite a few of them, and after I got back the interview from a new-to-me author named Erin Noelle, I hurriedly sent her a request. Her answers were hilarious and shameless, and I felt an overwhelming urge to be her friend. Weird, I know. As soon as she approved my request, I saw that she lived in Texas too, but she didn’t have the city listed, so I messaged her, and the conversation went a little like this:

Kayla Robichaux: Hi, Erin! I’ll be flying to Vegas for the signing from Texas too!
 

Erin Noelle: Really? What city are you in? I’ll be going the Thursday before the signing. My sister is coming with me!

Kayla Robichaux: I live in a suburb of Houston. How fun! I’ll be going first thing Friday morning. I hope I have time to go to one of the shows on the strip. I went to
Mystere
a couple years ago, and it was AMAZING!

Erin Noelle: I live in a suburb of Houston too! I’m in Pearland. My sis and I are going to Zumanity while we’re there. You should come with us!

Kayla Robichaux: Holy hell! I’m in Pearland too! And that sounds like a blast. Count me in!

Erin Noelle: No fucking way! Little did I know when I was doing your interview that you were right down the street!

And little did we know how literal that statement was. We live exactly one street away from each other. Our kids even go to the same school. We quickly made plans to meet at the nail salon between our neighborhoods Wednesday before the signing, unable to wait until we got to Vegas.

As I stepped out of my van, she got out of her little blue Mini Cooper at the same time, and it was like a scene from a movie, when twins who were separated at birth see each other for the first time. Our heads comically tilted to the side as we looked at each other, and I mumbled, “Do you see what I see?”

“I’m kinda freaking out right now,” she replied, and from that moment forward, we referred to each other as ‘Twinnie’. After getting our nails done, we hugged each other goodbye and made plans to meet up at the hotel as soon as I landed. She also gave me homework, demanding that I read a book called
A Table for Three
by Lainey Reese on the flight. I swear to God, from now on, when Erin gives me book recommendations, they will go to the top of my To Be Read list, because that book was hotter than Hades.
 

As payment for editing Danielle’s second book, she offered to make me a tank top with my blog name on it to wear at the signing, and when it arrived in the mail, I knew it was perfect—hot pink, with Kayla the Bibliophile in bold black script across the front.
 

Even more exciting, Danielle decided to go to the signing too! We were so anxious to finally meet each other, the embodiment of her bestie characters Brooklyn and Savannah, that she took a cab from the Hard Rock Casino Hotel—where the signing was being held, and where she was sharing a room with other attendees—and met me in baggage claim right when I got off the plane. I quickly dubbed her ‘My Little Nugget’, the tiny woman only coming up to my collarbone. But what she lacked in height, she made up for it with spunk, and Lord, do I love her! My first mission after meeting Erin for breakfast was to find Jodi, who had flown in all the way from ‘London-ish’. I had to hug her; everyone else, I could (impatiently) wait until the signing.
 

After messaging Jodi on Facebook, she replied, telling me she was at the pool, so Danielle and I went and put on bathing suits—don’t even get me started on how I had to borrow a bikini from a girl three sizes smaller than me, and had to walk sideways with my ass against the wall because there was more crack than a whore house—and went in search of the British beauty. Danielle finally spotted her after we made no less than ten laps around the giant outdoor pool party, and I tackle-hugged Jodi before getting a poolside picture with her. My face hurt from smiling so hard during my fangirl moment.
 

I could write an entire novel on every second of my trip to Vegas, but I’ll spare you all the details. But here are some notable highlights:

*Meeting Aleatha Romig at the registration desk before anyone else noticed she had arrived.
 

*CJ Roberts freaking out when I got up to her table and she read my shirt with my name on it. She let me grab her humongous boobs in thanks for my review and for the picture as her character Olivia.
 

*Jodi Ellen Malpas—in a pretty white lace dress—crawling under her table to get to me in order to take a picture of the two of us in our matching Converse.
 

*Seeing other authors freak out when they met some of their own favorites, including Danielle, when she got to hug SC Stephens and Gail McHugh.
 

