Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 107949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
“I meant gimme the beer,” he said.
“Oh, right.”
I dropped his hand and passed him the beer, sitting next to him in silence for a few minutes as he flicked through the channels. Finding nothing that suited him, he jammed the power button on the remote and tossed it onto the coffee table with disgust.
“Hey, can I see that cover design?” I asked. Will had been working overtime on the design for some book that his bosses were sure would be huge.
At the console next to the drafting table, Will nudged his mouse to bring the computer to life. He had some kind of black rubber pad where a keyboard would be and a set of black plastic tools lined up next to it. When the screen came to life, his desktop was a blank white background with only one small, unlabeled gray folder in the bottom right corner.
“What happened to your desktop image?”
“Nothing. I just don’t like clutter.”
“But you’re all… artsy. I would’ve thought you’d want….” I trailed off, realizing how dumb I sounded.
“Number one, don’t ever say artsy again unless you want to sound like you’re eighty-five. And it’s visual clutter. I don’t want anything competing for my focus on the screen.”
I looked around at Will’s apartment. I hadn’t paid any attention when I’d been here the other night, too nervous and too distracted by Will to notice much about the place. It was stark. All clean lines and well-balanced shapes. Nothing distinguished itself by design, but nothing was exactly plain either. Like the black leather couch, everything seemed very high quality, but nothing screamed money. The furniture didn’t seem to belong to any period—not that I’d have recognized such a thing if they were, but it didn’t have that aggressively modern, cement-and-steel look, or the bought-the-whole-showroom look, or the I’m-bohemian-and-artsy look. Er, wait, not artsy.
The walls were white, the furniture black or light wood, and the rugs a neutral oatmeal-y color. There were some large framed black-and-white photographs on the wall just inside the door, and I knew I’d seen some kind of art in the bathroom, but there wasn’t anything but blank wall near the work area, and the open floor plan left the kitchen no walls at all. The only real color came from the motley spines on the bookcase behind the couch, and a stack of coffee-table books on art and design on the side table. In fact, with the curtains drawn open, the main attraction was the view of the city through the large windows.
Will’s clothes were the same as his décor, I realized. Everything fit him perfectly—though that might have been mostly how well-proportioned he was—and they were always sharp, but never flashy. He wore mostly black, white, grays, and neutrals. Sometimes a light gray-blue the color of his eyes, but I didn’t think I’d ever seen him in anything else.
“That’s it.” Will’s voice brought me back to the screen between us. “The proofs are at work, but this is the digital version.” He leaned in and made a sound of disgust. “The damn—shoot.” He pointed. “That has a weird green cast on this screen but it’s actually gray.”
“Oh, it looks gray to me. Wow.”
“It’s the first in a trilogy, and when you line the three up, the color will fade down diagonally until it disappears at the bottom right corner of the third book.” Will traced a downward arc, finger hovering an inch from a screen totally devoid of fingermarks or dust particles. “Then, here—” He opened a smaller window with a picture of the spine. “See the way the image wraps around here and goes all ghosty? When the three books stand together on the shelves—the hardcovers, anyway—you’ll be able to see it’s actually part of a larger image.”
“It’s amazing!”
Will smiled. “The author won’t like it. He wanted something flashier. But that’s why we don’t let authors design their own covers, thank god. I think it’ll sell, though. Especially sitting on a shelf next to some of the schlocky garbage that’s just the title and the author’s name in Arial against a generic stock background.”
Then Will was off, talking excitedly about design and marketing, color and balance, pulling up different files on the computer to show me other covers he’d done and images of those he admired. He talked as if I understood what he was saying. As if my knowledge of cover design aesthetic weren’t limited to the distinction between, like, a Danielle Steel cover and a Stephen King cover.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. How his face lit up when he talked about this stuff. How every now and then he’d bump my shoulder with his for emphasis. The way he pushed his hair back absently when he bent closer to the monitor, eyebrows drawing together in concentration as he searched for the next file he wanted to show me. The way his forearm moved when he clicked the mouse, muscle and tendon contracting under pale skin limned with golden hairs.