Read Online One In A Billion by Anne-Marie Hart - Free Book Online

living room. 'Just don't sweat it. Billionaires must have busy lives, you know, shooting rare animals and burning ll that money.'
     
    Mum phoned to tell me the good news about dad. His book launch had been scheduled and she wanted to make sure I could get the time off work. I didn't tell her about my mysterious billionaire, because I knew she'd never believe me anyway. I swear half of the shit I tell them they think I'm making up, because I spent a large portion of my childhood talking about imaginary people as though they were friends from school.
    The rest of the afternoon dragged. If it was hard to bear before I'd made the call, this was even worse. Not only had I shown him my cards, I had to wait now for him to show me his. How embarrassing. I pictured him listening to my message with a group of his friends and laughing at how desperate I'd sounded.
    To take my mind of it, I went for a run, instructing Sophia to answer my phone for me if Devizes called. Afternoon had turned into evening, and I was beginning to lose all hope he was going to call me at all, even if Sophia remained resolutely positive. I ran up to the heath and fell into a slow pace at the edge near the road. I thought about Marth, and how insistent he had been, and I felt a little bit bad that I hadn't responded to his messages. I saw people walking dogs and a handful of other joggers running through their own issues, and I thought about how my dad had managed to get a book deal so easily with such a major publishing house.
    I wanted to be happy for him, and I was in a way, it was just upsetting that he'd never really shown much interest in my work, and always considered James to be the one most naturally suited to a career as an author, despite that fact that James had quite clearly admitted to writing, not because he wanted to write, but simply because he wanted to make money from it. He saw a hole in the market and he exploited it, and for that dad was much more proud of him that he ever would be of me. It was as if James had worked out the system, and that was more important than being individual, unique or creative, whether that brought success or not. James wrote books that were popular, but they were genre books, and generally pretty dull despite being seemingly well liked.
    I thought about my book, 'Fallen Away', and I thought about Toby. It had been almost eighteen years since I'd seen him last, and I still had the hole in my heart that I knew would never mend. I wondered what the hell he was doing now and whether he was just as lost as I was.
    I could feel myself losing rhythm as I crested the heath and ran along shooters hill road. Toby stayed with me for another few minutes until I drifted off again and focussed on Devizes. If I could actually get my book published, I'd be realising a dream I'd had since childhood. I'd finally be able to show my parents that I wasn't a worthless layabout, that I'd got talent where they were convinced I didn't, and that I'd got something to say, something someone thought was valuable enough to get people to listen to. Not only that, I might be able to finally prove to my parents that I wasn't destined for the singles bucket after all. That there was someone out there who was meant to be mine.
    I fell into a sprint, too pacey to control for too long, frustrated by the thoughts my mind was deciding to throw at me, and then pulled up, completely out of breath. I have a tendency to kick off too quickly sometimes, especially when I've got something on my mind, and if I do so, I find it a lot harder to get into a rhythm and keep up the pace. I walked for a little bit, stretched out against a tree, jogged a little again just to warm down the muscles and then slowly headed for home.
    Tad was at home when I got there, and Sophia and him were both sat on the sofa smoking a joint and watching hip hop music videos of girls in thongs who'd had their bums surgically enhanced. I hadn't believed it was possible until Sophia