*Hearing the loudest, most contagious laugh from across the entire ballroom, following the boisterous sound until I ended up at a table, where an adorable blonde author was cheering on a race… a vibrating dildo race. Asking one of the people in the extremely long line who she was, I received a wide-eyed guffaw before the reader told me, “Tara Sivec! If you’ve never read her, you have to, like, now! You will never laugh so hard in your life as you will reading her Chocolate Lovers series!”
 

I had been excited to meet the authors I already knew. For some reason, it never even occurred to me I might find someone new to read. I ended up standing in the long line to meet Tara, not knowing if I would ever get another opportunity to, and told her I was looking forward to reading her work. She talked to me like we were long lost friends, treating me no different than she would her number one fan, and it made me want to read her stuff as soon as I could get my hands on it.
 

When I did get to read it a few days later, I found that the reader I had talked to in line was not exaggerating. It is literally the funniest series I have ever read in my entire life.
 

During my night out with Erin and her sister, I told her mine and Jason's story after she asked about my family, and just like the others I’d told, she said I should definitely consider writing it down, if not to publish, then at least for my kids to read one day. She went on to tell me she’d do it as a trilogy if it were her, because it sounded like it would need that many novels to tell the whole story; otherwise, it’d end up being a 300,000 word book.
 

Before we said our goodbyes, I told her how much I loved her book recommendation of
A Table for Three
and asked what I should read next. She was very adamant that I read Tymber Dalton’s
The Reluctant Dom
, which I downloaded on my Kindle app before my flight home to Texas. I’d never been turned on, happy, and sad, all at the same time before, but the author managed to evoke all those feelings inside me with her beautifully written masterpiece.
 

After spending so much time with my author friends that weekend, I have to admit my fingers have been itching to try my hand at writing. And like Erin said, I wouldn’t have to publish it. I could do it just for fun. She told me that’s what her Book Boyfriend series had started out as, just a fun story she wrote for the book club she was in, and they talked her into self-publishing it. Next thing she knew, she was a
USA Today
best seller. I’d never expect anything like that to happen to me, but nevertheless, the thought of someone asking for my autograph the way I did at that author signing is pretty thrilling. Like I said before, who knows? Maybe one day.

June 14, 2014

I feel sneaky, like I’m doing something I’m not supposed to and going to get caught and then in trouble for it. I finished my edit for Aurora Rose Reynolds, and I don’t have another one for a couple days, so I don’t know what to do with my life. Josalyn is at school, and Avary is at mother’s day out for the next four hours. Idle hands, and all that jazz.

I ask for a booth near an outlet when I walk into the Denny’s next to Baybrook Mall, and when I sit down, I order the dish Gavin got me hooked on all those years ago—the club sandwich with fries and a bowl of ranch.
 

I lift the screen of my laptop and open a new blank document, closing my eyes for a moment to think back to my first days in Texas in 2005. I place my hands to the keyboard, take a deep breath, and my fingers begin to type of their own accord…

Prologue
Kayla’s Chick Rant & Book Blog

Blog Post 1/23/2007
I'm a happy person, damn it! I'm happy sober; I'm a happy drunk, and I smile until my cheeks hurt. I'm so freakin' perky all the time. I always get invited to everyone's parties; I never get scrolled over when people are looking through their phones to see what's going on. Everyone loves for me to be around because I bring no drama. I'm shameless, and will make a fool of myself to make everyone laugh. I don't say these things to be conceited; I say it to show you how unlike me it is when I tell you...
I cried myself to sleep again last night. I cradled my swollen belly in my hands and rocked myself back and forth praying in a whisper, "Please, God, make him love me. I know you put us here to be together. Just make him realize it. Please!" The last word came out on a sob. I swear I'm not a horrible person, as I laid there crying over another man while I'm six months pregnant with my husband's baby.
I will never say what happened was a mistake. I believe everything happens for a reason. I also believe in soul mates. But what if one person finds their soulmate and the other one just refuses to acknowledge it? Can you be happy with anyone else? Or if once your soul finds its other half, are you doomed to long for them?