Things got even weirder half an hour later, when Lee’s phone rang, showing an unknown American number. Figuring it was either Drew on a different phone or maybe even Jessica, he answered with a casual, “Hello.”
“Hello, Lee Cresswell?” an unfamiliar male voice greeted him.
“Yes, this is he,” Lee said, leaning back in his chair and glancing at Diana in their chat window.
Diana glanced up in interest as the man on the phone said, “This is Jerry Turnbridge from Turnbridge Literary Agency.”
Lee’s eyes popped wide. “Jerry Turnbridge?” he said aloud for Diana’s sake. Diana’s jaw dropped. “Hello. Wow. What a pleasure to talk to you.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Jerry said. He got right into things with, “I didn’t want to disturb you on the weekend, but I also didn’t want to wait to talk to you either.”
“Oh?”
“Yep. I’m sure you’re aware that there’s been an increase in interest for your books here in the publishing world in the last month or so.”
That was an understatement, and Lee was under no illusion about why. Drew’s fans had caught on to his books and started buying them in droves. He was suddenly all over the online bestseller lists, something which his bank account greatly appreciated. There had been email inquiries from a ton of agents, too, but none as big a deal as Jerry Turnbridge, and none of them had called him.
“I have noticed,” Lee said, trying to play it cool, but completely geeking out on the inside. He cleared his throat and tried to imagine how Drew would have handled the conversation. “What can I do for you, Mr. Turnbridge?”
“Jerry, please,” the man said. “And I’d love to discuss what I could do for you. Are you considering offering any of your published works for acquisition by a major publishing house or are you writing anything that we might be able to shop around?”
Lee was stunned into silence for a moment. Landing an agent like Jerry Turnbridge was a dream come true for any author. It was what Dan had always said he wanted for him. “I haven’t really thought about it,” he said honestly. “I’ve been too busy writing lately and, um—” The last thing he wanted to do was drop Drew’s name by saying he’d been too busy hanging out with his celebrity boyfriend.
Fortunately, Jerry seemed to get the point. “I’ve noticed a lot of pictures of you online in the last few weeks,” he said with a genial laugh.
“They’re sort of unavoidable,” Lee admitted sheepishly.
On his screen, Diana gaped at him like she would have given anything for him to put his call on speaker. He definitely couldn’t do that.
“Listen,” Jerry went on. “I’d love to talk more formally about bringing you on with the Turnbridge Literary Agency team. I think we could come up with some exciting ideas and projects for you that could take your career to the next level.”
It was Lee’s turn to gape the same way Diana was. “You want to sign me to Turnbridge Literary Agency?” he asked aloud for Diana’s benefit.
All the way over on the other side of the ocean, Diana slapped a hand to her mouth, then flapped her hands in excitement.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Jerry went on. “Here are a few ideas I have for you.”
Lee spent the next fifteen minutes listening to one of the biggest agents in the literary world laying out a plan to both republish most of his backlist with incredible distribution deals and to secure him a high-profile publisher for his books goingforward. The picture painted was so amazing and vivid that by the time they ended the call, Lee’s head was spinning.
“So are you going to do it?” Diana asked, then immediately said, “You’d be crazy not to take a deal like that.”
“I don’t know,” Lee said, sitting back in his computer chair, stunned. “I mean, I should, right? But part of me feels like I should talk to Drew about this first, since it’s his clout that is actually getting me the deal.”
“Yeah, yeah, I can see how that might be important,” Diana played along, nodding sagely. She then stared right into her camera and said, “But you’re the one who wrote the damn books. And they’re amazing books! This is the break that all of us dream of.”
It was. He couldn’t argue with that. But something held him back from leaping headfirst into a major contract. He liked what he did in the here and now, liked self-publishing, and now that he had the exposure that most authors only dreamed of, did he really want to turn his agency over to someone else?
The question was still nagging at him an hour later, when he got a call from Drew.
“You’re calling me in person?” he asked, teasing Drew a bit when he knew text conversations were the best way for the two of them to communicate when Drew was on set.
“Yeah, Jessica wants to know if you want to go out to dinner with us tonight,” Drew answered. His voice was tense and borderline fake, which told Lee Jessica was likely nearby. It also told him that whatever the situation was between the two of them at the moment, it wasn’t good and Drew was struggling with it.
“Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there,” Lee said, certain the protectiveness welling up in him was obvious in his voice.
“Is that Lee?” Jessica said in the background. Two seconds later, her voice was loud, like she’d grabbed the phone from Drew. “Hey, Lee. How’s it going?”
Lee was so taken aback by her overly friendly tone that he answered, “Fine, thanks,” as if the two of them had a perfectly normal relationship and he wasn’t thirsty for her boyfriend.